Agenda item

As part of the Council's development of the 2017/18 budget, the Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families and the Director of Children, Families and Communities had been invited to discuss the budget challenges facing services in 2017/18 and how these were being addressed. All Panel Members had received a copy of the 17 November 2016 Report of Cabinet: FutureFit – Proposals for Change and Reform to Support the Medium Term Financial Plan.

The Panel received a presentation from the Head of Strategic Infrastructure Finance and Financial Recovery (copies of which were circulated to the Panel electronically after the meeting). In setting the context of Children's Services position, the main points made were:

·       The Council had existing plans to deliver c£13m of savings, with a further £6.8m of proposals for savings being finalised for 2017/8 (of which £1m related to Children's Services) and £2m raised through work with District Councils.

·       Since 2013/14, £14.6m had been invested in Children's Services of which, £11.3m was for children's social care.

·       Over the same period, there had been £18.4m of savings relating mainly to education and early help.

·       In 2015/16, there had been a budget overspend of c£5.8m.

·       £4.5m had been invested in 2016/17 and was reducing to £3m in 2017/18.

·       There were plans in place to reduce the spend on children's social care placements by £2.015m (including the £1.5m removal of investment plus an additional £1m reduction in 2017/18).

·       The Service would continue to increase the capacity of in-house units, reduce the reliance on more expensive agency placements for children by increasing the number of children living with families and in more permanent settings, reducing the time they needed to stay in the care system and looking at short break alternatives for children with disabilities.

·       The Work streams that the Service was concentrating on were:

Ø  Changing the culture

Ø  Improving the entry point into social care

Ø  Achieving permanency more quickly

Ø  High cost placements

Ø  Placement and Sufficiency Strategy

·       The main risks associated with these were:

Ø Insufficient suitable properties available

Ø More children entering care than expected

Ø Delays in moving children through the system

Ø Agencies not playing their full part in managing demand

Ø Staff recruitment and retention

During the discussion, the following points were made:

·       The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families acknowledged the priority that the Council had given Children's Services in recent years, particularly Children's Social Care.  He was grateful for the ongoing financial investment that Children's Services had received at a time when significant financial cuts were being made.

·       In response to the Chairman of the Panel inviting the Corporate Equalities and Diversity (E&D) Manager to comment on the Equality Relevance Screening, carried out in respect of the concept papers being developed for new savings proposals, the E & D Manager flagged up that further analysis would be required for the short break alternatives for children with disabilities proposal.

Although the Panel acknowledged that they had been invited to make suggestions to fill the forecast financial planning gap, they were not minded to make suggestions at this point given that the outcomes of the recent Ofsted inspection of Children's Services was awaited and could influence the direction of the savings plans.