Agenda item

Purpose: To seek agreement to the final plan as to how the Better Care Fund pooled budget will be used.

Rachael Wardell introduced her report to the Board which sought agreement on the final plan of how the Better Care Fund pooled budget would be used.

Rachael Wardell stated that the document was very similar to the first submission paper considered by the Board at their special meeting on 6^th February 2014. Approval had been given at this meeting for the draft plans to be submitted to the Department of Health. Rachael Wardell stated that the report provided an update of development since the special meeting and sought approval on the final plans which would need to be submitted to the Department of Health by 4^th April 2014.

A quality assurance process had taken place to ensure final plans were ready for submission. Whilst waiting for feedback on the plans from the Department of Health, discussions had taken place with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and all parties remained committed  to the chosen schemes.

Rachael Wardell suggested that the Board might wish to have details of governance arrangements attached to the submission as an appendix. The Board needed to agree whether a light touch version should be submitted or a version with the governance arrangements included.

Cathy Winfield reported that the Berkshire West Partnership Board formed a layer of the governance.

Councillor Marcus Franks queried if there was a case for submitting the stages of monitoring, for example on a two monthly basis.  Cathy Winfield confirmed that the standard checklist being used did not require target information at this stage.

Cathy Winfield reported that North and West Reading CCG and West Berkshire funds were being pooled together. This was detrimental to West Berkshire as North and West Reading received a larger proportion of the fund. Cathy Winfield stressed that it needed to be reflected that two CCGs made up the West Berkshire Health and Wellbeing Board.

Councillor Marcus Franks referred to page 157 of the agenda, which included information on deprivation and queried the level of detail included.  Rachael Wardell confirmed that there was further detail required at this stage. Cathy Winfield reported that many of the programmes were not due to begin until 2015 and therefore West Berkshire had done particularly well to be clear on its plans at this early stage. The next year could be used to work up the remaining detail.

Councillor Franks queried the strength of the risk information detailed on pages 152, 166 and 167. Cathy Winfield concurred that the risk information could be strengthened. Phil Mcnamara confirmed that discussions had taken place with Steve Duffin (Head of ASC Efficiency Programme at West Berkshire Council) and the plan was to run the area of work using stranded project management. The Health and Wellbeing Board would then receive reports on this. Councillor Franks stated that the detail referred to by Philip Mcnamara needed to be included in the planning document.

Councillor Franks proposed given the timings that the Health and Wellbeing Board delegate the power to Rachael Wardell and Cathy Winfield to sign off the final plans prior to them being submitted to the Department of Health. This was seconded by Dr Bal Bahia.

RESOLVED that Rachael Wardell and Cathy Winfield would sign of the final planning document for the BCF on behalf of the Health and Wellbeing Board.