Since 23rd March 2020 we have shifted from business as usual to a position where many lives have been lost. As we move out of the immediate crisis within the NHS I fear the pressures will build up within the care sector. Our lives have changed completely from what we are used to. Our economy has halted with fear of how we will be able to recover back to some form of normality and what scars will be left after we come out of this crisis and how long will these scars take to heal.
The challenge for the council is how we redesign and reset everything. One thing I have to say is that local government including Kirklees have moved mountains and we have truly been recognised and valued for the work we and everyone in local government do. This has seen the shift in key worker status, moving from the NHS to carers within our Children and ASC settings to our front line staff, our cleaners and our refuse collection staff.
Local Government must play a full part in any exit strategy and my focus at the moment is to link in with our National Shadow Cabinet through the LGA Labour Group to make sure we are not in the same situation as we were when the lockdown took place. It's clear Local Government can deliver at pace. The exit strategy will be an opportunity to build an inclusive economy, look at access to services, digital inclusion and gaps in the inadequacy of welfare provisions.
Our role is to lobby Government hard on the ability and ambition Local Government has and ensure the Government gets a firm grip on recovery that will shape a renewed sector that will put the climate, work and society at the heart of justice.
The Government has quite rightly stepped up but there is still a lot more they can do and we will help them in any way we can to rebuild at a local level. We will need to be properly resourced to be able to respond and meet the challenges we will face during the lockdown and once the lock down has been lifted.
Cllr Peter McBride; Deputy Leader; Business Support in the Crisis
My Brief from the Leader is to get the Economy Moving and plan for a future beyond lockdown.
The latest: Business grants; now 6,101 payments have been paid to eligible businesses, over £68.51 million in total.
The West Yorkshire LEP has created an emergency fund of £12 million to provide additional support to key industries badly affected.eg Manufacturing Companies where demand currently has dried up. Jacqui Gedman will coordinate all W.Yorkshire strategy re Business and the Economy
Within Kirklees we are pushing for our major schemes to go ahead eg Street improvements Huddersfield and Dewsbury, as part of the Masterplans.
Building Services are keeping things ticking over and they have completed the car park on the former Tesco Site. They have also started work on the new Brambles school in Greenhead, and Cliffe House refurbishment starts in May.
£1 Billion plus has been allocated for tree planting nationwide. West Yorkshire has a bid in for £100 million White Rose Forest, with reasonable expectation of success.
Unemployment to come on unprecedented scale is the real worry, and an emergency programme for re training has been planned. £63 Million now available part of City Deal. The need is far greater. We will lobby Government.
Cllr Musarrat Khan; Health and Social Care
We’ve been working hard on hospital discharges to create capacity and have been more successful in this than both Calderdale and Wakefield. We’re block purchasing 100 additional residential care beds in conjunction with the CCGs to create capacity, of which 87 are open and available to use. We are also looking at re-purposing the use of Crescent Dale, Cherry Trees and Milldale (all 8 bed respite units) to create step down capacity from hospital that will be jointly managed with Locala.
Staffing is getting tighter in some services as a result of sickness but not yet business critical. Contingency planning for adult social care is in place. PPE is a challenge but we are working with the rest of WY to bring better co-ordination for the social care system. New measures in terms of safeguarding of care homes is in place.
In2Care are working with care providers to recruit additional staffing capacity. Social work teams are now mainly working from home but doing visits to people where required.
Cllr Rob Walker; Culture and Environment
Bin Collection
The waste collection service is so far proving remarkably resilient which is a testament to the professionalism and commitment of our officers. The revised bin rounds were introduced a couple of weeks ago after a lot of planning and have generally settled down well to provide an improved service. There have been some changes to the number of staff travelling in the cab of waste collection vehicles in line with national recommendations. It appears that the recent improvements in communications between managers, trade unions and staff are helping to deliver a flexible response to the crisis.
Bereavement Services
This continues to be a difficult and emotive area with more and more families facing the loss of their loved ones. Our decision to limit attendance at funerals and to exclude mourners at cremations was a very tough one to take. It was based on discussions with our West Yorkshire partner councils and the predictions of the potential loss of life in coming weeks. Officers are working hard to develop proposals for arrangements to allow families and friends to have appropriate opportunities to grieve and celebrate the lives of those who are lost.
This will include longer term support measures and alternative bereavement events that will continue after we can loosen restrictions.
Public Rights of Way
There has been some challenge from councillors and the farming community regarding closing PROW that run through farm land. We are following DEFRA guidance to keep these open other that where there is a clear case to make sensible temporary adjustments when paths run very close to housing or buildings where people are working. This is likely to remain a controversial area whilst we remain in the current crisis.
Cllrs Cathy Scott; Communities and voluntary sector capacity North Kirklees & Rob Walker; South Kirklees
Currently at the moment we have been allocated the roles of North & South Kirklees which is harnessing community capacity.
We have 9 Anchor organisations across Kirklees also Mutual Aid organisations which we have signed up. We are there to support them if the need arises also raise any queries.
We are aware there are lots of Partners, Voluntary organisations and Churches, Mosques and groups also carrying out some fantastic work from food banks to supporting individuals with other daily life requirements.
We understand that we do not know them all and we are mapping and trying to get a more cohesive and joined up process. This is why we need your help as Councillors to tell us about who is doing what in your community.
Cllr Carole Pattison; Schools
Schools
Schools have been open for the children of key workers and vulnerable children throughout the Easter Holidays including Good Friday and Easter Monday and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. They are also providing childcare places for children not normally a pupil at their school where their current school cannot provide a place. This includes all education settings including Academies and private schools.Vulnerable children are expected to attend school and they include those who have a social worker and those with Education, Health and Care Plans – a legal document that describes a child’s special educational needs and the support they require as well as children with Special Educational Needs. Key worker’s children require a confirmation letter from their employer.
Only one parent is required to be a key worker to allow their children to come into school.
Privately-run Before/After School Clubs operating in a school or elsewhere have been asked to stay open to provide places for the vulnerable pupils and key workers’ children outside of school hours. Many are doing so.
To ensure that all children who should or could be at school or in a nursery are able to find a place, the authority is operating a brokerage scheme to match the needs of a child with a school.
Free School Meals
The government are now providing FSM for eligible children and are doing so over the Easter school holidays. If they hadn’t agreed to do this Kirklees was going to ensure this provision was made. The FSM voucher,£15 per week per child, scheme is for schools to operate with local supermarkets though unfortunately vouchers cannot be used in some supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl. The FSM voucher is only for those children that would be entitled to a benefit related free school meal. The eligible child does not need to be in school to receive these vouchers. Any parent wishing to claim free school meals because their circumstances have changed, should be directed here:
https://www.kirklees.gov.uk/beta/schools/free-school-meals.aspx
Wherever possible school kitchens where Kirklees Catering Service are providing a service will be open to provide school meals for pupils still in school.
In addition to the FSM vouchers the Government are increasing the basic amounts of Universal and Tax credit provision by £20 per week, so in general, families will have more money coming in. If there are experiencing hardship then contact one of the teams here at:
https://www.kirklees.gov.uk/beta/benefits/local-welfare-provision.aspx
Exams and Changing Schools
The Secretary of State for Education has announced that the summer 2020 GCSE, AS and A level exam series would be cancelled in order to help fight the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and that students due to sit the exams would be awarded a grade based on an assessment of the grade they would have been most likely to achieve had exams gone ahead. The government’s intention is that results would be issued to this year’s cohort based on a range of evidence and data, including performance on mock exams and non-exam assessment. School or college-based assessment already has an important role in many GCSEs, AS and A levels and in extraordinary circumstances such as these, schools and colleges are best placed to judge the likely performance of their students at the end of the course. Ofqual and exam boards will do everything they can to make sure grades awarded this year are as fair as possible for students. This will include putting all centre assessment grades through an external standardisation process to better ensure that grades are comparable between schools and colleges.
Transitions from Primary Schools to Secondary Schools, from Secondary Schools to 6th Form Colleges and from there to university or other further education should take place as normal based on these assessed grades in September this year. Teachers and staff in schools will do their best to put in place whatever arrangements they would normally do so to make these transitions go as smoothly as possible, wherever possible though face to face meetings may not be able to be held.
School Admissions Appeals
Admissions Appeals have been on hold pending government guidelines, which were issued on 14th April. Regulatory changes, will come into force on 24 April 2020 and will relax some of the current requirements set out in the School Admission Appeals Code 2012 and enable admission authorities to proceed with their admission appeals.
The new regulations, which will be in force until 31 January 2021, will:
• disapply the requirement that appeals panels must be held in person and instead give flexibility for panel hearings to take place either in person, by telephone, video conference or through a paper-based appeal where all parties can make representations in writing
• relax the rules with regard to what happens if one of the 3 panel members withdraws (temporarily or permanently) to make it permissible for the panel to continue with and conclude the appeal as a panel of 2
• amend the deadlines relating to appeals for the time that the new regulations are in force, for example, admission authorities will have to review their existing deadlines for appeals to be submitted and set new or revised deadlines for appeals to be submitted in certain circumstances.
• Any new or revised deadlines must be reasonable and at least 28 days from the date a notification of refusal of a school place was received by the appellant.
The Department will publish guidance to support admission authorities and local authorities in carrying out admission appeals over the coming months to provide further details on these regulations.
In anticipation of the regulations, work has begun to prepare appeal panel members and appropriate IT systems to enable appeals to be held in a different way (taking advice from our legal colleagues). As soon as is practicable (likely to be around mid May), arrangements for conducting appeals will be communicated to parents and carers to explain how we intend to proceed.
It is too early to anticipate whether all appeals will be able to be held in time for September, though we would endeavour to ensure this is the case. However, all children have been allocated a school place and this will stand until they have had appeals and/or a place at alternative school becomes available ie no child would be without a school place.
NB – Kirklees arranges admissions appeals for Community and VC schools, as well as for many but not all Trust, VA and Academies who are their own admission authority
Business as normal
Schools and teaching staff and staff in the local authority are also getting on with business as normal where they can and it is necessary. Admission arrangements for High schools in September have already been announced and the national offer day for primary school places takes place on the 16th April as normal. Over 98% of new primary school pupils have been offered their first choice and 94% of secondary pupils were offered their first choice in January. Where parents want to appeal these offers then arrangements will be made to hear these though again special arrangements may need to be put in place.
Other routine work with regards to Educational Health and Care Plans and Special Educational Needs for instance is still taking place and assessments made and plans developed.
And in schools, work is being set and marked, new curriculum priorities are being developed and schemes of work to accompany them, the Annual Reports for students will still be prepared for the end of the summer term, and improvement works to buildings will take place where possible.
It is still business as normal wherever possible and no plans for the future development of schools have been shelved, the closure of Almondbury Community High School for instance will still go ahead.
Exit Strategy
Whilst carrying on with all this work and finding new ways of doing things, schools and their leaders are being asked to capture what lessons can be learned from this emergency provision of education, what are some of the good things, better use of technology perhaps? And what are some of the bad things. What have we found that we don’t need to do and what have we discovered that we really must keep in place. We also need to be thinking about how do we come out of lockdown, what has to happen first and how quickly. This will be occupying everyone’s thinking over the next few weeks.
Cllr Naheed Mather; Staff Well Being
Over the past 18 months, we have transformed our approach to managing the wellbeing of our workforce from a traditional reactive occupational health service to one that focuses on early intervention and prevention and on supporting our staff to stay healthy and well at work.
During this time we have seen sickness absence levels fall by an average of 1.5 days per annum, per employee.
Our current wellbeing offer for staff includes:
• An Employee Assistance Programme providing 24 hours a day, 365 days per year telephone support;
• Face to face counselling delivered on-site at our Rowan Bank Healthcare Unit;
• Trauma support – we are the only local council to provide EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) therapy which enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experience;
• Occupational health assessments by fully qualified OH Physicians;
• Vaccinations for influenza and hepatitis B;
• Physiotherapy and rehabilitation sessions;
• Healthy Eating Active Lifestyle advice, including support for behaviour change to prevent or reduce conditions such as diabetes and obesity;
• DSE workplace assessments and DSE eyesight testing via Specsavers;
• Staff Workshops - for example delivering sessions on stress management, sleep, mindfulness, posture;
• On-site mini MOT’s – checking blood pressure, height, weight cholesterol and sugar testing
Key to our offer is the ability for staff to self-refer for support, which means that they do not have to access support via their line manager or be referred by their line manager.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, we have taken some practical steps so that as an organisation, we have oversight of the number of staff absences. This is being managed through a daily report to the Executive Team that sets out the number of staff who are absent due to sickness (including COVID-19) as well as those staff who are unable to work due to vulnerability and self-isolation. Where staff are absent for a COVID-related issue then staff within People Services are identifying these individuals and working with managers to look at what extra support we can offer. We have also established daily meetings with trade union colleagues to discuss any issues arising so that these could be resolved at the earliest opportunity. These meetings have worked extremely well and have now been stepped down to twice weekly.
On a wider level, our staff have really stepped up to the challenge and almost 2,500 of them have joined our database for volunteers, providing us with details of critical skills they have and letting us know that they are willing to be deployed into key areas that need our support.
In terms of our staff wellbeing offer, in particular, we have had to fundamentally review the way in which we deliver support for staff to ensure that it is delivered in a way that supports social distancing. Apart from vaccinations, we have successfully been able to continue to deliver all our services either over the telephone or via video link (Skype) with individuals; this includes physiotherapy sessions and counselling.
We have also been able to enhance our offer and, in collaboration with our partner Care First, have been able to offer daily webinars for staff on wellbeing topics such as ‘Sleep and Anxiety’, ‘Domestic Abuse’ and ‘Bereavement’ and have been able to extend our Employee Assistance Programme and access to Care First support to all Kirklees care home workers at no extra cost. In addition, we have developed a fortnightly ‘Wellbeing at Home’ e-bulletin which gives staff tips on staying healthy and well whilst working from home and we have also reached out to our dispersed workforce via a bespoke ‘Coronavirus’ newsletter that is posted out to home addresses and not only provides staff with general updates on COVID-19 but also lets them know how they can access wellbeing support during the crisis.
Going forward, we are clear that we mustn’t lose sight of the great changes we have made during the crisis as many of these changes are helping us to accelerate our culture change ambition and improve our working practices. For example in terms of our wellbeing service, we want to continue to deliver this remotely wherever possible as this will enable us to reach out to more staff, it will improve our efficiency and it will also minimise staff travel time; in terms of having an agile workforce with flexible skills to work across boundaries, our volunteer database provides us with the foundations for that, upon which we can build a programme to further develop our workforce and plan for the future so that we meet the needs of our place. Finally we don’t want to lose sight of the changes we have made to how we work in terms of working remotely and our ability to connect effectively with each other through digital platforms. The power of continuing with this will be measured by how much we can minimise travel not just locally but at a national level and this in turn will have a significant impact on our contribution to climate change.
Cllr Graham Turner; Corporate Resources
The impact of the coronavirus on the finances of the council and the country cannot be underestimated. So much so that we are in uncharted territory, both as a local authority and as a nation.
However what is clear is that the budget of February 2020 for the financial year 2020/2021 is now no longer sustainable without further funding from central government, whilst the money that we have received from government to date is welcome, it’s clear that extra funding will be required over the next two years at the very least, and maybe even longer as the impact on the national and world economy’s start to become clearer over the coming months.
We are very much at the start of the impact the coronavirus will have on our budget and spending plans, and I very much hope that the government’s commitment to meet all the extra cost incurred by Kirklees in fighting this pandemic will be met as they promised.
The budget for 2021/2022 will also be impacted by the pending recession/ depression.
The long term future for the nations and therefore the council finances is very unclear at this stage, however it’s safe to say that it will be a number of years before the impact of the coronavirus is behind us.
There are a lot of things we don’t yet know, and these will take some time to work out as the impact of the current crises unfolds.
The council will lose income from the many and varied sources which we generate an income from, how long it takes for these to recover is unknown, at the moment.
Income from business rates will be affected as sadly not all businesses are robust enough to survive the market downturn, so again it’s an unknown, council tax revenue will be down for the foreseeable future as peoples incomes drop and unemployment rises, so we will be applying more discounts through the council tax reduction scheme.
What is important is that despite these and many other unknowns, we will ensure that we continue to support those most in need and the most vulnerable.
We make sure that we spend as much as we can within Kirklees to help stimulate the local economy, payment to suppliers will be processed as quick as possible to aid suppliers cash flow.
There are many unknowns at the moment, however we will be flexible and react accordingly to ensure the council’s finances are robust and that we continue to deliver a high quality services to our residents, we will continue to use our borrowing capacity to invest in a capital plan that will help to keep the Kirklees economy moving.
Cllr Viv Kendrick; Children
Statutory responsibility for children and young people
• Children and young people in the care of the Local Authority
• Children in Need
• Children with a Child Protection Plan
• Care Leavers
• Fostering and Adoption
• Family Support
• Children and Young People with complex needs
• Children and Young People in the Youth Offending Scheme
• Youth provision
Current Priorities and Activity
• Children and Young People with complex Needs
• Many children and young people with complex needs are vulnerable and therefore, they and their families are shielding at home. The service is therefore working on an alternative package of support.
• Risk assessments have been provided for each child and family.
• Some of the alternative provision includes using staff to take a child/young person out for their daily exercise. Children/young people with some conditions such as autism are allowed to go out more times during the day.
Children and Young People in the Care of the Local Authority
• The Children’s Rights Team is doing a lot of work to keep in contact with children and young people in care.
• A programme to support on-line activities is being developed.
• Child Protection Conferences are being held virtually and are being carried out within the statutory timescales at 92%.
Foster Carers and Foster Care
• Regular on-line meetings being held with the Fostering Network
• Developing a better ‘Out of Hours ‘Service to try to prevent placement breakdown.
• We are using current available buildings to provide temporary children’s homes e.g. Crescent Dale and Orchard View, and the building stock is being reviewed in case further capacity is needed.
• Foster panels are still being held virtually and we are awaiting for the DFE, who are looking at fast tracking fostering.
• Regular up-dates are provided on the status of placements and any related issues.
Family Support and Child Protection
• The Social Work service is still fulfilling the statutory duties.
• Social workers are working on a 3 week rota, 2 weeks at home and 1 in the office. The Duty Team is visiting families (with social distancing) as the need arises.
• Social workers keeping in touch with families and children in care via social media.
• Missing figures have not increased – when notified social workers go out to speak to the young people.
• Family Support workers are working from home but still doing visits.
• The Early help team is mirroring the Social Work team.
Care Leavers
• Personal Advisers are having increased contact with care leavers.
• Also working on how more community support can be developed to prevent/reduce social isolation.
Staff
• Processes are in place for staff wellbeing
• There is provision of lunches/teas etc. for those in the office
• Regular thank you messages for staff
Health and Wellbeing Board
Responsibilities
• Chair the Health and Wellbeing Board
• Liaise with and raise issues with the West Yorkshire Health Partnership
• Attend WY Health Partnership Board Meetings
• Raise health issues that impact on residents of Kirklees; work in partnership with Kirklees partners to address these.
Current Priorities
• Feeding back issues raised at a regional level
• Working with Healthwatch to address the issue of no provision of emergency dental hubs in Kirklees and West Yorkshire, despite the fact that these are in operation in other areas
• Advising people about issues related to access to relatives at end of life because of Covid19
