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14 February: Trustees MinutesMinutes of the meeting of the Trustees of the Independent Living (Extension) Fund and the Independent Living (1993) Fund held on Wednesday, 14 February 2007 The meeting commenced at 1 pm
Present: Margaret Cooper (Chairman)
In attendance: Gary Stephenson (Finance and Corporate Services Director) Apologies were received from Stephen Jack.
1.1 Declaration of possible Conflicts of Interest or Loyalty All Trustees confirmed that no issues had been identified. 2 Minutes of the meeting held 10 January 2007 The minutes of the last meeting held on 10 January 2007 were accepted by Trustees as a true record, and signed by the Chairman at the end of the meeting.
3.1 Draft COGA and Management Statement The Chief Executive said that a meeting had taken place with DWP on 5 February 2007. She explained that there were still some issues which DWP are looking at in relation to the COGA and Trustees would be kept updated. 3.2 Skills/Training Needs Analysis The Chief Executive said it would be helpful if Trustees completed the Skills/Training needs analysis form by the end of February. 3.3 Personal Case (Please note: This section has been redacted as it contains personal data) Outcome: Information 4 Outstanding Action Points The Chief Executive updated Trustees on the position of the outstanding action points with 4 due for clearance after the meeting. She explained that the action point in relation to the analysis of age of overpayments was being transferred to the Finance and Corporate Services Director with the target date being moved to April 07. She said that there had been further correspondence regarding the lease and explained that there was still an outstanding issue regarding increases to the rent and facilities costs, which was being taken forward by Harvey Ingram with DWP’s commercial solicitors (Lovells). Outcome: Information 5 Chairman’s Issues The Chairman said that 6 potential candidates had been interviewed on Monday 12 February. Further interviews would be taking place on Wednesday 21st February with a recommendation made to the Minister by the end of February. A meeting with the Minister for Stephen Jack and herself was scheduled for 28 February 2007. Outcome: Information 6 Performance 6.1 Strategic Performance Dashboard Apr – Dec 06 The Finance and Corporate Services Director presented the report to Trustees. He said that it was agreed at the November 2006 meeting that additional reports would be provided on an ‘exceptions’ basis unless specific requests had been made and a full report on the operation of the Dashboard would be available for the May 2007 meeting. Trustees confirmed they were content with the format of the report. He brought Trustees attention to the additional report on Audit Assurance. He explained that the target for internal audit reports was to receive at least ‘adequate’ assurance. Reports received in September and December show 4 received substantial, 1 adequate and 1 limited assurance. He said that the Audit Committee had received update reports on the report receiving limited assurance and assurances had been given that the significant recommendations were dealt with as a priority. The report on the MIS system was advisory as it was a review of a new system in development. The Operations Director reported on the Overpayments and Losses report. He explained that the report outlined overpayments by cause; work is ongoing with the MIS to look at how the overpayments have been discovered. He also commented on the overpayments discovered by ILF action which had increased from 18% to 30% hopefully reflecting the benefits of the DMS. He commented on the level of clerical errors and that this issue was being addressed by the Operations teams. The Chairman commented on the ongoing level of overpayments, as it appeared that the level of overpayments remained high. The Operations Director explained that the new prevention processes may take a while to impact and that the DMS would help to identify overpayments earlier. The Operations Director reported on the Review Clearance. He explained that performance was below target last quarter. He said that this was due to a large increase in new applications. However, the processing of reviews has increased over the past 6 months but despite processing more work, overall target had been impacted by the need to prioritise applications. He explained that they were looking at areas that were affecting achievement of the targets which includes the relationship with Local Authorities, the capacity of the ILFA team and looking at the target itself. In the short term a team of experienced AO’s will be targeting the reviews to return to the previous processing time by end of the quarter. In answer to a question the Operations Director said that there had always been issues with the Local Authorities and carrying out reviews. It is intended to try and work with them better through the regionalisation of work and to bring review visits in line with Local Authorities which will reduce duplication of work. Sally Sparrow commented on impact of the lack of allocated Social Workers for many users. Outcome: Information
The Operations Director presented the report to Trustees. The merge of the Alpha and Review teams took place in June 2006, the four main drivers being
1 Regionalisation He explained that since implementation some performance improvements had been identified with a reduction in outstanding work, the level of BF’s and the level of outstanding payment related work. He said that applications levels had increased and teams have continued to meet performance targets for turning around applications. Processing change of circumstances had also been reduced with the number of cases outstanding at the end of April 2006 from 1,503 to 868 currently. In answer to a question by the Chairman on clearance times of change of circumstances the Operations Director said he would look into this and forward the information by e-mail. Outcome: Information 7 Strategy 7.1 Strategic Review of the Revisit Programme The Operations Director presented the paper to Trustees. He explained that a strategic review of the revisit programme was in progress and one of the recommendations was to carry out a review at 6 months. This was also driven by the perceived gap in support for new users from first offer to first ILF review after 2 years. The three main areas to test during this early review are:-
Improved Customer Service The Chief Executive explained that the extent to which the ILF might be able to give support was affected by the question of the DWP ambit but this would be considered when the trial was evaluated. He explained that it was proposed to carry out a trial for a 4 week period using 12 ILFA’s to carry out 90 reviews per week. This represents 14% of the cases who would be reviewed within the year. This trial will impact on the normal review programme which will be delayed by 4 weeks. The cost of the trial will be met from the 2007/08 administration budget. The Operations Director commented on the risks involved carrying out the trial and plans in place to mitigate these risks. He explained that the Project Manager will evaluate the trial and the proposal is to identify the same number of users from the same geographical region whose award went into payment at the same time as those going through the trial and establish this as a control group. The Project Manager gave an overview of the evaluation process involving users, ILFAs and ILF staff involved. In response to a question from Nick Danagher it was confirmed that information on which users receive a Direct Payment from their local authority would be gathered to assess the support available. Outcome: Decision - Trustees agreed the project to trial an early review visit. 8 Finance 8.1 Grant in Aid and Benefit Forecast Feb 07 The Finance and Corporate Services presented the report to Trustees. He gave an overview of the benefit forecast using the trend assumptions agreed with Trustees in September 2006. The year-end position is tight but the carry forward estimate is still at £ 3.5 million. As this will be insufficient to cover Fund User payments due on 2 April 2007 arrangements have been made with DWP to make a request for funding to cover the first instalment of Grant in Aid. The Chairman asked DWP to comment on the year-end level. DWP confirmed that there would be no problem arranging Funds to cover the user payments due on 2 April.
The Chairman was concerned that the additions figure was low. In answer to a question the Finance and Corporate Services Director confirmed that applications are still showing an increase but there was no guarantee they will stay at the same level. Outcome: Information 8.2 3rd Quarter Review of Admin Expenditure The Finance and Corporate Services Director presented the report to Trustees. He gave an overview on the areas with overspends. He explained that an overspend was expected in accommodation and facilities costs due to LS Trillium’s increase in the facilities unit price, ILF are not able to directly manage these costs which are part of the DWP-LST Prime contract. The Chief Executive said that this was a point being taken up with Lovell’s to see if there could be a tolerance level reflected in the lease. He said that overall administration costs are expected to come in within original budget. The Finance and Corporate Services provided an update on contingencies and commented that a percentage of the total is being retained for potential expenditure. The Finance and Corporate Services Director asked if Trustees wanted the level of detail in the appendix to the report. Trustees agreed to retain the current format. Outcome: Information
9.1 Contingency Plans for Fund User Budgets under pressure 2007/08 The Finance and Corporate Services Director presented the report to Trustees he explained that it gave an overview of measures available to Trustees to manage Fund User payments within the available Grant in Aid if budgets came under pressure. He said that further work would be needed to develop the options in relation to risks and costs. He outlined options in relation to New Applications, Current Users and Ultimate Sanctions. The Chief Executive asked Trustees for a steer on what options would be preferable if they had to take action. Trustees discussed this and agreed that their preferred choice would be to suspend receipt/or processing of new applications for a defined period. The Finance and Corporate Services Director said that this would reduce load growth for part of the year and this policy would not directly affect users in succeeding years. The pre budget review in August each year would look at baseline expenditure but would not automatically result in extra funding. The Chief Executive confirmed that any of these contingency policies would have to be reviewed at the beginning of each financial year and could not operate as blanket policies year on year. The Chief Executive commented that the wording of the Trust Deed in relation to priority to young and in work would have to be considered. DWP said that it was difficult to say whether the wording of the new Deed would be changed at present to reflect any different priority groups. Outcome: Further work on options for contingency planning to be completed for the May 2007 Trustee meeting
10.1 Risk Register The Finance and Corporate Services Director presented the report to Trustees. He gave an overview of the changed risk markings and the improvements made in certain areas. The current Risk Register scores 30 which is an improvement on the score of 34 at the October risk review and meets the target maximum which we set at the beginning of the year. This is shown in the performance dashboard. The Chief Executive said that a discussion had taken place at the Audit Committee in relation to High Level Strategic Risks. The Committee, also supported by NAO, agreed that this should be a full Board discussion to look at key areas of strategic risk. The Chief Executive said that it was intended to procure a facilitator for this discussion and if successful a meeting will be arranged sometime during the spring. Outcome – Decision - Trustees agreed to make time available for this extra meeting to discuss strategic risk. 11 Personal Cases Minutes are provided in an Appendix 1 to these main minutes; the Appendix is not available for public view under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because it contains personal information subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998. Nick Danagher commented that he felt that the policy on Continuing Health Care may not enable the Trustees to fulfil their role and that the user’s support had been narrowed. Trustees agreed to look at the policy again Outcome: Chief Executive to undertake a review of the policy on Continuing Health care and present findings to the Board as soon as possible 12 AOB 12.1 Date of Next Meeting It was agreed the April meeting would be in London and the May meeting in Nottingham. The date of next meeting will be Wednesday 14th March 2007 There being no further business the meeting finished at 3 pm. |
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