Meeting documents

To consider a joint report by the Chief Financial Officer and the Director of Public Health.

The Board considered a joint report by the Chief Financial Officer and Director of Public Health which updated members on the forecast for 2016/17. This identified indicative savings of approximately £1.2m in 2016/17 and 2017/18 and a current reserve of £2.3m. It was highlighted that the reserve had been held to mitigate any risks arising from volatility in a) budget changes from the Department of Health (DoH) announced last year and b) cost and volume contracts. The report identified that there was much more stability in these areas and suggested it may be timely to consider redeploying some of these monies to priority areas better reflecting recent developments.

The priority areas which were prescribed by the DoH in the ring fenced grant were described and significantly how many of these were integral to the Prevention at Scale approach in the STP. It was suggested that the reserve in principle be moved to a PAS ‘account’ that would be enable projects to be developed by the respective Health and Wellbeing Boards to respond to the agreed STP plan. The Chairman reinforced that the monies were ringfenced and there were specific criteria where the monies could be spent.

Members from Bournemouth Borough Council advised that they had been given clear advice by their Section 151 Officer to reconsider these recommendations and to look to return the reserve to the respective authorities accounts.

The Vice-Chairman noted the advice from his Section 151 Officer was to have ultimate security of the money and for the reserve to go back to that authority (Borough of Poole). With regards to the in-year saving, he questioned whether that could be used for any business cases that came forward.

The Director advised that there were real challenges and risks in transferring monies back to general funds whilst reducing the funding of mandatory services many of which were provided by the NHS.  He indicated that this was an outline proposal about how we might best use the grant to address priority population health outcomes in line with DoH guidance on the use of the grant.

The Chairman felt that more clarity was needed; the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care was concerned that other members had received advice from their Section 151 Officers and proposed that the Board accepted the first part of the recommendation but to then bring a report back to the November 2016 meeting following discussions with Section 151 Officers and others.

Cllr Greene from Bournemouth Borough Council seconded the proposal and noted that November 2016 would still be in time in terms of internal budget setting and agreed it would be important to get other partners involved and see what they could bring to the table. 

Resolved

That the current budget position be noted and that following discussion with Section 151 Officers a further report be considered at the meeting in November 2016.

Reason for Decision

Close monitoring of the budget position was an essential requirement to ensure that money and resources were used efficiently and effectively and in line with grant criteria.