Agenda item

The Committee received an update on the work of the Making it Real Board which was created in early-2024 to help shape the delivery of Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council (SBC) services.  Introduced by the SBC Director of Adults, Health and Wellbeing, key elements were outlined as follows:

·         What: The Making It Real Board (MIRB) was a user-led group made up of people with lived experience who were accessing, supported people who were accessing, or may benefit from services delivered by Adults and Health.

·         Why: The MIRB was a strategic group, with a clear Terms of Reference to collaborate directly with senior colleagues on work the Council planned to do / was currently doing, and to contribute towards future services.  MIRB was about co-production, not engagement.

·         Who: The MIRB had a core membership of people with lived experience, supported by SBC officers from the Commissioning Team and senior staff from Adult Social Care.  As the MIRB had evolved over the past nine months, there had been some movement in membership from those with lived experience.  Further work would need to be progressed to expand the pool of people who would like to engage in this process from across the population to ensure positive representation.

·         How: The MIRB met monthly and, where necessary, had established task and finish groups to work on areas of interest.

·         Where: The MIRB had recently completed the development of the Council’s first ‘Local Account’, which would be published if there was agreement at SBC Cabinet on 14 November 2024.  For 2025-2026, the MIRB would be working with partners to review and refresh the Adult Strategy 2025-2029 (there was an aspiration for this to be a co-produced document rather than one written solely by officers).

The Board’s Chair and Vice-Chair were both in attendance to comment on the achievements made since its inception earlier in the year.  Emphasising the importance to her personally about ensuring the voices of those with lived experience were heard and that Board members considered perspectives wider than their own circumstances, the Chair stated that the Board’s remit was to drive, alter, influence and shape thinking around services.  Crucially, there was a desire for the Board’s feedback to be listened to and actioned.

The Chair felt that SBC was leading the way in providing a platform for such a group (other locations were now setting up similar arrangements), and that the Board had a genuine feel about it.  Investigative work had been undertaken across all areas of the Council and the Board had been empowered to report on what was important to those with experience of services and what such individuals wanted to know.  The citizen-to-citizen relationship was key, and the co-production of service planning was now important to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – the Board’s existence should therefore put SBC in a good position ahead the forthcoming CQC inspection of its adult social care provision.

The Vice-Chair added that the Board had spoken to different SBC departments, had presence on the Council’s website (which had included discussions on making this information accessible for all), and was trying to encourage engagement from people with all types of disability.  The feeling of being listened to and involved was echoed, with the recently collated ‘Local Account for Adults, Health and Wellbeing’ being a good example of this (a document which could be brought to a future Committee meeting if requested) – positive experiences in liaising with the Local Government Association (LGA) to report on the Board’s work was also noted, something which had prompted the initiation of similar set-ups elsewhere.  Whilst the Chair and Vice-Chair were in post for three years, there was, however, a need to recruit more members to the Board.

Thanking the Board for its work (in particular the new Local Account) since being formed, the Committee praised those involved for using their own experiences to benefit others.  Members were also pleased that the Board had engagement with the SBC Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, and drew attention to the similarities between the Committee and the Board in holding services to account – as such, maintaining a partnership with each other would be helpful in getting things right at grass-roots level.  The SBC Director of Adults, Health and Wellbeing noted that the Board was an evolving entity which might look different in 2025 – ultimately, though, it was about how the Council becomes more accountable to its communities.

Referring to the earlier comment about increasing Board membership, the Committee probed the current arrangements and any perceived gaps in representation.  In response, the importance of the whole Board promoting equality, diversity and inclusivity was stressed, as was the need to get notice of its existence out to all areas of the Borough (using print and online methods, including press coverage).  This month’s focus was on building a recruitment policy (covering a range of ages, backgrounds and experiences), with the hope of doubling membership from the current six to 12.

The Committee asked what level of budget was linked to the Board and whether the Local Account would be produced in hard copy.  For the former query, it was stated that £15,000 had been sourced from the NHS for the purposes of co-production of services – for the latter, assurance was given that printed copies of the Local Account would indeed be made available and places in appropriate locations (e.g. libraries / surgeries).

AGREED that the Making it Real Board update be noted.