Agenda item

5.1  The chair invited Paul Willmette, Head of Quality and Transformation, to present his report on ‘Safeguarding Adults and Risk of Financial Abuse for people in receipt of Personal Budgets’.

5.2  The Head of Quality and Transformation explain that the report looks at the evidence of financial abuse for people who have taken Personal Budgets. He highlighted that 6.6% of people who do not receive a personal budget have had a safeguarding referral in respect of suspected financial abuse, whereas 3 .8% of people receiving a personal budget have had a safeguarding referral for suspected financial abuse.

5.3  The officer explained that the majority of people in Southwark now a Personal Budgets in place: currently 72.6% or 2694 people. Of these 433 take the Personal Budget as self managed cash, and there has only been one financial abuse related safeguarding allegation; overall the risk is lowest for this category.  A councilor queried this case and the officer explained that this was partly uncovered because of monitoring of the Personal Budget, which also uncovered wider financial abuse. 

5.4  The officer was asked why the risk seems to be less for Personal Budgets.  He responded that he was not entirely sure, and that it might be because of the additional monitoring. He cautioned that these are small numbers to draw inferences from. Members highlighted the need for more analysis.

5.5  A member asked about the process for reporting safeguarding concerns and commented that the process could be appear to be complex .The officer said that support is offered. The high level of safeguarding alerts was noted and officer agreed that that safeguarding alerts do seem high but he reported that there are inline with national figures and that they are allegations.

5.6  A member speculated that one reason for the lower figures could be that people using Personal Budgets are those who are more capable of safeguarding themselves. He asked for assurance that officers are not going to surmise there is little risk. The officer responded that the service is not assuming this and agreed that the initial cohort may well be those people who are more able. He said that as more people join the personalisation process there may well be more people with complex needs living in vulnerable situations. He added that the service is planning for more people to take Personal Budgets up. A member asked how these are offered and the officer explained that this is not a one time offer; officers keep asking.

5.7  A member noted that council management of Personal Budgets seems safer than Third Party management. The officer said that there a higher number than we would like of perpetrators of financial abuse being part of the wider social care workforce and the council is looking into this.