Meeting documents

To consider a report by the Chief Financial Officer (attached).

The Committee considered a report by the Chief Financial Officer that provided an update against the budget for 2016/17 based on the latest information from Directorates.

The report was introduced by the Chief Accountant who provided the latest forecast overspend of £6.6m, a further improvement from the £7.6m outlined in the report.  This had been largely due to savings arising from the Dorset Waste Partnership in addition to modest reductions in other areas. He advised that the first forecast of outturn for financial year 2017/18 was not on track in certain areas and that better progress should have been made prior to commencement of the 2017/18 budget.

The Committee noted the £2m overspend arising from the number of Looked After Children, in addition to the £4m of additional funding and were not reassured that the numbers and rising costs of Looked After Children would improve in the way anticipated by officers.  As a customer driven department, members did not consider it possible to forecast significant changes making the budget unrealistic.  It was recognised that, whilst that the Adult and Community Services budget would be helped by changes to funding of the social care funding, there was a lack of evidence or Plan B to explain how the overspend would be reduced in the area of Children’s Services.

The Chairman asked what would happen if a similar budget position occurred at the end of 2017/18 and was informed that this would require the use of earmarked reserves set aside for a specific purpose, however, this was not a sustainable position beyond one or two years.

The Head of Design and Development referred to actions being taken in three areas of overspending including SEN travel, Looked After Children and use of agency staff (outlined below) and stated that a further report on progress could be provided at the next meeting in July 2017.

• The Improvement Board for SEN travel had been effective in reducing the overspend during the current year and had reviewed some of the processes, such as the criteria relating to personal assistants and undertaking trials in order to reduce the number of sole travellers;
• A Strategy to reduce out of county placements;
• Family partnership zones to identify families that would benefit from early intervention;
• Changes to taxation rules in respect of agency staff had led to benefits in being employed directly by the local authority.  A rolling advertisement had led to the employment of 3 Team Leaders and an additional 17 social workers across all social work levels with a further 15 interviews for social work being held the following week.

The Group Finance Manager described issues of high needs, huge demand and complex cases requiring expensive educational placements as having had a big impact.    SEN reforms had introduced additional pressure due to the rising age range from 19 to 25 years old.

Councillor Robert Gould, Leader of the Council, stated that a further report would be helpful in providing more detail on progress.  The reinvigorating social work programme funding was positive step and although this did not represent a long term solution this pressure had at least been recognised.  Other positive impacts included the 100% retention of business rates, a revised Better Care Fund and calculation of the relative needs formula, particularly for rural areas.

Resolved

That a report be considered by the Committee at its meeting on 24 July 2017 that provides a further update on progress (using whatever is provided for directorate management team or CLT) to include further detail on the actions being taken to address the budget overspend.