Attendance at National Children and Adult Services Conference

The request was successful.

Res ipsa Loquitor

Dear Lincolnshire County Council,

Dear Lincolnshire County Council,

I note from the delegate list of the National Children and Adult Services Conference 2013 held at Harrogate in October 2013 that Lincolnshire County Council sent the largest delegation from a non-metropolitan area, with eleven names on the delegate list. This implies that there are significant issues within Lincolnshire County Council's social services department(s).

I am requesting copies of all correspondence relating to approvals to attend and would like to know the total cost of attendance including travel, hotel, subsistence (allowances or bills paid), conference fees and any other associated costs.

I also wish to see delegate notes, follow up reports and any assessments of the benefit of attendance made prior to or after the conference.

I do not require any personal data and am content for names and specific roles to be redacted. It would be helpful to indicate the breakdown between councillors (members) and officers (paid council staff).

Yours faithfully,

Res Ipsa Loquitor (Brian Speedwell Esq)

FOI, Lincolnshire County Council

3 Attachments

 

 

Freedom of Information
Customer Service Centre
Witham Park House
Waterside South
Lincoln
LN5 7JN
Tel: 01522 782187
[1][email address]

[2]www.lincolnshire.gov.uk

                                               

Dear Mr Speedwell

 

Freedom of Information Reference: 5248088FOI

 

Subject: Request for information regarding attendance at the National
Children and Adult Services Conference 2013 held at Harrogate in October
2013.

 

Thank you for your recent request for information received by this office
on Monday 21^st October 2013. Your request is being dealt with under the
terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. 

 

Your request will be handled by the Adults and Children Services
Directorate. We will aim to respond to your request, notifying you whether
or not the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council
and communicating that information to you (provided that the information
is not exempt under the terms of the Act), within 20 working days from the
day after your request was received.

 

We may reasonably require further information from you in order to
identify and locate the information requested. If this is the case we will
contact you in due course.

 

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, we
will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

 

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact us. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

 

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information
Customer Service Centre

[3][email address]

 

The information we have supplied to you may contain intellectual property
rights of Lincolnshire County Council. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended), or other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

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you must make a formal request to us under the Re-Use of Public Sector
Information Regulations 2005.  Please email us at
[4][email address]

 

 

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FOI, Lincolnshire County Council

3 Attachments

 

 

Freedom of Information
Customer Service Centre
Witham Park House
Waterside South
Lincoln
LN5 7JN
Tel: 01522 782187
[1][email address]

[2]www.lincolnshire.gov.uk

 

 

Dear Mr Speedwell

 

Freedom of Information Reference: 5248088FOI

 

Subject: Request for information received regarding attendance at the
National Children and Adult Services Conference 2013 held at Harrogate in
October 2013.

 

Please find our response to your request below:

 

Request

 

I note from the delegate list of the National Children and Adult Services
Conference 2013 held at Harrogate in October 2013 that Lincolnshire County
Council sent the largest delegation from a non-metropolitan area, with
eleven names on the delegate list.  This implies that there are
significant issues within Lincolnshire County Council's social services
department(s).

 

I am requesting copies of all correspondence relating to approvals to
attend and would like to know the total cost of attendance including
travel, hotel, subsistence (allowances or bills paid), conference fees and
any other associated costs.

 

I also wish to see delegate notes, follow up reports and any assessments
of the benefit of attendance made prior to or after the conference.

 

Response

 

The following response has been provided by Glen Garrod, Director of Adult
Social Services.

 

Thank you for your enquiry concerning attendance at the 2013 National
Children and Adult Services Conference in Harrogate by county councillors
and senior officers form Lincolnshire County Council (LCC).

Your request for information begins with the statement that Lincolnshire
had the largest delegate list from a non-metropolitan area and that such
levels of attendance must mean that there are 'significant issues' within
both Children and Adults Services Departments.

There were 13 delegates from the County Council attending the conference
in Harrogate:  8 county councillors, 5 senior officers (3 from Adult Care
and 2 from Children Services). A contractor of the Authority sent a
delegate, but this individual is not an employee of LCC, so this
information is not included in this response.

County councillors can attend one conference per year and an increased
number of councillors decided to attend this conference in preference to
other conferences. This is because in previous years the annual conference
has been considered to offer the most significant benefit to the Council.

Three of the eight county councillors attended in their role as active
members of the Local Government Association (LGA) and not just as an LCC
county councillor. Indeed, one member chaired a workshop on behalf of the
LGA and another attended the Children and Young Persons Board meeting.

We do not accept the assumption that levels of attendance reflect
significant issues. Indeed, given the policy context for both Children and
Adult Services e.g. the Care Bill, the implications of Dilnot, integration
with health.  These are of such a magnitude that the Council wished to
avail itself of every opportunity to listen to the key speeches, discuss
in meetings how other councils were planning to respond and, do what it
could to influence how these policies were to be implemented e.g. at 8am
on Friday 18 October several officers contributed to the discussion
concerning how the Department of Health would implement the 'Dilnot'
reforms.         

Furthermore, your analysis builds a case upon one national conference when
in fact there are several throughout the year e.g. the Spring National
Conference which no officers from Adult Care, the Portfolio Holder or the
Chair of the Scrutiny Committee attended in 2012 or 2013 preferring to
make most use of the Autumn conference.  A more thorough analysis would
compare attendance by all councils at all such conferences. 

Approval for attendance was obtained from the Leader of the County Council
for County Councillors and the Chief Executives for officers.

Costs of attendance which includes conference fees, hotel and subsistence
are currently recorded as being, £8,362.07.

Officers have retained their own notes for individual records. Packs of
information were obtained for the conference. No 'follow-up reports' have
been produced as this was not considered necessary. Some of the content of
presentations given at the conference will be used to populate
presentations in Lincolnshire e.g. at the Lincolnshire Carers Partnership
later this month and a number of reports will be used to help with the
detail of reports yet to be written e.g. the implications of the advent of
the Care Bill and Dilnot reforms in Lincolnshire.

Officers are also following up a number of service development
opportunities including social pedagogy at Derbyshire and improved
customer journey at Hertfordshire.

You will be aware of the elections that took place within Lincolnshire in
May 2013. This resulted in a number of changes of councillors' portfolios
and as such 3 county councillors took responsibility for areas that were
new to them, alongside 2 new Assistant Directors in Adult Care. The
national conference at Harrogate was therefore considered an ideal
opportunity to provide further development for these individuals.

We believe this answers your request in full.

You are entitled to an internal review of the administration of your
request. You can request an internal review by contacting
[3][email address]. Should you remain dissatisfied following the
outcome of the review you can submit a formal complaint to the Information
Commissioner's Office. Further information can be obtained from their
website [4]www.ico.gov.uk.

 

 

Once again, thank you for your enquiry.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Emma Wells

Freedom of Information

Lincolnshire County Council

[5][email address]

 

The information we have supplied to you may contain intellectual property
rights of Lincolnshire County Council. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended), or other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

If you would like to re-use this information for any commercial purpose
you must make a formal request to us under the Re-Use of Public Sector
Information Regulations 2005.  Please email us at
[6][email address]

 

 

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