Agenda item

The Leader and Chief Executive were invited to attend the meeting to update Members of the Board on the new and emerging pressures for the Council likely to impact on the 2023/24 budget and medium-term financial plan.

By way of introduction, the Leader made the following introductory points:

·         This year was the first post Covid year without the Covid support funding from Government.

·         The demand for adult social care was reverting to pre-Covid patterns.  The demand for residential care was increasing and the cost and complexity of care packages was rising.

·         Whilst the Council had invested heavily in children’s social care and reducing the number of children entering the care system, there were placement pressures on the number, complexity and cost of packages.

·         There were significant cost pressures around home to school transport, inflation pressures relating to staff pay and fees and charges which were not unique to Worcestershire.

·         The Autumn Statement was better than expected.

·         The adult social care reforms had been delayed until October 2025.

·         It was expected that the Government Settlement would be announced around 21 December and the draft Budget Report would be published around 23 December 2022.

During the opportunity for questions, the following main points were made:

·         Last year, there had been a  provision of 1.25% for staff pay increases in the Budget, whereas the actually increase was approximately £2000 per member of staff equating to a £4m cost pressure this year.

·         It was suggested that there were pressures around staff shortages and some councils were offering pay levels which could not be matched in Worcestershire and were not sustainable in the long term.  Recruiting experienced social workers was challenging and Worcestershire had lost some staff to London Councils.  Although pay rates in Worcestershire were not the highest, the Worcestershire package was good and Worcestershire was a nice place to work.

·         A Member suggested it was a ‘perfect storm’ in terms of staff recruitment.  In response, the Chief Executive explained that there was a ‘hot’ market for recruitment.  Worcestershire was able to recruit and had recently appointed a Director of Public Health and a Monitoring Officer; the process was just taking longer.

·         Worcestershire had adopted a flexible working model between office and homeworking (according to business need) with staff working 2 days (pro rata) in the office.  General feedback from staff was that they welcomed the mixed model.

·         A Member raised a concern about the difficulties of recruiting staff to work in domiciliary care, which the Chief Executive acknowledged was a challenge.

·         The Chief Executive believed that the Integrated Care System was a real opportunity for Worcestershire partners to work together to deliver more efficient services to its communities.

·         In response to a Member question about whether consideration had been given to disposing of some of the Council’s assets to raise money, the Leader confirmed that this was not an option being considered as the use of the Councils assets were being maximised.

·         In terms of fees and charges, this was not an area which had been looked at yet as there was limited scope for alteration as most were set nationally.

·         It was acknowledged that the lateness of the Government Settlement meant the timescale for developing the Budget proposals would be tight.  The Chief Executive explained that there was baseline data and some assumptions made in developing the proposals before the final Settlement was received. Also the Local Government Association and County Council’s Network were a source of information in the planning process.

·         A Member suggested that Scrutiny should be involved in the Budget setting process earlier in the year in order to have a more meaningful policy development role.

It was agreed that given the tight timescale around the Government Settlement, the involvement of the Scrutiny Panels in the Budget setting process would be around scrutinising the draft Budget Proposals. Looking ahead to 2023, Scrutiny Panels should use the quarterly performance and budget monitoring information to identify trends and challenges and help develop policy.

The Chairman thanked the Leader and Chief Executive for attending the meeting.