LGA Governance


Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Smith Square 1&2, Ground Floor, 18 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HZ. View directions

Contact: Alexander Saul  0207 664 3232 / Email: alexander.saul@local.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Welcome, apologies and declarations of interest

Minutes:

There were no apologies and no declarations of interest.

2.

Update from the Office for Veteran's Affairs on the Armed Forces Covenant DOTX 125 KB

Damian Paterson, Deputy Director of the OVA, will be dial in to update on the progress of the Strategy for our Veterans and to discuss how the OVA can work with local government to build upon and further strengthen the coordination of support for veterans.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed Damian Paterson, Deputy Director of the OVA, to the meeting and invited him to give his presentation.

 

Damian thanked the Board for the opportunity to come and speak to them and he began by thanking local councils for everything they did to support the armed forces community and veterans in particular. He said that they were a key partner and the OVA would be looking to work with them closely in the future.

 

Damian explained that the OVA was a new unit in the Cabinet Office set up in October 2019 to improve the coordination of veteran services and advice. He said that moving the oversight of veterans’ affairs from the Ministry of Defence to the Cabinet Office would enable a more co-ordinated approach to the support veterans and their families need, drawingon all parts of Government to assure improved delivery and support.

 

Damian said that the OVA had taken on responsibility for the UK Government’s Strategy for our Veterans and its associated Action Plan, published in January 2020 had been tasked by the Prime Minister to tackle two specific challenges – namely, changing perceptions about veterans in society and tackling negative stereotypes; andensuring that veterans and their families know where to find information to support them should they need it. He added that the overall aim was to not just to ensure that veterans were not disadvantaged in society compared to other citizens but to consciously provide them with positive advantages.

 

Damian went on to talk about the OVA’s work programme as set out in the report but he added that unfortunately, Covid-19 would undoubtedly have an impact on the timescales for its delivery. However, he did say that the OVA were still hoping to be able to launch the veterans’ railcard on Armistice Day in November 2020.

 

Damian finished by asking Board members to consider how local government could best work with the OVA to ensure the best possible outcome for veterans and to address some of the specific questions in his report.

 

Following Damian’s introduction, there followed a discussion during which the following points were raised:

·       It was considered that there were definitely challenges for councils around supporting veterans but good practice was out there and needed to be shared more widely. Having the link with the MoD in Johnny Mercer MP was considered important.

·       There were many CVS groups working with the armed forces and veterans providing valuable support and this would benefit from greater central coordination.

·       OVA had an opportunity to form much clearer partnerships with the voluntary sector, which would improve awareness of the local offer and help to identify gaps in support that could be plugged.

·       It was considered that transition remained a key issue. Whilst the vast majority of veterans did not experience significant problems, a minority would need coordinated support from a variety of partners.  There was an opportunity to get better at predicting which veterans will have the greatest needs. The work of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

3.

COVID-19

Minutes:

The Chairman invited Mark Norris to introduce the update.

 

Mark highlighted 3 key areas that the Government expected councils to work on:

·       Supporting the NHS in preparing for the expected increase in Covid-19 victims needing hospital treatment. This would involve freeing up 30,000 beds in English hospitals to accommodate Covid-19 patients.

·       Supporting the 1.5 million most at risk people identified by Government who needed to self-isolate for 12 weeks. Councils should now have received guidance from MHCLG on this. Delivery of medicines would be taken care of by the NHS and community pharmacies. Out of the 1.5 million, there were likely to be 300,000 who would not be able to rely on friends, family or online deliveries to get food. These people would get parcels delivered to their doors under a national contract with a food wholesaler. 132 hubs had been set up to hold food and deliver to those who would run short of food before doorstep deliveries could be made. Physical space would be needed to store this food. Supermarkets were not in a position to ramp up the number of home deliveries at this stage. In the longer-term DEFRA was exploring greater use of ‘click and collect’, possibly through an App buddying people up with a volunteer to collect on their behalf. Homeless people would also need to be helped with accommodation and support services.

·       Supporting local businesses and the local economy.

Paul Ogden updated on the public health situation:

·       100,000 people now tested, 9,529 tested positive – likely to pass 10,000 today (26/3/20). 459 deaths so far – likely to pass 500 today.

·       London had 4 times more cases than any other region.

·       Likely to be many more cases as people were not being routinely tested in the community.

·       Mortality rate was not accurately known and depended on population characteristics of individual countries but likely to be between 1-2 per cent in UK.

·       81 per cent of those infected so far had mild symptoms. 14 per cent had more serious symptoms and 5 per cent became critically ill.

·       70 per cent of cases were men, and smokers were significantly more vulnerable.

·       Now in ‘suppression’ phase of Government’s 4 phase strategy – lockdown aimed at flattening the curve of cases and taking strain off NHS. The success of this would not be seen for 2-3 weeks.

·       The peak of the epidemic was predicted to be mid-June and the outbreak could last 18 months in total. This may require ‘adaptive suppression’ – i.e. periodically lifting and then re-imposing lockdown restrictions.

Alyson Morley updated on volunteering and stated that there were 2 specific groups of volunteers:

·       The national appeal for ‘help your NHS’ volunteers to register with the NHS Volunteer Responders scheme had now got over 400,000 people signed up. It should have been made clear when launching the appeal that it was for health and social care. LGA was now working with officials to try and establish a system to connect some of these volunteers to the local  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.

Confidential note from the previous meeting

Minutes:

The confidential minutes of the previous meeting held on 29 January were agreed.

 

5.

Update on Housing and Social Care DOTX 145 KB

Minutes:

Lead members agreed to have a separate meeting in a few weeks to discuss items 5 and 6 which they couldn’t do justice to in the time available.

 

Ahead of the follow-on meeting, Alyson reported that the DHSC’s ‘every day is different’ scheme had been relaunched in light of the Covid-19 crisis. In the same vein, Naomi Cooke said that all the unsuccessful applicants for the LGA’s Return to Social Work Programme had been contacted to offer training and recruitment with a view to them being employed in the sector.

 

 

Decision

 

Lead members agreed to have a separate meeting to discuss items 5 and 6.

 

Action

 

Officers to arrange additional meeting date.

 

6.

Workforce Team activity around the social care workforce pdf icon PDF 213 KB

7.

Leading Healthier Places 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 110 KB

Minutes:

Decision

 

Members of the Community Wellbeing Board noted the update.

8.

Any other business pdf icon PDF 122 KB

Minutes:

No other business was raised.