Decisions

See attached ODR for full details

To agree the new funding and structure of the Attendance and Pupil welfare service for the pilot beginning September 22; and

To agree, as part of this, to allocate the equivalent of 1 x FTE Education Welfare Officer Gde 7 to MASH.

See attached ODR for full details

The Department of Work and Pensions has announced the new grant scheme for Reducing Parental Conflict Local Grant for the period 2022 – 25. The grant is to support local authorities to further embed support to address parental conflict in their area, thereby improving outcomes for children. The grant follows on from the Reducing
Parental Conflict Workforce Development Grant of 2021 - 2022 and increases the funding and range of Reducing Parental Conflict activities that can be funded, in order for local authorities to make choices that fit their local requirements. The scheme will
run from April 2022 to March 2025.

The support and maintenance contract is required to continue to support the Northgate RBLive Revenues and Benefits system, which is one of the Council’s key financial systems, which administers the billing and collection of more than £200M each year for
Council Tax and Business Rates, as well the payment of over £100M each year in Housing Benefit and Local Council Tax Support.

As agreed at the Technology Governance Board in October 2021, the decision is taken to re-procure the support and maintenance contract for the RBLive Back Office Revenues and Benefits System with NEC SWS under Crown Commercial Framework Agreement RM3821, for a period of 5 years commencing on the 1st May 2022 to 30th April 2027.

The new ‘Working Together to Improve Attendance’ national guidance comes into
practice in September 2022 and becomes statutory in Septebmer 2023. This
guidance sets out how schools and L.A.s should work together to address
attendance. The guidance significantly extends the council role in improving
attendance:
1. Provide a ‘school attendance support team’ to support four core functions
free of charge to all schools. Each school should have an identified LA
officer.
2. Work together to support pupil becoming persistent absentees (10% or
less) and those who are severely absent (50% or less)
3. Schools data should be shared with the DfE and LA in an effective and
timely manner.
4. LA’s rigorously track local attendance data and devise a strategic approach
for improvement
5. Ensure collaborative working to support who are, or at risk of, becoming
persistent and severely absentees. Where absence intensifies schools
should work in tandem with LA’s
6. Consider obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child
7. Responsibility to provide additional support for pupils with long term illness
or unmet health needs
8. Work with parents and pupils to remove any barriers preventing access to a
suitable full-time education
contracts.
See attached Officer Decision Record for further details.

To agree the new funding and structure of the Attendance and Pupil welfare service for the pilot beginning September 2022.

To agree, as part of this, to allocate the equivalent of 1 x FTE Education Welfare Officer Grade 7 to Multi-Agency (MASH).

The reason for the decision is multi-faceted but centred on 2 core components; the first centres on a partnership decision at the Practice & Performance Sub Group to bid for the funding and the second relates to commitments made through the grant allocation process that the Department for Work and Pensions will seek reassurance and evidence of implementation and efficacy.

With regard to improving the early intervention and prevention system, research has established that frequent, intense and poorly resolved conflict between parents is harmful to children, putting their mental health and long-term life outcomes at risk. The quality of the inter-parental relationship, specifically how parents communicate and relate to each other, is increasingly recognised as a primary influence on effective parenting practices and children’s future life chances, including attainment and employment.

Given the high impact of this approach on families, the Practice & Performance Sub Group, with its multiagency membership, agreed that it is a prudent decision to provide capacity and expertise within the Reducing Parental Conflict offer in Doncaster.

As mentioned before, the majority of the funding that is expanding capacity and expertise in the reducing parental conflict offer is provided through the Reducing Parental Conflict Local Grant.

Through accepting this grant, the Council and its partners have an obligation to deliver the commitments within the grant application, evidence the spend against those commitments, and demonstrate impact. Therefore, the decision to support the activity set out above must be taken.

The Department of Work and Pensions has announced the new grant scheme for Reducing Parental Conflict Local Grant for the period 2022 – 25. The grant is to support local authorities to further embed support to address parental conflict in their area, thereby improving outcomes for children. The grant follows on from the Reducing Parental Conflict Workforce Development Grant of 2021 - 2022 and increases the funding and range of Reducing Parental Conflict activities that can be funded, in order for local authorities to make choices that fit their local requirements. The scheme will run from April 2022 to March 2025.

The partnership completed and submitted a bid for grant funding through the Practice & Performance Sub Group of the Early Intervention Steering Group.

Doncaster has been awarded £76,060.56 (the “Grant”).

The Grant is broken down in the following way:

Total Year 1 £41,155.00
Total Year 2 £34,905.56*

*Year 2 amounts are indicative and will be confirmed before the Year 2 funding period.

There is potential funding for Year 3 under this Grant. This is yet to be confirmed, however, if it is, the grant funding would be used to carry on funding the additional staff to continue adding capacity to our deliver services.

The grant application was broken down into co-ordinator, delivery, admin, and training. As such, the funding will be utilised to enable the following;

Co-ordinator: £50,000 (£25,000 Year 1, £25,000 Year 2) will be used for the recruitment of a full time Early Help Development Manager at Grade 10; additional money will be sourced from the Supporting Families Fund. This post will lead on the operational delivery of Reducing Parental Conflict, supporting the Reducing Parental Conflict Lead. Therefore, adding 50% FTE capacity to the Reducing Parental Conflict agenda.

Delivery: £23,405.56 (£13,500 Year 1, £9,905.56 Year 2) will be used for the recruitment of a part time (21 hour) Parenting Worker at grade 7 which will support the delivery of the level 4 intervention, with a focus of advertising and recruiting parents from education and children’s social care. This post will also lead on the Relationship Champions across the partnership, again adding capacity to ensure the actions identified on the planning tool are driven forward.
Admin: £1,875 (all Year 1) has been allocated to update the regional website with our Regional colleagues to enhance the level 1 offer to parents/carers with the aim of continuing to raise the awareness and impact of Reducing Parenting Conflict alongside some self-help strategies.

Training: £780 (all Year 1) has been allocated for Commissioning Mediation Awareness sessions. These will be run for Children’s Social Care and Early Help Practitioners to raise the awareness the benefits of accessing mediation earlier and the potential funding streams to support families to access this.

Government announced in December 2021 funding for Adult Social Care market sustainability and fair cost of care. This included an additional £1.0m for 2022/23, potentially rising to £3.7m from 2023/24, to support the local authorities’ move towards paying providers a fair rate of care.

As a condition of receiving this grant funding, in the 2 following years (2023/24-2024/25), local authorities will need to submit to the Department of Health and Social Care (“DHSC”) a cost of care exercise, a provisional market sustainability plan and a spend report detailing how the 2022/23 funding has been allocated in line with government expectations, in order to achieve a more sustainable local market, by September 2022.

Government guidance on this funding is contained within the following link. The specific funding conditions are included below, setting out how the funding is to be spent and reported on:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/market-sustainability-and-fair-cost-of-care-fund2022-to-2023/market-sustainability-and-fair-cost-of-care-fund-purpose-and-conditions-2022-to2023

See Officer Decision Record for further information regarding the funding conditions and the proposals.

To seek external independent capacity to support with the completion of the Fair Cost of Care exercise and provisional market sustainability plan in line with the government deadline and planned implementation from 2023/24, through appropriate provider fee rates.

To provide an extension of COVID designated setting beds for a period of 8 weeks. These beds provide two weeks of bed based care for people who are Covid positive with care and support needs leaving hospital who are not able to return home. At the current time usage of the Covid positive beds is low, however, it is recognised that should the beds remain unused for Covid positive discharges, they could be repurposed and piloted as Transfer of Care beds. This would allow individuals who no longer require an acute bed but who are unable to return home immediately, a short term stay within a residential setting whilst their at home arrangements can be made.
It is intended to fund this cost from the proposed earmarked reserve of £1m for AHWB to meet cost pressures in adult social care.
However this earmarked reserve for 2022/2023 will only be approved as part of the Council’s final accounts process for 2021/2022.
Therefore, if not approved the £56k cost of this decision will be managed as part of the overall care ladder spend in 2022/2023.

To extend the provision of 10 block purchased beds in Church View for a period of 8 weeks.

In 2019 we were successful as an Authority in our bid to the Controlling Migration Fund in relation to ‘Pathways to Employment’.

The focus of our original bid was in relation to ‘creating better, more productive citizens with wider life choices’ and this was to be achieved through a range of work streams including specific focus on supporting existing and new community ESOL provision objectives and specific Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) grant delivery aims as set out below -

• Ensure that the most vulnerable and isolated within our communities can interact with the wider community, be less isolated, more independent and more employ-able through:
• Delivering services in small groups in community settings;
• Provide community groups already providing ESOL provision with equipment to allow them to continue to provide services.

Within 2019, and as part of the funding requirements and outputs as shown in the above table, ESOL provision was successfully delivered by Changing Lives and the Doncaster Conversation Club and equipment provided in the form of laptops to enable lessons to be delivered online via the Authority’s Adults and Families Community Learning (AFCL).

In March 2020, due to the impact of Covid19, the ability to complete the full delivery of the ‘Pathway to Employment’ bid was hindered as it was focused around enhancing Voluntary and Community sector ESOL delivery. However, since the easements of restrictions we have been able to continue the project to this end. Doncaster Minster for many years has been a leader in the provision of ESOL
within its own setting, however with the impact of Covid19 and the age of the building utilised for delivery, this vital support to residents, the ability for this to step back up is limited and would not be sustainable.

Therefore, we are proposing to support Doncaster Minster with the provision of the remaining Controlling Migration Fund budget circa £34,500.00.

See attached Officer Decision Record for further information.

To approve the use of £34,500.00 from the Controlling Migration Fund (ESOL provision) to provide a grant to Doncaster Minster to create additional, and update existing, community spaces to deliver ESOL classes to individuals whereby English is not their first language.

It is widely known that there has been a significant increase in the cost of fuel over recent months and despite the recent government intervention to cut fuel duty, costs of fuel remain significantly higher than in previous years. As the domiciliary care sector rely on staff using vehicles to travel between individuals own homes, the impact on this sector is significantly more than in other Adult Social Care services.
Providers have been contacted individually to ascertain the impact on their services and have provided the following information:
1. Care Workers are saying that traveling is not worth it for them given the current fuel costs.
2. Care Workers are reluctant to travel out of their normal area due to costs.
3. Reluctance to travel is causing issues when covering holidays/sickness and offering on new packages 4. Staff have voiced that they will be better off leaving for other jobs that do not involve travel.
5. Recruitment has slowed again.
Some providers have also indicated that they have already increased mileage payments to their care workers to try and prevent any further impact.
Within the current hourly rate for domiciliary care there are two elements in relation to travel:
Travel time – 62p per hour
Travel costs – 45p per hour
The total travel payment is £1.07 per hour. Providing an additional 20% on these elements would mean an additional 21p per hour. It is recommended that this increase is provided on a temporary basis for three months with a review at the end to consider if any further actions are required.
The investment required to provide this additional amount for three months is expected to be in the region of £37,000. It is recommended that this amount is funded through the budget allocated to support market sustainability.
The 3 month one-off payment is to be based on Feb 2022 hours delivered at 21 pence per hour, for each provider who signs up to confirm that they will pass this additional amount to care workers, with the intention that these funds can be provided shortly after provider acceptance.
Providing as a one-off payment should allow providers to pass on the funds to care workers as early as possible, administratively it is simpler for all parties and we can provide the full 21 pence (contracted provider rates otherwise can only be increased in multiples of 4 pence). The increased one off payments will not be subject to client contributions.

To agree to provide short term financial support to the commissioned domiciliary care market to assist with the impact of the current increases in fuel costs.
The support to be provided will be an additional 20% increase to the fuel element of travel within the current commissioned hourly rate for a period of three months covering April to June 2022 (at a cost of 21p per hour). This additional financial support will be provided on the basis that the commissioned providers confirm that they will pass this additional amount to care workers who are experiencing the impact of the fuel cost increases.
The payment will be provided up front, as opposed to temporarily amending provider rates, to enable providers to pass on the funds to care workers.

To encourage and increase participation of recreational activities on the open space and ensure that when doing so the public are safeguarded from illegal off road motorcycles.

This installation will reduce isolation for these residents and encourage activities and socialising in the community.

The total cost of the facility and installation is £10,264.20 and is to be funded by £5,132.10 of Section 106 monies and £5,132.10 from Doncaster Council Highways.

The Section 106 agreement for Doncaster Road, Denaby Main (05/03291/OUT) site states the monies are to be used for “providing/enhancing other areas of public open space within the
Council's area." The Section 106 monies are not time limited.

A gate access point will be installed to the area to allow for Street Scene to complete their maintenance programme.

The proposed development will be undertaken by Doncaster Council Highways.

To utilise Section 106 monies from Doncaster Road, Denaby Main site (05/03291/OUT) for the purpose of funding £5,132.10 for the installing a fence around the public open space on Thirlwall Avenue, Conisbrough. This land is owned by Doncaster Council and is a public open green space.

The full cost of the monies will be put towards the installation cost.
The scheme will also be funded by Doncaster Council Highways and they are contributing a further £5,132.10 to meet the full installation costs of £10,264.20, via revenue funding.

Ensuring people who are already in receipt of care and support receive timely support to review those arrangements is essential to supporting people to live in a place they call home and lead their best lives.
Across all Adult Social Care Social Work teams there are a significant number of overdue annual social care reviews.
See attached Officer Decision Record regarding for further details.

A one off financial investment of £447,160 to deliver a targeted initiative in Adult Social Care to reduce the number of people waiting for an adult social care review. This one off transformational funding will be used in a number of ways throughout 2022/2023 to ensure timely access to strength based reviews with people receiving social care support.
Phase one of the project will involve accessing £125,000 of the investment to commission a consultancy project team, which will consist of Social Work Capacity in the form of x4 FTE Social Workers and a Project Manager. This dedicated Social Work capacity will focus on undertaking strength based reviews with individuals who have been waiting for a social care review, to review current support arrangements in place to support people to build better lives and live in a place they call home. Reviews undertaken by the project team will focus on those individuals currently living in residential care or high cost supported living placements. This arrangement will be reviewed after 12 weeks and extended for a further 12 weeks (if successful), utilising in total £250,000 of the financial investment.
Phase two of the project will access the remaining £197,160 of the investment to secure temporary social work capacity in the form of X5 FTE Social Workers (temporary contracts for 6 months), X1 Advanced Practitioner (temporary contract) and a part time temporary contracts officer for a period of six months. This additional resource will prioritise strength-based reviews with individuals currently supported in specialist (high cost) placements. These individuals will be receiving support from one of the specialist social work teams (including Neurological Rehabilitation and Outreach Team (NRO), Mental Health or Community Adult Learning Disability Team (CALDT)).
Reviews will run in parallel with the introduction and use of CareCubed. CareCubed is an online tool. Its purpose is to provide a consistent method of determining care needs and align those needs to an appropriate cost for care based on local market data so that the local authority and care provider can negotiate a fair price for specialist services.
The ultimate aim of the investment is to ensure people receive timely access to support to review current support arrangements in place.
The investment will address the significant concern of the number of people waiting for a social care review, with the target being to clear the current waiting list. The investment (extra capacity and prioritisation of reviews) will lead to financial savings, predicted to be £500,000 in 2022/2023.

The delivery of Free Early Education and Childcare Places for eligible 2, 3 and 4 year olds is the Government’s commitment to support 2, 3 and 4 year olds to achieve their full potential and to help working parents, guardian’s or carers: manage their childcare costs; support
them into work; to work successfully; or to work more hours should they wish to do so. It will support families to make positive choices for their employability and economic situation and children can play, learn and be cared for in a safe and high quality provision.

The Free Entitlements Places for children within the Council’s area are:

- For eligible 2 year olds: 570 hours a year over no fewer than 38 weeks of the year (15 hours per week, term time) and up to 52 weeks of the year.
- For all 3 & 4 year olds: 570 hours a year over no fewer than 38 weeks of the year (15 hours per week, term time) and up to 52 weeks of the year referred to as the “Universal Entitlement”
- For eligible 3 & 4 year olds: an additional 570 hours a year over no fewer than 38 weeks of the year (15 hours per week, term time) and up to 52 weeks of the year, referred to as the “Extended Entitlement” which together with the Universal Entitlement and funding for eligible 2 year olds are referred to within the Agreement as “Free Entitlement Place(s)”.

The Council works across the Borough with schools and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) childcare providers to make available Free Entitlement Places which are to be free at
the point of access to Parents.

The Council is required to have a funding agreement in place with Providers who deliver Free Entitlement Places, this includes:-

- Early years providers and childminders registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register;
- Childminders registered with a childminder agency that is itself registered with Ofsted;
- Schools (including Academies) taking children age two and over and which are exempt from registration with Ofsted as an early years provider.

The Agreement applies to the Free Entitlement Places that the Provider has been approved to deliver, relating to 2, 3 and 4 years old places or 3 and 4 year old places as appropriate.

Part A:
Extend the contracts from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 Extending the current contractual arrangements from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 enables the Council to comply with the provisions noted above.

Part B:
Updating the existing funding rates Updating the existing funding rates brings the Agreements into line with National Rates and
increases the financial viability of the settings supporting the sufficiency of places for 2, 3 and 4 year olds.

Part A: To extend the Free Entitlement Funding Agreements from 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023.

Part B: To update the existing funding rates in the Funding Agreements.

See attached Officer Decision Record for further details.

Reason for decision:
We have a bronze medal "for bravery" presented to Thomas Booker for on April 22 1898 following the Whitwick Colliery Disaster in 1898. Whitwick is in Leicestershire, so the medal should not even have been accessioned when it was donated to us in 1975, when Cusworth Hall was The Museum of South Yorkshire Life. It is outside of our collecting area and we would have no reason ever to display it.

Roy Hardwick, who is a descendant of the medal recipient, has asked that the medal be returned to his family and this was approved at Heritage Doncaster’s acquisition and disposal panel meeting on 24th March 2022.

That approval is given by the Governing Body of Heritage Doncaster for the decision to dispose of a medal.

- The continuation of an essential service within the prison service.
- Gives assurance of further employment to Council staff to 2025, without disruption in service to HMPPS and the prisoner communities who use these libraries.
- Continuation of positive and valued working relationship with our local custodial institutions.
- Neutral cost to Doncaster Council. Staff and book purchases paid by HMPPS

To approve the extension of an existing contract to provide library services on behalf of HMP Lindholme, HMP Hatfield and HMP Moorland. Effective prison library services are proven through an evidence base to contribute to improving literacy and skills for prisoners, and contributing to reducing re-offending.

Extension date from expiry date of the 1 July 2022 to the 31 March 2025.

Costs to date for 2021-22 are totalling £170k across prison library sites (HMP Moorland, HMP Lindholme, The Lakes, and Hatfield YOI open). Costs include the staff for the libraries and purchases of new books.

There is a nationally recognised issue facing all LAs that have seen an increasing number of appeals against decisions that can be appealed to SENDIST, Doncaster is also seeing this was significant increase in tribunals. In Doncaster the numbers have risen significantly. In July 2017 there were 3 live tribunal cases and in July 2021 there were 8. The total number of tribunals in 2020 were 13 and currently as over April 2022 there are 10 active tribunal cases. It should be noted that this does not include cases resolved at the formal mediation stage. There are a range of reasons for appeals to SENDIST, including:

- The Local Authority secured an EHC assessment but refused to make an EHC plan
- The Local Authority has issued an EHC plan following an EHC Needs Assessment
- I disagree with what the EHC plan says about the child or young person’s special
educational needs (Section B)
- I disagree with what the EHC plan says about the educational help/provision the child or
Young Person requires (Section F)
- I disagree with the school/college/institution named in the EHC plan (Section I)

Alongside the increase in tribunals there has been a year on year increase since 2016 in requests for statutory assessments, and currently Doncaster maintains over 2300 Education Health and Care Plans with over 200 in the 20 week process. Due to these ongoing demands there is a need to increase the capacity in the SEND Service. Without the additional posts there is a significant risk to the LA both reputationally and financially.

Utilising the service transformation funding to provide additional capacity will support the team to embed high quality case work whilst responding to high levels of requests. Moving towards embedding the additional workloads into business as usual.
Attendance post:

The AWPS has seen a significant increase in demand since the start of the pandemic, with a 250% increase in EHE notifications and a 40% increase in CME referrals. The team has been disproportionately affected by Covid and other serious illnesses and require extra capacity in order to address the increase in need over the next six months.

To utilise funding identified through the Service Transformation Fund of £109k to provide additional temporary capacity into the SEND Team, in the form of:

- 1 year fixed term FTE Senior SEN Officer (grade 10) this would use the existing Job Description but the post would focus on 1st Tier Tribunal (SENDIST) work. That work in itself involves all aspects of the Senior role.

- 1 year fixed term 1 FTE SEND Co-ordinator (grade 8) In addition to utilise the Service Transformation Fund to provide additional temporary capacity into the Attendance and Pupil Welfare Service, in the form of:

- 1 x 0.5 Grade 8 Education Welfare officer for 6 months £19,84

To enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to transfer funds to the NHS Trust overseeing children’s speech therapy services to recruit 1 (full time equivalent) non-case holding Band 7 Speech and Language Therapist for 1 year, to lead on the continued delivery of the ‘Doncaster Talking Together Pathway’. The post holder will be matrix managed within the Early Years Inclusion Team.

A maximum cost of £59,000 including on costs.

The creation of 3 (full time equivalent) temporary Grade 6 Advanced Early Years Development Workers for 1 year to support the delivery of the strands across the pathway including ‘Hungry Little Minds’, ‘Growing Talk’, ‘Home Talk’ and any further identified activity needed to support the speech, language and communication element of the COVID recovery programme.

£26,154 per role for 1 year, including on costs, at a total cost of £78,462

Total estimated costs: £137,462

These costs will be met from within the Early Years Inclusion team budget for one year as a result of funding that has been previously secured. However, consideration needs to be made towards developing a dual commissioning arrangement for more long-term sustainability of the pathway.

There is significant pressure on the Early Years sector across Doncaster following the COVID19 pandemic, to support the delay in young children’s speech, language and communication.

This concern is mirrored at a national level in numerous reports including the Ofsted report: ‘Education recovery in early years providers: Spring 2022’ where it states;

‘The pandemic has continued to affect children’s communication and language development, and many providers noticed delays in their speech and language progress. Providers are making more referrals for external help than before the pandemic and are waiting longer for this specialist help.’

Ofsted Spring 22
Research, conducted by Darts and facilitated by the Early Years Inclusion Team in 2022, has identified a strong need for this support to be intensified. 47% of providers stated that children’s vocabulary was below the expected level of development, 48% said that children’s listening skills are not where they should be and 45% felt children’s confidence in speaking was below the expected level for their age.

Since September 2021, 90% of referrals into the panel for support through the Education Inclusion Allowance state Speech and Language as the child’s primary need and the data from the General Development Assessment (GDA) pathway also reflects this trend with an increase from 167 referrals in 2019 (Jan-Sept) to 242 (Jan-Sept) 2021.

In 2018 research showed that too many children in South Yorkshire did not achieve the early learning goals with 4,650 children in the region not achieving the expected level of development in communication, language, and literacy. The South Yorkshire Futures Regional Early Years Group led by Doncaster and Sheffield Hallam University, came together to begin to address this problem by collaborating on a project proposal to improve the local systems involved in delivering speech, language and communication assessments and interventions and to build the capacity and capability of the children’s workforce. This project proposal was successful, and in April 2019, Doncaster was awarded £250,000 by the Department of Education from the Early Years Outcomes Fund.

This project is now known as ‘Doncaster Talking Together’.

Since starting the project in April 2019, the Early Years Inclusion team have developed a regional skills strategy, provided local training opportunities for our children’s workforce, and reviewed local services to ensure that assessments and interventions with young children are robust at identifying and tackling speech, language and communication needs. In line with the Public Health guidance ‘Best Start for speech, language and communication: Guidance to support commissioners and service leads’ (October 2020). The team have ensured the support provided for children’s speech, language and communication needs is organised using a tiered framework based on a continuum of need. Provision is now available at all levels of need:

universal, targeted and specialist. We have developed A new referral pathway has been developed and a website of information for both professionals and parents has been created. www.SY-Talkingtogether.co.uk

The children’s workforce in Doncaster has benefited from the unique opportunity to support speech, language and communication development. Consultation carried out by the South Yorkshire Regional Early Years Group identified a 20% skills gap across the board and highlighted a lack of confidence in our children’s workforce to do this. As part of the project the funding was utilised to buy in a speech and language therapist for 1 day a week across 18 months.

This role was dedicated to support the programme in order to ensure that all elements of the pathway and workforce development were of a high quality and aligned with the work done by our speech therapy services. This post has been instrumental in the success of the Talking Together initiative to date.

The creation of the new pathway has been very positively received by practitioners and was timely in its introduction following the aftermath of the pandemic and the increasing ‘word gap’ across children in Doncaster. It is crucial that Doncaster Council continues to invest in the Pathway in order to continue the current momentum and ensure continued impact on both children’s speech, language and communication skills and the confidence of our workforce to support in this area.

Sustainability and legacy has been embedded in all key decisions made in the creation of the ‘Talking Together - Speech, Language and Communication Needs Pathway’ with all key stakeholders engaged and invested. Losing the links with the Doncaster Speech and Language Therapy Service as the move into the continuous improvement, monitoring, appraisal and evaluation stage would be hugely detrimental on the success of the pathway and have a significant impact on the school readiness of our children aged 0-5 across the borough.

Funding is available to continue to facilitate the pathway and to support children and families, through the recruitment of a dedicated team to deliver training and key interventions, during the post COVID-19 recovery phase. This is in line with the identified priorities in the Early Help Strategy 2022-2025.

The improvement work for services to vulnerable children following the ILACS inspection of February 2022 is needed at pace. Support is also required for the transition by DCST into Doncaster Council which is driven by an improvement proposition that builds upon a shared
ambition via a set of core values and a learning culture. The plan has clearly defined actions to drive change with tangible milestones over the next 3 years. This post will support the facilitation of this plan and its milestones.

To utilise funding identified through the Service Transformation Fund of £42,885 to provide additional temporary capacity to support the improvement and transformation agenda with funding for:
• 1 year term FTE Improvement Liaison Officer (Grade 9)

To approve £40k from the Service Transformation Fund for the ‘Your Family’ Triage Hubs set-up costs.

The request for £40k set up funding for the locality triage team, Launch events, promotional materials (coms), ITC and a miscellaneous pot to cover forecasted upcoming set-up costs. “Your Family” Local Solutions operating model will be the first steps in service transformation for Doncaster’s early intervention and prevention system for children, young people, and their families. Bringing the model to life will be a dedicated triage team triage based in the “Your Place” hubs who will work alongside local integrated teams and groups to respond to local needs. Needs for people and place will be addressed by working with families and residents early, preventing issues from escalating. Getting upstream of demand, reducing cost for more acute services. Roll out of this model is planned for June 22, there is an implementation group established and a full implementation plan driving this forward.

See attached Officer Decision Record for further details.

While COVID restrictions have ended the pandemic has placed a huge strain on children and young people over the last two years. There is evidence that children’s health and wellbeing have suffered over the pandemic, with more vulnerable children and young people suffering most.

The emergence of the cost-of-living crisis has placed increased financial hardship on families across the country, including in Doncaster. This strengthens the rationale to provide engaging, aspirational activities and opportunities to children and young people over the summer.

We have seen shocking anti-social behaviour in the Frenchgate Centre and there is a risk that could escalate over summer with young people having more time and less to occupy them.

The potential for careers interventions in schools has been limited with the pandemic keeping employers out of schools and children and young people out of workplace visits. These interactions can have a powerful impact on the aspiration of children and young people and we are keen to use the summer to correct this.

We have seen that in previous round of summer activities smaller voluntary providers have sometimes lacked the bid writing expertise to secure funding, this has the effect of limiting take up of available funding and stopping some of the smaller organisations from benefitting.

The Doncaster Opportunity Area (OA) team has identified a pot of approximately £45,000.

As the programme nears the end of its final year it is anticipated that additional underspend will be realised, adding to the pot of funding that can be spent on summer activity.

Proposals to utilise this funding were discussed with key stakeholders across DMBC, including Heads of Service prior to consultation with the OA Partnership Board. The overriding response of the Partnership Board was to pursue funding a summer programme, working collaboratively with local partners to ensure a coordinated plan is in place that complements and adds to other plans in place, including those funded by the HAF and other community groups.

Please see attached Officer Decision Record for further information.

To commission a summer holiday activity programme in Doncaster to the value of up to £100,000, working in tandem with local partners.
This would be aligned with the Council Holiday Activity Funding Provision to avoid overlap or duplication and would cover:

1 employer engagement in aspiration raising activities;
2 an offer for the most vulnerable;
3 interventions to avoid anti-social behaviour; and
4 bid writing support for small organisations.

The implementation and continuing development of the Localities model requires significant input from staff dedicated to this work. A review of staffing and workload demands has been completed and agreed with the Director of Adults Health and Wellbeing to extend two Localities Business Support Officer posts from April 2022 until 31st March 2023.
The work of the Locality Business Support officers will be a continuation of existing duties carried out by the previous post holder and includes supporting the Localities Team in the work at Ward level to coordinate and drive delivery of locality plans, undertake community engagement and analysis of engagement data, increase community capacity and work alongside partners to develop specialist areas of work e.g. frailty, isolation, poverty, vulnerable families, local solutions, assisting Ward Members in their community leadership role and locality governance.
The Locality Business Support Officers are grade 6 posts and the cost of this proposal if implemented is for 11 months until 31st March 2023 is £47,949. This costing may be subject to change as the 22/23 rates have yet to be agreed. The posts will be funded for the 2022/23 financial year from Adult Social Care Transformation Fund held in a specific earmarked reserve.
The proposal is supported by HR as it meets corporate requirements. The posts have already been evaluated under the GLPC system and do not need re-evaluating. The employees on fixed term contracts are being treated the same as employees on permanent contracts and statutory employment rights apply. If the need arises to recruit to any of the posts, the Council’s Safer Recruitment policy will apply.
Consultation has taken place with Senior Managers with a stake in the Localities model. The existing Localities staff have been consulted and agree with proposal to extend the current working arrangements as an interim measure until a longer-term solution is implemented. Cllr Blake has also been consulted.

To recruit two Localities Business Support Officers (grade 6) until 31st March 2023.

As the Council seeks to continue to deliver improved modernised and value for money services for Doncaster residents with less resources, we have again undertaken an effective commissioning approach working in collaboration with colleagues in; Legal, Procurement, ICT, Facilities Management, Enforcement, Public Building Maintenance (PBM) and external partners such as South Yorkshire Police and St Leger Homes of Doncaster, to assess our needs, the resources available to us, the current services being procured, in order to make the best use of these resources to meet the assessed needs and desired outcomes for both Doncaster Council and the residents of Doncaster.
We have previously established a ‘single point of contact’ for such services and brought in-house those services that could be carried out by existing departments, such as building alarm response, key holding and CCTV monitoring, which have delivered corporate savings and efficiencies.
It was then necessary to enhance this further and develop the Frame Work Agreement – Provision of CCTV and Security Equipment Services for those services more cost effective to commission.
Having identified services, we looked at where these were delivered (commissioned) and established how these could be consolidated and where possible streamlined, delivering more for less i.e. various ad-hoc contracts into one overarching Frame Work Agreement.
The previous Frame Work Agreement has proven to be successful, not only for Doncaster Council, but also for other local authorities and public bodies which has provided an income stream into the CCTV department.
The decision taken therefore is to re-commission the Frame Work Agreement – working closely with colleagues within the procurement and other departments to review the previous agreement, enhance positive aspects and work through lessons learnt.
Due to the various aspects of CCTV and Security, the agreement has been split into various lots and additional lots have been included because of lessons learnt and changes within the industry. Doncaster Council operates a British Standard Alarm Receiving Centre, which controls and monitors approximately 1500 CCTV cameras both in the public realm and buildings.
We have worked throughout the previous Frame Work Agreement duration to standardise the make and models of cameras as historically a variety of cameras were installed. We have also been looking at the connectivity to the Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) Suite, as again cameras are connected via many methods including Doncaster Council private fibre network, third party fibre providers, coaxial connections, copper network, wireless networks and broadband and can continue to achieve this by re-tendering for the Frame Work Agreement.
All these cameras connect to the Councils recording system via composite video and copper network cable. The recording systems then sit on the Council’s own network.
The control room is operated 24/7 x 365 days per year and is constantly staffed by fully trained dedicated security personnel.
The system has the ability to view all the CCTV cameras across the town and from remote Council buildings for both live and recorded video images.
We need to continue to work with subject matter experts who are able to demonstrate a proven record of accomplishment in innovative practice in a range of areas including for example, identifying new and improved products and technical solutions, all within a framework of achieving best value to serve the Doncaster CCTV and Security network.
As well as reacting imaginatively to meet the needs of the commissioner/customer on any issues that present themselves, we also require partners to proactively engage with us when they identify areas of improvement or new technological advancements.
The aim of this refreshed framework is to provide the following:
• To provide CCTV and Alarm systems that act as deterrent for potential intruders as well as preventing crime and giving additional health and safety management.
• To enable the identification, apprehension and prosecution of people carrying out crime, disorder and other criminal matters.
• Recognising the need to achieve best value of services provided.
• The aim of these proposals is to provide enhanced efficient services at a reduced cost.
• Develop potential expansion of the CCTV and Alarm systems and services.
• Future proof any systems upgrade to give a greater return on investment (ROI).

To approve the re-tender of the CCTV and Security Frame Work Agreement, as the existing agreement has now ended, however as it was proven successful for both Doncaster Council and
other public bodies we wish to re-tender the contract and extend the contract to nationwide.

We have received notification that Phil Holmes, Director of Adults, Health and Wellbeing supports the investment proposal of £64K to employ an NRT/CCTV Officer for a period of 2 years.

This role will sit within the Neighbourhood Response Team, but will be dedicated to improving intelligence gathering to capture CCTV evidence from identified Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) hotspots, working closely with locality leads and Stronger Communities Managers. The role also links to the new Doncaster CCTV Strategy and builds on the success of our programme of investment and re-structure of CCTV monitoring.
• The expanded network of CCTV has placed increased demands on the CCTV / Reassurance theme manager and field technician.
• This proposal will establish a field based officer, who is able to proactively gather CCTV evidence from identified crime and ASB hotspots.

They will work closely with the CCTV manager and field technician and provide greater resilience when these staff are on leave or engaged on existing CCTV projects.

• The role will also liaise closely with locality leads and Stronger Communities Managers to use intelligence to download evidence from the existing network of cameras for urgent cases, speeding up criminal justice outcomes and ASB interventions.
• At the moment, we have key locations where this role can step in to support local enforcement plans, as we know the CCTV footage will be of greatest benefit to local partners. Being highly mobile, the role can deploy quickly to key locations.
• Full training and equipment will be provided and we seek to fund the post for a period of two years, to provide proof of concept and in the interim explore opportunities for longer term funding.
• This proposal complements other improvements we have put forward, designed to speed up CCTV downloads, improve intelligence and respond to urgent installation requests.
• Based upon the cost of a grade 7 NRT officer, we estimate the total costs of the proposal to be £64k over two years and includes £2k for the purchase of a dedicated and specialist laptop.

To approve the receipt of the investment proposal to assist the implementation of the CCTV Strategy. A Dedicated Role to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Recovery of CCTV Evidence
- Neighbourhood response Team (NRT)/CCTV Officer for a period of 2 years.

On the 11th April a decision was taken by the Mayor for the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. This included support for the introduction and development of the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ Scheme for Doncaster and the associated spend plan, in accordance with the specific terms and conditions of the funding, as outlined in the report. At the time of taking the decision there was a balance to be allocated, decisions on how this funding would be spent were delegated to the Director of Adults, Health and Well-Being and the Assistant Director of Finance (Section 151 officer), in consultation with the Portfolio Lead for Children’s Social Care, Communities and Equalities. This decision record has been produced to approve the balance of funding. For completeness and to aid understanding, the overall spending plan is detailed in the decision.

As detailed in the key decision, the Government has provided Local Authorities with funding streams across a number of resettlement and relocation schemes to support families evacuated as part of ongoing humanitarian crises in areas such as Afghanistan and Syria.

In respect of the spending plan for the Homes for Ukraine Scheme detailed in the urgent decision taken on 11th April 2022, agree the spending plan for the further balance not allocated.

Reason for Decision
- This grant process will provide opportunities for smaller organisations and sole traders, particularly impacted by the Covid 19 Pandemic to deliver creative projects in the borough, which will support recovery.
- These small low-level grants will encourage applications from independent organisations/sole traders who may not be equipped to manage larger awards and therefore supports inclusivity and diversity across the creative industries in the borough.

See attached Officer Decision Record for further details regarding the Scheme Structure, Application and Selection Process.

To award Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust £27,984.84 from the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) Culture and Creative Grant, in order to undertake a small grant application process in support of the development of the Doncaster Culture strategy.

The external grant of £645,781 was awarded to Doncaster over 3years from 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2023 although Barnsley Council, who administer the grants to businesses directly retain £540,000 of this funding.

The remaining £105,781 is being paid to Doncaster to cover one existing Grade 9 post with on costs and some marketing monies to promote the grant.

Doncaster Council’s match funding for the initial project is dependent on delivery of the grants to business. If all outputs are achieved, the match funding required over the 3 years will only be £15,093, taken from Business Doncaster core funding.

The table as set out in the attached Officer Decision Record highlights the ERDF outputs the current project will endeavour to deliver.

See Officer Decision Record for further details.

To approve Option 2 and accept an additional external grant of £240k for the SME Productivity Programme offered by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities via Barnsley Council who is the accountable body for the South Yorkshire programme for the remaining period to 31st March 2023. Barnsley Council, who will administer the grants to businesses directly will retain £216k of this income. The remaining £24k will be paid to Doncaster to contribute to the cost of an additional 0.8FTE Grade 9 post with on costs.

Recently Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust (DCLT) have embarked on a capital investment programme to refurbish their facilities and bring the building to modern fresh standard. This includes Rossington pool which is undergoing a £693,000 of investment works.
The Youth Club building is owned by the Official Custodian for Charities on behalf of the Rossington Miners Welfare Scheme . The Council are in negations with the freehold owner to enter into a lease of the site on similar terms to the lease of the adjoining pool that the Council already holds. Once the lease is completed the Council will have exclusive possession of the building, they will be able to carry out these works and can subsequently grant an under lease to DCLT.
As the buildings are connected and share some services the pool refurbishments works presents a unique opportunity to develop the site as a community hub through a collaborative approach with DCLT becoming building managers, and working with, Doncaster Council Directorate, Learning Opportunities and Skills. Rossington Parish Council, voluntary and commercial organisations established a mixed use that ensures the long-term operational viability of the building and its services.
To enable this to become reality a condition survey wascommissioned and undertaken by Faithful and Gould with DMBC services reviewing the roof. The survey has identified the building requires various elements of works across the building, including mechanical, fabric and a new roof to secure the building and make fit for future use. A total of £374,000 is required to complete the works.
See attached Officer Decision Record for further information.

To provide capital allocation of £374,000, to allow capital works to be undertaken to enable the old Rossington Youth Club building to sublease to Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust to establish a community and commercial offer using the space as part of the Rossington Pool refurb.

Be Well Doncaster provides part of Doncaster Council’s Covid-19 response and recovery plans. The programme uses behaviour change techniques such as motivational interviewing, coaching and brief interventions to enhance health, wellbeing and resilience of residents. The approach is delivered in partnership with Primary Care Networks (PCN) in the North, East and South of Doncaster who fund 5 Health and Wellbeing Coaches and the Better Care Fund which funds 4 Health and Wellbeing Coaches and wider programme delivery costs.

Be Well Doncaster aims to reduce the demand on statutory health and social care services throughout the pandemic and beyond by both providing easy to access support to maintain and improve health. Monitoring of the programme enables the identification of gaps in both commissioned and community services. From this we can support the system to understand where needs are not being met and inform the design and development of hyper local solutions through locality commissioning.

The Be Well Doncaster team is part of the Public Health team. The team delivers ‘Well Doncaster’, which uses community centred approaches to address health and wealth inequalities. The Be Well Doncaster Team includes Coaches who work across all localities, offering face-to-face and online support. The Coaches have supported over 250 individuals since March 2021, receiving referrals from across health, social care and VCFS partners. Self-referral is also be available and promoted from October 2021. Coaches work with residents to improve their health and wellbeing, providing ongoing supporting clients to access hyper local community based support.


Coaches currently have weekly ‘clinics’ set up in practices across the borough where practices book appointments with the coaches directly through patient record systems System One and Emis. Coaches have System One and Emis installed on their Doncaster Council laptops and can access the systems remotely to update patient records and work jointly with Primary care as part of One Doncaster.

Be Well Doncaster also runs community based peer groups across each locality supporting a population health approach to supporting residents in managing long term health conditions such as Fibromyalgia, Diabetes, respiratory conditions and general wellbeing. This approach contributes to the reduction in emergency admissions to hospital as residents increase their health literacy, connect to their community and better able to self-manage their health conditions.

The additional capacity of the 5 coaches funded by the Primary Care Networks increase the resources in each locality, allowing Be Well Doncaster to support more residents reach their health and wellbeing goals, reduce demand on primary and secondary care services and support healthy, resilient communities.

The commitment from the Better Care fund is till 2025 and there is a robust evaluation protocol in place to understand the impact of the Be Well Doncaster approach, including the partnership approach with primary care. The evaluation will inform Primary Can Networks in their decision making to extend the contracts and Doncaster Council in continuing Be Well as a way of working post 2025.

To continue to provide management of 5 Health and Wellbeing Coaches on behalf of North, East and South Primary Care Networks as part of Be Well Doncaster. Agreement for one year with options to extend for one year.

Accept the income of £36,428 per coach x5 totalling £182,140 per year.

Mental health problems, whatever their origin, severity or complexity, have an impact on an individual’s personal and social worlds.

Equally, these personal and social worlds can contribute to the development, maintenance and improvement or exacerbation of their problems. The communities in which people live are therefore central to the understanding, care and treatment of people’s mental health problems. This has been recognised since the very beginnings of mental health care and treatment.

Healthy communities are underpinned by better mental and physical health. However, not all aspects of community life are available to all adults and older adults. Social isolation, unemployment, financial problems, housing problems, exposure to crime or violence, prejudice, socioeconomic deprivation and domestic issues can all have a negative impact on a person’s mental (and physical) health. For a person to have the best possible health outcomes, they should
be helped to minimise any inequalities that they may experience. This can be done through community support and engagement.

There is extensive evidence that connected and empowered communities are healthy communities. Communities that are involved in decision-making about their area and the services within it, that are well networked and supportive and where neighbours look out for each other, all have a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing. There is a diverse range of community interventions, models and methods which can be used to improve health and wellbeing or address the social determinants of health. Below are the key elements of community centred approaches:
- Recognise and seek to mobilise assets within communities. These include the skills, knowledge and time of individuals, and the resources of community organisations and groups

- Focus on promoting health and wellbeing in community settings, rather than service settings using non-clinical methods
- Promote equity in health and healthcare by working in partnership with individuals and groups that face barriers to good health
- Seek to increase people’s control over their health and lives
- Use participatory methods to facilitate the active involvement of members of the public.

Community centred approaches involve building on community capacities to take action together on health and the social determinants of health. It includes community development, asset based approaches, social action and social network. These approaches work by connecting people to community resources, practical help, group activities and volunteering opportunities to meet health needs and increase social participation.

The Community Mental Health Framework for Adults and Older Adults (2019) focusses on ‘putting community at the centre of community mental health services’ with local areas being ‘supported to redesign and reorganise core community mental health teams to move towards a new placebased, multi-disciplinary service across health and social care aligned with primary care networks’. This will ensure that people with mental health problems will be enabled to:

- Access mental health care where and when they need it
- Manage their condition or move towards individualised recovery on their own terms
- Contribute to and be participants in their communities

Building and sustaining social networks is a key way in which the best can be made of community resources, including supporting people to access community-based social, educational or employment services, or engaging in leisure activities. Building capacity in communities and supporting people to use community assets is therefore central to the effective delivery of mental health care, and a fundamental component of the framework introduced in this guide.

Community assets can play a role in promoting health and maintaining wellness within the community, so may also provide a preventive function as well as providing support. Everyone involved in a person’s care has a potential role to play in facilitating their connection with community resources and supporting them to develop connections using their own resources and strengths.

This approach has been working in Doncaster with a network of 10 Community Connectors in place in 2021 supporting support hard to reach groups around barriers to Covid Vaccinations. This approach will continue into 2022 with a focus on support residents to access local support and inform locality commissioning. Get Doncaster Moving also using the Community Connector model with a network of 5 Connectors removing barriers to physical activity through a place based approach.

Mental Health Community Connectors
Below outlines the model to provide community based support around mental health transformation all of which are grounded in evidenced based community centred approaches.

Host Organisation
A Voluntary Community and Faith Sector (VCFS) organisation(s) with the field of mental health to recruit and manage the roles outlined below. The host organisation will provide all HR and line management. The Host organisation will ensure the Co-ordinators feed into the wider Community Mental Health Transformation plans.

Organisations must be either a UK registered charity, community interest company, social enterprise organisation, credit union or a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. Community interest companies and social enterprise organisations must have a governing document, which shows the name, aim/purpose, objects of the group, including a dissolution clause.

Mental Health Community Connector Roles:
1x full time VCFS Co-ordinator working across the borough for one year-£30,679.03 plus on costs for 12 months
4x 20hper week VCFS Co-ordinator focusing in each locality-£56,000 total plus on costs for 12 months

Job Role Outline
The VCFS Co-ordinator will build on and enhance the Community Connectors model by drawing on their own lived experience to ensure that co-production with people with lived experience and their families is at the heart of delivering the mental health transformation programme across the borough. The VCFS Co-ordinator will work with communities to support and address their priorities in relation to mental health in a strengths-based methodology and aid the delivery of targeted interventions in areas of most need. It will be a key role within the wider metal health transformation agenda.

Key characteristics of a VCFS Co-ordinator:
- Know their community – the people and place,
- Trusted by people in their community,
- Passionate about positive change
- Want to help people
- Have the ability to influence people – leader and activist (but might not describe themselves as one)

An Internal management fee of £13,320.97 will be allocated to fund the time of a Doncaster Councils Officer within Public Health to contract manage the approach.

To receive £100,000 from the Community Mental Health Transformation Programme managed by Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH) to fund and contract manage host organisations from the Voluntary Community and Faith Sector to recruit and manage 5 Mental Health Community Connectors.

To award grants to the successful host/s for the Community Connectors to the total value of £86,679.03 inc. on costs

Internal Management fee £13,320.97 is income to the Council

See attached Officer Decision Record

That approval is given by the Governing Body of Heritage Doncaster for the decision to dispose of the Museum’s collection of cerambycid beetles, and a Black Rhinoceros head.

There is a statutory requirement to publish a Post 16 Transport Policy Statement by 31st May each year in accordance with the Home to School Statutory Travel and Transport Guidance published by the Government in 2014.

There is a statutory requirement to publish a Post 16 Transport Policy Statement by 31st May each year. Any proposed changes must also be the subject of a consultation prior to the change. The only proposed change to the policy for 2022/2023 was included in a wider consultation on home to school transport, whichtook place between 29th November 2021 and 31st January 2022. Following that consultation, it has been decided not to proceed with the proposed change to the Post 16 Policy

Therefore, there are no changes proposed to the 2022/23 Policy Statement and this will only contain updates to the names of various bus passes, which are now offered by South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE). These updates have been made to the draft policy and a copy is attached for information. Approval is now required to publish the policy in May 2022 in accordance with the statutory requirement