Agenda item

The Board was asked to consider the feedback provided by Scrutiny Panel Chairmen following the discussion of performance information and in-year budget monitoring information relating to Quarter 2 2020/21 (June to September).   In addition, feedback was also provided about the emerging challenges facing Directorates for the 2021/22 Budget.

 

Adult Care and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Panel (Cllr Jane Potter)

 

Performance – the planned admission rate of people admitted to care homes was an in improving picture, although significantly impacted by COVID-19. A knock on effect of this was the increase in the number of people living independently and staying at home, which was an improving picture too.

 

The number of annual care packages reviewed had dipped, but plans were in place to improve performance.

 

BudgetMonitoring – overall the current forecasted overspend was £260k, with learning disability and mental health services being the main areas of overspend due to increases in average unit costs.

 

The main reasons for the improvement in the forecast was tighter control on overall spend, the changed entry pathway into residential and nursing care and the decrease in the projected numbers of people coming into the care system, although the costs of those being placed were, on average, higher.

 

At the current time, the impact of the spend due to COVID-19 was covered by government grants.

 

2021/22 Emerging Pressures and Challenges – the key areas being reviewed by the Directorate were:

 

·         Nature of support (which was changing)

·         Unit costs for care provision including impact of inflation and National Minimum Wage

·         Market availability and ability to provide types of care needed by clients

·         “one system approach” to intermediate care and learning from the positive lessons of shared working with NHS, independent and voluntary and community sectors

·         Delivering the 2020/21 savings relating to organisational redesign which had been delayed due to COVID

·         Implementing a single “front door” for access to Council services

·         Working with key partners to develop integrated community offer Here 2 Help

·         Development of a strong digital offer for customers and clients

·         Moving towards a more “reablement” and “enabling” social care offer

·         Development a new “All Age Disability Offer”

·         Medium to long term impact of COVID-19.

 

 

Corporate and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel (Cllr Adam Kent)

 

BudgetMonitoring– The overall forecast was for an underspend of £559k for COACH and £113k for Chief Executives Unit.  The Key variances were:

·         Underspend within Property Services due to reduced contract expenditure and reduction in planned works for administration buildings

·         Underspend on Financial Services due to vacant posts and income generation

 

2021/22 Emerging Pressures and Challenges – The key areas being reviewed by the Directorates were:

·         Front door

·         Development of an asset management strategy

·         Review of the property portfolio including libraries and corporate accommodation 

·         Refresh and implementation of revised digital strategy

·         Delivering the 2020/21 savings relating to organisational redesign which have been delayed due to COVID

·         Maintaining and improving the quality of our digital network

·         Implementing a single “front door” for access to Council services

·         Medium to long term impact of COVID-19

·         Brexit.

 

Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Panel (Cllr Alastair Adams)

 

Performance – Quarter 2 performance on the whole was good, points of note were:

·         Performance was improving in respect of  outstanding Public Enquiries (PEMs).  In September 2020, there were 882 outstanding compared to 1615 in 2019.

·         % of Potholes fixed on time data - the Panel would be provided with some enhanced data for this area in future.

·         S278 technical approval data for Q4 – a couple of queries were outstanding.

 

BudgetMonitoring – Overall, the current forecast position was for an underspend of £23k.

 

2021/22 Emerging Pressures and Challenges:

·         Waste Management Contract which was due to be re-negotiated at the end of 2023

·         Development of a strong digital offer for our customers and staff.

 

Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel (Cllr Tom Wells)

 

Performance – The Panel received an update on the assessment and diagnostic pathway for children and young people who it was considered were, or may be, on the autistic spectrum (the umbrella pathway).  Although the Panel acknowledged the significant progress made, they were still very concerned about the length of waiting times from referral to diagnosis, and the impact on families.

Budget  - At period 6, the forecast expenditure on the Dedicated Schools Grant was £224m, a forecast overspend of £1.96m. The key pressures remained as previously reported to Panel – specifically Out of County provision and Post-16 provision in the High Needs block.

 

Crime and Disorder (Cllr Becky Vale)

 

The community safety work carried out through the Public Health Directorate was strategic, enabling and part of a wide partnership network and not a service as such. Partnerships and a range of working groups were supported through an officer presence and with advice and assistance where appropriate. The Council and Worcestershire Children First carried out community safety related work through their service teams such as GET SAFE, Safeguarding or Trading Standards, who operated in their own right and had their own budgets and any relevant performance information.

 

There was a high level strategic oversight through the Safer Communities Board, and the two Community Safety Partnerships (CSP’s) (which had Council representatives) which had a local, more operational focus and the legal duties. There was also a range of partnership groups for which support and oversight was provided as required. Therefore, there wasn’t a performance framework to which the team operated, but the work was picked up through team business plans and the plans of groups which they managed and supported. 

 

In normal times the community safety function was a very small staff team resource, reflecting its strategic role.  The size of the budget highlighted this and only covered staffing costs. The Team had now been significantly impacted by the need for the Public Health Team as a unit to respond to the COVID-19 emergency. At present the Principal Public Health Practitioner was the lead officer but covered other management roles including emergency planning and other non-community safety partnership public health work.

 

The Public Health Practitioner was the Council’s representative on the CSP’s and other groups and workstreams and led on specific areas such as Prevent. 2/3 of the time was spent on frontline public health COVID outbreak control duties in response to the emergency. 

 

The third Public health Practitioner, who had 50% of their time dedicated to strategic domestic abuse and related work, had since March been moved to COVID-19  response only as part of their role was health protection. That post was now vacant.  

 

The 20/21 budget for this area of work was £137,679.

 

Performance  - There was a range of complex data, produced in various formats, on many relevant crime and community safety topics that was available across Worcestershire, much of it from the Police, but also other agencies and groups. As previously discussed at the Board,  the team had started to look at creating a headline Dashboard that might  draw some of this information into an overview of key topics that didn’t duplicate what was already available. Work was underway on this but unfortunately, was paused due to COVID-19.