Agenda item

The Cabinet Members with Responsibility for Children and Families, and Education and Skills and the Director of Children, Families and Communities were invited to the meeting to present the 2018/19 draft budget and discuss how any challenges were being addressed.

As part of the development of the Council's 2018/19 budget, the Overview and Scrutiny Panels had been asked to consider draft budget proposals for areas within their remit.  Panels had previously discussed the budget position and challenges for the current budget year in November 2017.  The Panel's views would contribute to Overview and Scrutiny's overall response to the budget which was being discussed by the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board on 30 January 2018.

The Panel received a presentation from the Senior Finance Manager (Financial Planning and Reporting).  In the course of the discussion, the following main points were made:

·       an extra £10.5 million was being invested in safeguarding vulnerable children in 2018/19 to improve outcomes for children and young people of which, £9.3m was for Children's Social Care placements and £1.2m for Children's Safeguarding including additional safeguarding staff capacity both in social work time and management to reduce caseloads, and increased management oversight.  £2m was "new" money

·       given that the current budget was not sufficient to meet the demands of the services, the Panel welcomed the recognition that the current shortfall would now be addressed by including the costs in the base budget for 2018/2019

·       service improvement remained as important as doing the right thing at the right time, this would help not only to deliver good services but achieve efficiencies

·       the Panel was concerned that there may be potential additional costs involved in the development of the Alternative Delivery Model (ADM) for Children's Social Care which were not included in the budget for 2018/19 (the Cabinet weren't deciding which ADM the County Council would support until it's meeting on 29 March)

·       there may also be a risk to future budgets of cost pressures associated with the ADM, which at present couldn’t be forecast

·       a projected saving of £210k was included in the budget for 2018/19 as a result of efficiencies being negotiated with Babcock.  The Panel learned that it appeared that some of the efficiencies being considered may impact on the provision of services for young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs).  The Panel was concerned about these reductions as this service had been instrumental in helping to reduce the number of NEET's in the County 

·       the Panel noted a significant overspend on placements due to growing demand for services and increasing complexity of need.  As at the end of November 2017, the Council had 76 more children in a placement than at the same point last year and 63 children in external residential placements

·       as with other authorities, Worcestershire was seeing a growth in complexity of need which meant that some children needed to be placed out of county, which in turn had an impact on the costs

·       the additional £400k for Children’s Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) Transport was welcome.  This was based on the expectation that demand for this service would increase

·       the Panel acknowledged the extra financial pressures on schools and noted the additional £1m for Education funding which replaces lost Government grant.

A summary of the Panel's comments would be agreed in consultation with the Chairman and after the meeting and submitted to the OSPB for consideration and forwarding on to Cabinet for its meeting on 8 February 2018.