Issue - decisions

Councillor Wendy Brice-Thompson, Cabinet member for Adult Social Services and Health, introduced the report

Cabinet was reminded that Havering Catering Services (HCS) operated an in-house community meals service to 297 residents in Havering and 86 in Barking and Dagenham.  This was a traditional ‘Meals-on-Wheels’ service based on provision only and was unable to provide a personalised service to its clients.  In many ways it could be seen as no longer fit for purpose and not meeting the requirements as set out in the Care Act of 2015.

The service had seen a 9% per year decline in service users and hence had made increasing financial losses since 2012-13 which had been subsidised by the Council.  This decline in Havering reflected national trends and over half of the London boroughs had already closed their Meals on Wheels services with a significant proportion of the remaining London authorities currently planning to/undertaking a review of their service, and instead choosing to signpost residents to a range of local meal providers which were offering a choice of frozen, chilled or hot meals.

As part of the Council’s cost reduction exercise, the service had an MTFS (Medium Term Financial Strategy) target of £100k to be achieved in 2015/16.  This had prompted the need to undertake a full review of the service which had included the following activities:

·                A consultation exercise to gather feedback on the service from current community meals customers.

·                A briefing meeting and other communications with staff and trade unions to seek input and ideas for improving income and/or cost saving measures.

·                A marketing impact assessment to identify and assess effectiveness of bringing on board new customers.

·                An options analysis of potential future operating models for the service.

The conclusion of the review was to recommend the closure of the Council’s Community Meals on Wheels service and to follow the lead of other London boroughs in adopting a signposting approach.  This recommendation was made as there was a wide range of high quality suppliers available to Havering residents (including at least one hot meal provider) which were able to provide nutritious meals at a cost which was affordable to service users.  There was therefore no reason why (with dialogue and support from Adult Social Care teams) current service users would be disadvantaged by the proposed changes.

If the service was not closed, the Council would be required to subsidise the service to cover its additional annual which would continue to grow year on year as the number of users continued to decline.

The report sought Cabinet’s approval to implement the recommendations of the service review which took full account of the service user consultation outcomes.

Reasons for the decision:

The recommendation of the service review to close the service had been made as a result of the robust work undertaken.  The decision was necessary to meet the MTSF cost-saving objectives set by the Council which were designed to remove the meal subsidy and to make the service operate at full cost recovery from 2015/16.

The options analysis had not been able to identify a viable alternative operating model that prevented increasing annual losses which was ultimately driven by the on-going and steady decline in users.  The recommendation would also remove the need to provide in the future an increased level of subsidy.  The marketing impact assessment had demonstrated that paid advertising and the on-going activity by the team to promote the service across the borough had no significant impact on customer numbers which continued to fall year on year.

Signposting to a range of alternative meal providers would provide service users with a wide range of choice which underpinned the modern personalisation model for adult social care.  Service users would be able to choose form a range of different meal providers to suit their budget and individual preferences.  In addition to the frozen and chilled meal providers, at least one like-for-like hot meal home-delivery service had been identified which currently operated in Havering.

There might be a cost implication to service users as a result of this decision as some of the prices charged by other providers for a hot meal and dessert were higher than the £5.25 currently charged by the Council.  This increase however sat comfortably within the acceptable cost increase identified by the majority of users in the consultation survey.

This represented what was likely to be a one-off opportunity for the Council to introduce a commercial hot meal provider to the mix without a formal contractual commitment.  There was a risk that delaying the decision and allowing customer numbers to decline further could impact the viability of any future investment decision of a commercial hot meal provider.

Other options considered:

A number of alternative options for the service had been identified and robustly considered.  All alternative options had been rejected on the grounds that they failed to meet the tests of full cost recovery and the long-term financial viability of the service as shown in the chart:

In conclusion, officers had been unable to identify a viable alternative option for the community Meals on Wheels service which fully satisfied both tests.

Cabinet:

1.         Proposed - subject to consultation with staff to the recommendations of the service review - to decommission the in-house community Meals on Wheels service and to implement a signposting scheme to direct users of the service to a wider choice of alternative meal provision (including an alternative hot meal delivery provider).

2.         Delegated the power to take further decisions regarding the recommended proposals including their implementation to the Cabinet Member for Children & Learning, the Cabinet Member for Adults & Health and the Deputy Chief Executive, Children, Adult & Housing.

3.         Noted that to identify and protect the most vulnerable, a full review of all service users was currently underway and arrangements would be put in place for those who needed support in accessing and preparing a meal and who were eligible for support.

4.         Noted that - subject to final decisions on the proposals - the Council would commence the decommissioning of the service in March 2016 following a formal consultation period with staff and would conclude no later than June 2016.