Agenda item

The Board was asked to consider and comment on the feedback from Scrutiny Panel Chairmen following the discussion of Quarter 4 (January – March 2019) performance monitoring and 2018/19 year-end budget monitoring information and determine whether any further information or Scrutiny on a particular topic was required.

Adult Care and Well-being Panel

The Chairman of the Panel had given her apologies and had provided an update for the Board which was read out by the Democratic Governance and Scrutiny Manager.

Finance - Adult

·         Overall, there was a £12.4m overspend due to increased client numbers and unit cost for older people, physical, disability, learning disability and mental health services

·         Support services historic savings targets had not been achieved and were offset by an additional government grant

·         Integrated Commissioning Unit - vacancies and additional grants and health contribution income received

·         Improved Better Care Fund reduced call in contingency set aside for care price review with learning disability providers

·         £0.602m reduction in forecast overspend since period 11.

Finance – Public Health

·         Overall, there was a £0.10m underspend due to strategic functions staffing vacancies with within the Team and future fit savings offset by investment in other Council services.

·         Adult Services reduced spend against Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) contracts including sexual health, social prescribing and health checks

·         Children’s services investment in Council positive activities

·         Council services increased public health investment on Public Health Ring-fenced Grant eligible Council services.

Future scrutiny meetings were going to be set to align with the financial calendar so that budgets could be monitored more efficiently.

Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel

The Chairman of the Panel reported that although there had been an overspend of £8m on the Higher Needs budget this was not as high as other authorities.  A recovery plan was required for this.

An overspend of £0.2m on adult learning was unexplained and had not been predicted. 

Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Panel

The Chairman of the Panel reported that he was pleased with the budget and performance information being received by his Panel and looked forward to receiving more timely quarterly reporting, which he advised should be happening for January 2020.

The Directorate underspend of £4.69m, had helped to offset the Council’s overall overspend for the year ending March 2019, which as reported to Cabinet in June was £2m.

There had been increased use of capitalisation, which was currently running at around £7.5m per year and £5m had been taken off the base budget.  It was acknowledged that there were risks associated with this approach.

Corporate and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel

The Chairman of the Panel reported that although there had been a Council wide financial challenge in 2018/19, the Directorate had achieved a £1.127m underspend, due to factors including additional income, lower than anticipated spend relating to repair and maintenance, deleting vacant posts and reducing the number of placements on the Graduate/Apprenticeship Programme.  In relation to Communities, there had been an overall underspend of £170,000, mainly due to one-off additional Public Health funding.