Issue - meetings

Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Leader of the Council, sought ratification by Cabinet for decisions made by the Director of Public Health in consultation with the Cabinet Lead for Public Health and Communities in relation to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant (“SSMTRG”) described in the ‘Extra funding for drug and alcohol treatment 2022 to 2023’ guidance contained in the Background Documents below during financial year 2022/23; and to approve further recommendations in relation to the distribution of the SSMTRG during financial years 2023/24 and, 2024/25 which will be the first year of the new adult treatment contract described in paragraph 15 below.

Having considered all of the information, Cabinet noted the report and

RESOLVED to:

1. Ratify a decision taken by the Director of Public Health, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Public Health and Communities, to:

a. vary the council’s contract with Change, Grow, Live (CGL) relating to the provision of adult community drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services on the following basis:

i) by adding additional posts to those currently provided by CGL across a range of evidence-based interventions during financial year 2022/23;

ii) by requiring CGL to provide a Buvidal Pilot for 30 service users during financial year 2022/23; and

iii) by adding a requirement for CGL to carry out staff training in relation to service users’ co-existing mental health and substance misuse conditions during the financial year 2022/23

b. allocate £2,064 in funding from the SSMTRG funding made available by OHID for use in financial year 2022/23 (the 2022/23 SSMTRG) to the part payment of GCC staff costs arising from a qualitative research exercise to be carried out by the council in relation to engagement with Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) stakeholders (including service users and carers) during the period December 2022 – June 2023.

c. vary the council’s contract with Prospects for the supply of Youth Support Services by increasing the charges payable thereunder during the financial year 2022/23 for the purposes of funding the cost of Prospects employing additional staff during such period in order to expand access to young people’s substance misuse services.

d. allocate £30,000 by means of a one-off grant from the 2022/23 SSMTRG to a charity offering specialist therapeutic services for families in crisis, namely ‘InfoBuzz’, for the purposes of funding the cost of them employing additional staff during financial year 2022/23 in order to expand access to their services to meet demand.

e. allocate £12,000 by means of a one-off grant from the 2022/23 SSMTRG to a Stroud based charity offering services to young people and their families, namely The Door, in order to expand access to their services.

2. Approve a further variation of the council’s contract with CGL described in Recommendation 1(a) above by increasing the charges payable thereunder in order to continue to fund the initiatives described in Recommendation 1(a) during financial year 2023/24.

3. Approve a further variation of the council’s contract  ...  view the full decision text for item 11

11.1    Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Leader of the Council, sought ratification by Cabinet for decisions made by the Director of Public Health in consultation with the Cabinet Lead for Public Health and Communities in relation to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant (“SSMTRG”) described in the ‘Extra funding for drug and alcohol treatment 2022 to 2023’ guidance contained in the Background Documents below during financial year 2022/23; and to approve further recommendations in relation to the distribution of the SSMTRG during financial years 2023/24 and, 2024/25 which will be the first year of the new adult treatment contract described in paragraph 15 below.

11.2    The SSMTRG was a Section 31 grant distributed by the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services in line with the ambitions of the 2021 national drug strategy, and the recommendations from Dame Carol Black’s independent review

11.3    The grant was a three-year settlement confirmed annually between April 2022 and March 2025 and Gloucestershire would receive approximately £2.3M over the period. There were strict conditions for how a local authority could spend the grant and each area could only allocate funding from a list of evidence-based interventions.

11.4    Due to the restricted time between confirmation of the first year of funding and the deadline for submitting plans to spend the money (five weeks), Gloucestershire did not have time to seek sign-off for the plan in advance of the allocation of the money and were therefore seeking ratification of the decisions made at that time. Total funding in Year 1 of the SSMTRG was £619,405.

11.5    Permission was also sought to allocate the second year of the grant, 2023/24, primarily in continuation of the same interventions agreed in 2022/23, and delegated authority for the Director of Public Health in consultation with the Cabinet Member to approve the allocation of the final year of the grant in 2024/25 (£1,130,000). 

11.6    The new Gloucestershire Combating Drugs Partnership, was a multi-agency partnership focused on achieving the aims of the National Drugs Strategy 2021 would maintain an overview of performance.

Having considered all of the information, Cabinet noted the report and

RESOLVED to:

1. Ratify a decision taken by the Director of Public Health, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Public Health and Communities, to:

a. vary the council’s contract with Change, Grow, Live (CGL) relating to the provision of adult community drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services on the following basis:

i) by adding additional posts to those currently provided by CGL across a range of evidence-based interventions during financial year 2022/23;

ii) by requiring CGL to provide a Buvidal Pilot for 30 service users during financial year 2022/23; and

iii) by adding a requirement for CGL to carry out staff training in relation to service users’ co-existing mental health and substance misuse conditions during the financial year 2022/23

b. allocate £2,064 in funding from the SSMTRG funding made available  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11