In the absence of the Chairman of the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Councillor P Honeywood), the Chair was occupied by the Vice-Chairman (Councillor M Cossens).

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

Apologies for absence were received from the Chairman (Councillor P Honeywood), who had appointed Councillor Alexander as his substitute. Apologies were also received from Councillor Doyle with no substitute appointed and Harris who had appointed Councillor Bush as his substitute.

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Monday, 14 April 2025.

It was moved by Councillor Steady, seconded by Councillor Goldman and:-

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the last meeting of the Committee held on 14 April 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and be signed by the Chairman.

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, Other Registerable Interests of Non-Registerable Interests, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

The Assistant Director (Corporate Policy & Support) informed the meeting that the Chairman of the Committee (Councillor P B Honeywood) had an Other Registrable Interest in that a close member of his family was a client of the Careline service and that therefore Councillor Honeywood had felt that he should not attend this meeting.

Subject to providing two working days' notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

No Questions on Notice pursuant to Council Procedure Rule 38 had been submitted by Members for this meeting.

For the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee to consider and comment on emerging proposals and potential recommendations to the Portfolio Holder for Partnerships in respect of the ‘Transition Plan’ for implementing the Cabinet’s 21 February 2025 decision on the future of the Tendring Careline service, as well as the ‘Heads of Terms’ for the associated legal agreement with Colchester City Council and Colchester Helpline (Amphora). The overarching priority for the Transition Plan will be to maintain service quality and service continuity and to minimise disruption and inconvenience to service users, many of whom are older and vulnerable Tendring residents. Consideration of the Careline Transitional Arrangements forms part of the Committee’s 2024/25 Work Programme. 

The emerging Transition Plan and Heads of Terms have been the subject of negotiation with Colchester City Council and Amphora and have been informed by ongoing engagement with services across the Council, consultation with staff and professional legal advice. The proposals within this report have been discussed with the Portfolio Holder for Partnerships, Leader of the Council, Chief Executive and senior Officers from the Council’s Management Team.

Following the consideration of any comments and advice from the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee, it would be the intention to seek the Portfolio Holder for Partnerships’ agreement to finalise the Transition Plan and formally enter into a legal agreement with Colchester City Council and Amphora in June/July 2025; and to then deliver the Careline/Helpline transfer in August 2025. 

Members were reminded that on 21 February 2025, as part of its decision on the future of the Careline service, the Cabinet had resolved to delegate authority to the Portfolio Holder for Partnerships to progress and deliver, amongst other things, the preparation of a detailed Transition plan in collaboration with Colchester City Council and Colchester Helpline (Amphora), including the associated legal agreement and specific tasks and timescales (see minute 135 – recommendation i), article 1) for the achievement of (in summary):

·        a combined and expanded telecare, response and lifting service for North East Essex achieved through an automatic transfer of existing Tendring Careline service-users and staff to the service provided by Colchester Helpline on existing terms and conditions and expansion of the service to ensure coverage across the whole Tendring District that maintained and improved on existing response times (recommendation d); and

·        the transfer of the Council’s Out-of-Hours, CCTV and monitoring of its own sheltered housing schemes to Colchester Helpline within the same timescales under an outsourcing arrangement (recommendation e).

The report to Cabinet on 21 February 2025 had included a high-level indicative Transition Plan identifying some of the key tasks and matters to be addressed to achieve the transfer – with the overarching objective of maintaining service continuity and quality during the transition period and following the transfer to Colchester Helpline, and minimising disruption and inconvenience to the 1,500 existing service users. However, the smooth and timely transfer and merging of services had been a complex matter that required a more detailed plan that was mutually agreeable, workable and achievable for the parties involved and which sought to minimise disruption to the service provided to residents and be as efficient as possible.

It was reported that much of the groundwork for progressing towards the transfer had already commenced or had been carried out through the positive and constructive engagement of Officers across several departments within TDC and with respective colleagues at Amphora and Colchester City Council. This had included informal and formal consultation with affected staff; communications with service-users and other interested parties; the review and termination of remaining contracts and services with third-party organisations; scoping out and producing a specification for the Out of Hours, CCTV and Sheltered Housing requirements; exploring and understanding the technical and data-protection aspects of the transfer; and working up cost estimates for achieving different elements of the transfer.     

The emerging ’Heads of Terms’ that had been discussed and negotiated with Amphora and Colchester City Council colleagues to date, and which would form the basis of the legal agreement, covered the key elements of the Careline/Helpline transfer as summarised as follows.

Transfer of Careline service-users to Colchester Helpline

The Committee heard that the aim had been to transfer Tendring Careline’s 1,500 existing service-users to the expanded service provided by Colchester Helpline (Amphora) in August 2025 with their existing terms and conditions maintained. To achieve this, service-users’ data would need to transfer from TDC’s ‘UMO’ database and call-handling software system, to Amphora’s ‘JonTek  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.