Question over transparency over care report at outbreak of coronavirus crisis

A decision to relax the rules for adults who need care support was made by Birmingham City Council leaders in April.

Although the decision to relax the rules was later reversed, it has now emerged that senior councillors made both the original decision and the reverse decision – without being shown detailed advice prepared by council officers.

And during a fractious online meeting, Tory councillors demanded an inquiry into how the decision was made and accused officers of ‘witholding information’.

The city council was one of eight councils to make use of “Care Act easements” in April, which removed the legal obligation for it to assess people to find out about their care and support needs.

The city council said it was “streamlining” its services from April 14, but reportedly decided to stop using the powers on May 18.

The meeting heard Councillor Paulette Hamilton (Lab), cabinet member for health and social care, didn’t see the report detailing the officers’ decision until May 29.

Opposition councillors and scrutiny committee members who had asked to see the report were also only shown it at this time, the meeting heard.

Councillor Matt Bennett (Con) said: “Can I just ask how this situation arose?

“There is very clear Government guidance about how things should be done and a decision which I think was quite understandable was made.

“And yet it doesn’t seem proper procedure was followed, and even a cabinet member herself was kept out of the loop.”

He added: “What else are officers hiding from us if that’s the case?”

Councillor Hamilton said: “These easements have created nothing but problems.

“At the time, we were in a really, really difficult situation. I have to say that officers had briefed me about the easements and that they were looking to put the easements in place.

“I had not seen the written report that was put through or the report that then subsequently withdrew the easements.

“It was there so that it would help reduce delayed discharges of care. I was absolutely assured at the time that there would be no change to come for residents who were currently having social care.

“I did not see the report until all 100 councillors saw the report.

“That question perhaps needs to be put to the chief executive because I have had my say. I believe in transparency and made it absolutely clear that it wasn’t good enough, but we were in unprecedented times.”

Later in the meeting, Conservative group leader Councillor Robert Alden called for a public inquiry into what is being hidden from elected members.

Council leader Councillor Ian Ward (Lab) said it would be reviewed and he would have a conversation with interim chief executive Chris Naylor in light of Councillor Alden’s comments.

He said officers had been under great pressure during the crisis, and were allowed by law to take decisions under a gold, silver and bronze command structure during the emergency.

He said: “Over the last ten weeks we have been operating in unprecedented circumstances. We have seen deaths as a result from the Covid-19 pandemic, the like to which we have not seen since the second world war.

"Clearly, as we look back on this, we will reflect that some things could have happened differently, some decisions could have been made differently and no doubt we will uncover that mistakes will have been made.

“I would ask all members of the council to bear in mind that the decisions made over the last ten weeks have been made with a view to keeping people as safe as possible and saving lives.”

Vulnerable children

Also during the meeting, Councillor Debbie Clancy (Con) asked what has been the change in number of referrals for child safeguarding the council has received particularly in the last few weeks.

Councillor Kate Booth, cabinet member for children’s wellbeing, said: “Because schools are no longer open, the number of safeguarding referrals has fallen quite significantly.

“Now the schools are returning and now we are in a situation as normal, those safeguarding issues have started to creep up.

”The police have done a lot of work around this but the numbers have gone down and they are now beginning to creep up again which is exactly what [Birmingham Children’s Trust] had expected during this crisis.

“They have been working very, very hard in maintaining connections with our children in need, our children with child protection plans and the vulnerable children.

“They have managed to stay in touch, making as many as 5,000 visits despite lockdown. They have also been keeping in contact by phone, video calls and other means of social media.

“Those children are being closely monitored, the ones we are aware of, and referrals have fallen.”

Councillor Majid Mahmood (Lab) asked for a working group to be set up to consider how taxi drivers in the city could be protected from attacks, in light of the racist tirade suffered by driver Abid Mustafa last month.

He asked Councillor Philip Davis (Lab), chair of the licensing and public protection committee, for the working group to include members from unions, taxi associations, West Midlands mayor Andy Street and Liam Byrne MP.

Councillor Phil Davis said: “Clearly we have to send a message that the abuse of taxi drivers and anybody in this context providing a public service is absolutely unacceptable and clearly racism is something we can’t condone or accept.”

He added he would pick this up with the committee and see what views members have, but that there were technical issues around installing CCTV in cabs that would have to be addressed.

He added: “We will look at how we move this on pre-Covid and post-Covid because clearly we have to make sure that people providing this public service feel they have a high degree of safety.”

Councillor Deirdre Alden (Con) asked why the city council had cited guidance from the independent SAGE group rather than the Government’s official SAGE group in its advice to schools around allowing more pupils in from the beginning of this month.

Independent SAGE has advised against schools allowing more pupils from June 1, whereas the official SAGE group reportedly presented a number of potential scenarios around school reopenings for the Government to consider.

Councillor Jayne Francis, cabinet member for education, skills and culture, said: “We took the decision at the time it was right to pass on the information made available to us as a council. That included both the independent and official SAGE groups.

“Our line was that it was the decision of schools and headteachers to understand that information and make the best possible choice for them and their school and their pupils. We have not changed our opinion on that.”

On a question about what resources were being put in place to tackle increased flytipping, Councillor John O’Shea, cabinet member for street scene and parks, said: “We will be looking to put more resources into this.

“As you will be aware, at the start of the year we had some additional funding put in place to support action on fly-tipping which actually affects every ward in the city but certainly affects some of the inner city wards far more than others.

“This work has been put on hold because of the Covid crisis but we will be restarting it and we will be looking to push that out across the city as fast as we can.

“We did see initially a massive drop in fly-tipping across the city but it has risen in recent weeks, and we need to tackle that – and tackle it for the crime it is.

“We will certainly welcome our community groups back to waste collection and litter picking as soon as it is safe to do so but we will take scientific advice nationally and locally on when it is safe to restore those collections.”