Health and Community Care Committee, 22 Mar 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 22, 2000

Official Report 235KB pdf

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Forward Work Plan

Agenda item 7 is our forward work plan. The paper sets out our proposed agenda for the coming weeks.

I have raised this point before. I am worried about two things. First, will what happen to the community care inquiry in April and May? Secondly, we have started on that inquiry—eventually—but I am still worried about its structure and direction. Will we do a big report in a few months' time, or will we try to break up the inquiry and report on interim progress?

The immediate problem is that there appears to be a two-month gap, during which community care will be on the back burner, if not off the cooker altogether.

I have had an initial discussion meeting with the advisers—Alison Petch and Gordon Murnoch—and they are working through a number of aspects, such as other people from whom we should take evidence, members' suggestions on visits and so on. Those things are being worked on and will come back to us.

The budget process is almost an imponderable. Until we have had our briefing on that, it is difficult to know the number of organisations from which we will want to take evidence. This year, the committee might decide that it wants to hear from the minister and one or two other people, but that it does not want to go into the process in great depth. The sessions that have been set aside for the budget proposals might not be taken up in full.

I am waiting for further suggestions on the timetable for the community care review from the advisers, who have been on board only since the beginning of last week. We will have more information on that at next week's meeting.

I am not clear about our input to the budget proposals. I asked about that before, and you said that you would seek clarification. What is our exact role in the process?

We are having a private briefing on the budget process next week. That will tell us what our role is.

Therefore, we will be told exactly what we can and cannot do.

That is right. We will be told what our role is. Once we have been told, we will have to decide how we want to perform that role.

I am a bit concerned that every Wednesday morning in April and May seems to be booked. When we book weekly slots, we always seem to be able to fill up the meeting. Once we are clear about the budget process, I would welcome a review of what the proposed meetings will be about. I am not in favour of booking every Wednesday morning, then trying to fill it. We must be disciplined about how we tackle our work load.

However, if we do not pencil in the meetings, problems can arise with the availability of rooms if we decide later that we require another meeting.

The weekly meetings have been included in the forward plan, but next week we will find out exactly what our role is. Once that is clear, we must decide exactly what we want to do. Some committees might take the view that they do not need to have much involvement in the budget process, but we might take a different view because a substantial health and community care budget is involved. It would not be fair to pre-empt next week's discussions by saying, "Let's not bother doing this," or, "Let's do something else." If we need to use all the proposed meetings for the budget process, that is fine, but if we do not, we will have some spare mornings, which we can use accordingly.

We can simply note the forward work plan for the time being; it will firm up during the coming week. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That brings the meeting to a close.

Meeting closed at 12:27.