Agenda item

To approve the recommendations as set out in the report.

Consideration was given to a report relating to Better Care Fund (BCF) Section 75 Partnership Agreements.

It was noted that the Board was responsible for the ongoing oversight of the delivery of the Better Care Fund (BCF)  plan during 2015/16 and whilst not a signatory of the s75 partnership agreement it would have a role in gaining assurance that partners were collectively working together to deliver the plan.

The BCF was a national pooling of £3.8billion from a variety of existing funding sources within the health and social care system and would be utilised to deliver closer integration across health and social care. The BCF was a pooled budget held between Local Authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s) via a legal section 75 (s75) partnership agreement. The Fund provided a tool to enable local integration programmes. It would be spent on schemes that were integral to improving outcomes for local people. The BCF plans and allocations had been developed on the Cheshire East Health and Wellbeing Board basis and the pooled budget for Cheshire East would be £23.9m and consisted of Local Authority Capital funding of £1.8m, South Cheshire CCG funding of £10.5m and Eastern Cheshire CCG Funding of £11.6m.

On 27^th January 2015, the Board had endorsed progressing with two separate s75 pooled budget agreements locally, to support the delivery of the Better Care Fund plan and to be aligned with the respective health integration programmes. The report provided the Board with an update on the implementation and delivery of the Cheshire East Better Care Fund, as approved by NHS England. It requested that the Board support and endorse the scheme specifications included within the s75 partnership agreement and the partnering of the Council and CCGs through two s75 Partnership Agreements from 1^st April 2015 until 31^st March 2016 and to continue post April 2016, so long as there was a national requirement to operate the Better Care Fund as a s75 pooled budget agreement.

It was reported that new operational guidance in respect of the BCF had been received from NHS England, the Department of Health and DCLG and this would need to be taken into account in the Better Care Section 75 agreement and that the timeframes for presenting a BCF update on performance, as set out at paragraph 4.6 of the report, may need to be revised.

It was reported that the figures in the chart at paragraph 5.1 of the report had been transposed and  that the figure for the Eastern Cheshire CCG and CEC pooled budget should be £1,114.000 and the figure for South Cheshire CCG and CEC pooled budget £1,005,000.

RESOLVED

That the Health and Wellbeing Board(HWB):-

i)             Supports and endorses that the s75 agreement is consistent with the Better Care Fund plan approved by the HWB on 25^th March 2014 and recommends the Council and CCGs enter into two s75 partnership agreements, with Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (for Caring Together Programme) and South Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (for Connecting Care Programme) to deliver the Better Care Fund Plan;

ii)            Notes the lead commissioning arrangements for delivery of the Cheshire East Better Care Fund;

iii)           Agrees that the Cheshire East Joint Commissioning Leadership Team is responsible for reviewing the delivery of the s75 agreement and the Better Care Fund plan (covering commissioning working arrangements and  the monitoring arrangements for contract, performance, risk and finance) pending a review of existing governance arrangements and notes the arrangements for reporting progress back to the Health and Wellbeing Board;

iv)           Agrees the indicative timeframe for reporting BCF plan updates to HWB as detailed in section 8.6;

v)            Accepts that the Joint Commissioning Leadership Team are responsible for reviewing and maintaining the BCF risk register, including agreeing the level of risk and will provide regular updates to the HWB, so that they can gain assurance that risks, level of risk and issues are being managed appropriately;

Recognises the need to undertake further work in respect of the impacts of the non delivery of the pay for performance fund.

vi)           Recognises the need to collectively develop data sharing arrangements across organisations which support the delivery of BCF and other wider initiatives;

vii)         Accepts that the HWB should be notified of variations to scheme specifications included in the BCF plan, including funding arrangements and fundamental changes to scheme specifications.