Agenda item

That the Scrutiny Board having considered the information in this report and representations made during the course of the call-in, determines whether to either:

1. Uphold the decision taken by the Cabinet; or

2. Refers the decision taken by the Cabinet on 15 December 2025, back to the Cabinet for further consideration, and in asking Cabinet to reconsider its original decision, the Scrutiny Board clearly identifies the reasons why it seeks the review and formulates recommendation(s) it would like the Cabinet to consider.

The Chair reported that the purpose of this report was to consider an item of Called-in business from the Cabinet’s meeting held on 15^th December 2025. Councillors Kenyon, Marland and Al-Hamdani, in accordance with Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules had called-in Minute 6 taken from the proceedings of the Cabinet’s meeting held on 15^th December 2025, ‘Extension of a Section 75 agreement with NCA’, a report that had been prepared by the Executive Director for Health and Social Care.

The grounds for the call-in, which Councillor Kenyon outlined to the Scrutiny Board meeting were that:

‘There was not enough information on which to make a decision.

The paper essentially asks Cabinet to approve a contract extension AND to make changes to the service provision in Oldham: “d) to delegate authority to the relevant officers to harmonize the 0-19 specification with Bury and Rochdale to allow for greater consistency, whilst ensuring that an appropriate locality schedule reflects the current delivery model in Oldham.”

Section 2.6 describes the origin of this request:

“The NCA currently provide 0-19 services to Bury, Rochdale and Oldham through three separate approaches. Although all areas are operating through a different delivery model 3 and under different contractual arrangements, there has been an ask from the provider to work towards a

harmonized specification”

2.6 then continues to list the benefits to The NCA:

- help streamline NCA oversight processes

- greater consistency within the north east arc of Greater Manchester

- agree a standardised performance framework across all three localities

2.6 then describes why this is a reasonable request:

“As all areas are broadly working to deliver the mandated and nationally prescribed Healthy Child Programme – this is considered achievable. Oldham’s schedule of delivery will reflect our nuanced approach to deliver through an integrated approach in partnership with the Local Authority, and

any additionality.”

The report is lacking information in four key areas, without which affects the quality of the decision taken by Cabinet, reduces transparency and scrutiny.

1) Limited or No discussion of benefits to the borough of Oldham

Whilst there is detail about how a decision taken by Oldham will benefit The NCA, there is very limited discussion in the report about how this specifically benefits the borough of Oldham. Whilst it is collegiate and worthy to help a partner, our primary concern is the delivery of services for the borough of Oldham. The report does not detail this anywhere and it should. If there is no specific benefit to the borough of Oldham other than building goodwill with a partner, then the report should state this.

2) In addition, the report is vague at section 2.5:

“the Local Authority is expected to commission school nursing, National Child Measurement programme (NCMP), plus targeted support.”

“is expected” is extremely unclear and does not specify whether the authority:

-       is expected but doesn’t,

-       is expected and does or

-       is expected but will do in the future

3) No “before” performance metrics

Section 2.9 mentions the monthly governance oversight group that monitors service delivery but does not contain any summary of service delivery metrics. This will make it more challenging in the future to evaluate the quality of this decision (ie how has service delivery been impacted by the harmonisation of 0-19 specification?).

4) No discussion or detail about how to measure and mitigate a con.

Section 3.1 describes the following for the preferred option:

Option 1 – To extend the section 75 partnership agreement with the NCA for the delivery of the integrated children’s and families service.

Pros – the partnership already exists, the staffing model is stable, and this requires minimal Council capacity to enact this option

Cons – this doesn’t provide any option to test the market

This section should contain at the very least a discussion of the quantitative or qualitative impact of this con. Ideally it would also seek approval for actions to potentially mitigate this con.’

On 15^th December 2025, the Cabinet had approved a report of the Executive Director for Health and Social Care which agreed to approve the extension of a section 75 agreement with the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, to deliver the clinical elements of the integrated children’s and families’ service. The Cabinet also resolved to agree to recommendations a-d of the submitted report.

In accordance with the protocol for dealing with Called-in business and in consideration of the Call-in, Members of the Scrutiny Board asked questions of the Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Wellbeing, Councillor Brownridge and of the Director of Public Health, who both explained the reasons for the decisions made by the Cabinet on 15^th December 2025.

Members of the Scrutiny Board also asked questions of the Calling-in member who was present, Councillor Kenyon.

The Scrutiny Board proceeded to consider the report in detail and afterwards the Cabinet Member, the Director and the Calling-In Member were all given the opportunity to respond to the debate.

In considering the report, members of the Scrutiny Board thanked Councillor Kenyon for calling the item in to the Board. Councillor Kenyon, in his response, thanked the Cabinet Member and Director for their responses to the reasons for the item being called-in.

Resolved:

That the Adults Social Care and Health Scrutiny Board upholds the decision of the Cabinet made on 15^th December 2025, in respect of the item: Extension of a Section 75 agreement with NCA (minute 6 refers), meaning that the decision of the Cabinet takes immediate effect.