Agenda item

To consider a report by the Director of Public Health.

The Board considered the Finance Report on the use of each council’s grant
for public health, including the budget for the shared service Public Health
Dorset, and the other elements of grant used within each council outside of
the public health shared service.

The opening revenue budget for Public Health Dorset in 21/22 was £25.036M.
This is based on a combined Grant Allocation of £34.267M. Current forecast
outturn is £453K underspend, with more detail set out in section 10 of the report and in Appendix 1.

As at 31st March 2022 the ring-fenced public health reserve stands at £2.647M, with £1.046M potentially committed to different projects and
programmes.

The Board had agreed 2022/23 contributions from each local authority to
the shared service at their last meeting, including 60% of the 22/23 grant uplift - as set out in Appendix 2 of the report. This gave a 22/23 opening
revenue budget for Public Health Dorset of £25.615M.

What proportion each local authority retained of the grant to deliver other
services with public health impact was explained.

Each local authority retained a portion of the grant to deliver other
services with public health impact. The public health ring-fenced
conditions applied equally to these elements of the grant and therefore
the Board also monitored the use of the Grant in each council outside of
the shared service. In 2021/22 both councils broke even on their
retained grant. As with the Dorset council audit, the BCP audit showed
reasonable assurance on governance of the retained portions of the
public health grant (appendix 3).

For 2022/23, each council would retain additional funds equivalent to 40%
of the uplift to their public health grant. Plans for the use of the retained
grant in 22/23 were set out in section 13 of the report.

A range of additional grants and income were received by the shared
service in 2021/22 and are planned in 2022/23, with £0.8M additional
income spent in 2021/22, £1.4M of income carried over into 2022/23,
and an additional £0.9M income anticipated into the shared service in
2022/23. This excluded the Contain Outbreak Management Fund for
each council.

How future Covid 19 work, wider health protection work and Integrated Care
Services development were to be addressed was explained, as well as the
reasoning why allocations were made as they were.

The Board asked about the underspend, how this had come about and why this was the case. Officers explained that this had predominately arisen given the suspension of face-to-face health checks during the pandemic, but that a digital alternative had been able to be provide to some extent. It was anticipated that those monies would be able to be now spent again as more face-to-face assessments were again possible.

Resolved
The Joint Public Health Board is asked to:
1) That the 21/22 out turn of £706k underspend for the shared service and
break-even position for the grant retained within each council be noted.
2) That the 2022/23 opening budget for the shared service be approved.
3) That the 2022/23 plans for retained elements within each council be noted.

Reason for Decisions
The public health grant is ring-fenced, and all spend against it must comply with the necessary grant conditions and be signed off by both the Chief Executive or Section 151 Officer and the Director of Public Health for each local authority. The public health shared service delivers public health services across Dorset Council (DC) and BCP Council. The service works closely with both Councils and partners to deliver the mandatory public health functions and services, and a range of health and wellbeing initiatives. Each council also provides a range of other services with public health impact and retains a portion of the grant to support this in different ways.