Agenda item

a)          West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Overview and Scrutiny Committee – Council representative, Councillor Marshall;

b)          West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny Committee – Council representative, Councillor Marshall; and

c)           Worcestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) – Council representative, Councillor Marshall.

The Council’s Representative on the external scrutiny bodies, Councillor Marshall, updated the Committee on recent meetings of the following external scrutiny bodies.

a)    West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Councillor Marshall reported that she attended a question-and-answer session with the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street. A written update on this would be provided to the Committee at the next meeting.

With regards to WMCA bodies, it was reported that councillors from non-constituent councils were not being remunerated for attending meetings. The workload of a non-constituent members was, however, comparable to that of constituent authority members who, in contrast, were in receipt of annual allowance. It was deemed that given comparable workload for constituent and non-constituent representative councillors, the issue should be raised with the Council’s Monitoring Officer in the first instance for advice. It was clarified that if any remuneration was to be agreed for non-constituent councillors on the WMCA, the payment would come from the WMCA itself.

A question was raised in relation to the benefits of Redditch Borough Council’s representation as a non-constituent member of the WMCA, and the benefits of sending elected member representation to meetings of WMCA’s scrutiny bodies. It was noted that by being a non-constituent member, the Council had an opportunity to bid for some of the funding that was available through WMCA, for example the Homes England funding. There were also issues decided at regional level that had an impact on Redditch, for example in relation to skills training and funding for young people.

Members asked that it be checked which grants provided by WMCA were available to access by its non-constituent authorities such as Redditch Borough.

b)    West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Members were referred to the information contained in the written update report provided in the agenda pack.

c)     Worcestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC)

Councillor Marshall reported that the following issues were raised at the last HOSC meeting on 11^th October 2023:

·       Hillcrest Mental Health Ward - It was noted that the Ward was recently given a ‘poor’ rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). There were actions being implemented to improve the situation. However, it was noted that Hill Crest would not be likely to be used as the facility where patients from Redditch would be placed and the unit would be used for psychological rehabilitation. It was reported that the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust (HWHCT) recently updated the Athelon ward and it was likely that the mental health facility would move there from the current Hill Crest facility. This would reduce the need for HWHCT to outsource beds to Wrexham and would see improvement in the offer to patients. However, it was noted that the bed capacity would be 14 at Athelon ward which still represented a reduction in mental health beds capacity. It was added that specialist treatment might still require patients to be referred to a facility further afield.

·       Children’s Hearing Services (Paediatric Audiology) – It was explained that the Trust had identified issues around the accuracy of some children’s hearing tests, specifically auditory brainstem response (ABR) tests, which the Trust provided across the County. ABRs were mainly carried out when a baby failed a newborn hearing screen and on average 4 ABRs were conducted each week. The Trust had reviewed 462 tests taken since 1 April 2018. To date, 7 cases of moderate harm and 16 cases of greater harm had been identified, such as language and development delay or providing appropriate intervention such as a cochlear implant. It was explained, however, that as this affected the cohort of children under 5 years old most children were likely able to catch up in educational development even in case of an error in testing. Every family had been given a full explanation and apology and those affected were directed to seek further advice if required. Members of the Committee expressed significant concern at this issue and asked to be kept updated by the Council’s HOSC representative.

RESOLVED that

the External Scrutiny Bodies updates be noted.