21 June (Part 2) - Avoiding the Bexley Path of Doom
I went into the Civic Offices yesterday evening convinced that the new Chairman of the Children’s and Adults’ Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee
was Councillor Andy Dourmoush (Longlands) so when I saw him in the Chamber I offered him my
best wishes for a successful meeting. He must think I am nuts because in fact
the Chairman is Councillor Cafer Munur (Blackfen & Lamorbey).
Councillor Munur must be one of Teresa O’Neill’s rising young stars but despite that is a
decent enough chap always ready with a friendly word. When Councillor Craske
(Conservative, Blackfen & Lamorbey) was busy
protesting he had no idea who I was and Councillor Val Clark (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) was
pretending I wasn’t there, Cafer stood out as the one blessed with a modicum of
civility and common sense. He is a decent enough Chairman too.
As
you can see the Committee is small and Councillor Munur chose a seating
arrangement that ensures members of the public (only me) can see almost nothing.
That may have been a problem except that nearly all of the meeting was taken up
by a slide show. I wondered how that would come across on the webcast but
despite the Agenda referring to a broadcast it appears there was none. The web
cameras are set up to record Councillors sitting in very different positions.
The meeting didn’t really scrutinise anything, it appeared to be held merely to
bring the new Committee Members up to speed.
There were two slide shows,
the one covering Children’s Services was not especially interesting, it
merely listed what the Council had to do and what it has done. Clearly it has
done a lot since OFSTED condemned Bexley
Council six years ago. It’s been much better since Cabinet Member Philip Read took on the job.
I found the Adults’ Services
slide show much more interesting which may be because I was able to relate
it to my experience of Newham’s Adults’ Services. To say that their moderately senior staff are as thick
as two short planks is probably an insult to floorboards.
It would appear that Bexley’s Adults’ Services are not yet especially
good either and in just a few aspects are judged to be among the worst in London (see
Slide 3 and 4) but the relatively new Director, Stuart Rowbotham, was not short
of ideas to improve things. Some have already had an effect. Slide 5’s 2017
figures are already much improved.
Bexley Council is constantly criticised for its outrageous lying so it was a
refreshing change to see and hear Mr. Rowbotham freely admitting to past failures. “Some
things don’t look good at all.” Fortunately his plans for the future looked to be excellent.
Back in the bad old days
a long gone Cabinet Member bragged that he had
driven down the price paid to companies
providing domiciliary care services. When the care companies could no longer
provide an adequate service he washed his hands of all responsibility saying the
services were contracted out and no longer his concern.
That is not a view shared by Mr. Rowbotham and Cabinet Member Brad Smith, they have increased
payment to care providers by 16% and are rearranging the services in a way that should make them
much more reliable. Without boring you with the detail it is what I have
arranged privately for my 98 year old aunt in Newham. I refuse to have anything
to do with Newham Council’s so called services.
Providing Adult Care is very expensive and the percentage of the population
requiring help is getting ever higher. I probably shouldn’t have been amused to hear Mr. Rowbotham use
the expression ‘Barnet Graph of Doom’ which apparently shows that on present trends
it will not be long before Councils have no money left to spend on anything
except care services. A disaster that has already beset Northamptonshire Council he told us.
Mr. Rowbotham seemed to be the right man to avoid such a disaster in Bexley
although we may not like some of the consequences.
One such consequence may be
the £400 charge being imposed on transport for 17
and 18 year olds requiring transport to special schools.
Councillor Wendy Perfect (Labour, Northumberland Heath) used it as an example of badly timed Scrutiny meetings.
She said that the meetings schedule in recent months had disallowed scrutiny of that Cabinet decision.
Chairman Cafer Munur said that if that was the case he was determined it should not happen on his watch.