Agenda for Audit Committee on Friday, 18th January, 2019, 1.30 pm

Agenda and minutes

Venue: LB 31 - Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. View directions

Contact: Zena West  Email: zena.west@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

40.

Apologies

Minutes:

Councillor Anne Peach – Unwell

Councillor Nick Raine – Work Commitments

41.

Declarations of Interests

Minutes:

None.

42.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 273 KB

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 30 November 2018

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 30 November 2018 were confirmed as a true record and were signed by the Chair.

43.

No Deal Brexit Planning pdf icon PDF 417 KB

Report of the Corporate Director for Strategy and Resources, and the Director for Strategy and Policy

Minutes:

Colin Monckton, Director of Strategy and Policy, introduced the report updating the Committee on the planning being done by the Council for the event of a No Deal Brexit. He informed the Committee that following a request at the full Council Meeting in November 2018, service and project plans were reviewed and the authority’s emergency planning with regard to Brexit was reviewed in order to provide assurances of progress to this Committee.

 

James Rhodes, Head of Analysis and Insight, briefly described the methodology behind the assessment process with individual departments completing risk assessments using a standard risk assessment matrix. These risks are being monitored through the governance structure as set out in figure 1 of the published report.

 

Those risks scoring 12 or more have been brought to this Committee to consider further. James Blount went on to assure the Committee that there was no legislative “cliff edge”, under the withdrawal act laws will be brought across to UK law and many of the risks to the Authority identified by the process will not be unique to Nottingham City Council. In effect, it will be business as usual until advised otherwise.

 

The following current risks identified were discussed by the Committee and mitigating actions highlighted:

 

(a)  Recruitment and retention issues within Adult Social Care (ASC)

·  There are existing pressures on recruitment and retention within ASC, and while ASC is not reliant on EU nationals, competing industries, such as hospitality and retail are. If there were more vacancies within these competing industries recruitment to ASC vacancies would suffer;

·  The impact would be gradual, there would be no sudden decrease in numbers of carers;

·  There are a series of campaigns running and planned to encourage and facilitate recruitment especially in the homecare sector. These have been positive and well received;

·  NCC has been supporting external providers with recruitment, and despite an increase in demand over the winter period to date there has been an increase in capacity of homecare;

·  The risk to the Council is likely and has been assessed as significant, however, there are existing mitigations in place that will minimise the impact.

 

(b)  Medicine Management in Adult and Children’s Social Care

·  National mitigations are being put in place nationally by the NHS;

·  There is good partnership working in place and any concerns around availability of medications will be communicated to NCC;

·  This is a significant issue however it is being managed at a National level.

 

(c)  Increase in demand and complexity of cases (Adult Social Care)

·  As the NHS has a reliance on EU workers any impact on their capacity would impact on NCC. A reduction in support from the Health Service would lead to more complex cases being managed in the community;

·  There are a number of mitigations currently in place. Nottingham City Council has strong working relationships and an active multidisciplinary team who work together to ensure that shared care plans are in place;

·  The decision to suspend NCC’s role in the Integrated Care System does not impact  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.