To receive additional items that the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency, in accordance with Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

The Chair accepted an urgent report regarding the shaping of the Council and Budget proposals. Officers informed the Committee that following the Full Council meeting in February, no changes had been made to the budget proposals. In the current financial year the report set out the budget pressures in the Children’s Services and Environment departments.

Unaccompanied asylum seekers continued to present a financial pressure and the Council was due £400,000 from central government which covered the majority but not all of the cost incurred in supporting these people. The government was currently taking a position that it would now not reimburse this cost. There was also the general pressure of rising placement costs for children and also an increase in the amount of children needing placements, which in turn required more staff to support the work. The gross overspend of the Children’s Services department was £5.8 million.

Another budget pressure was regarding the surplus owed on Serco pensions which amounted to £2.5 million. The Council picked up this liability when it brought the Serco services back in house.  However, officers were confident all pressures had been mitigated and the Council would come in close on budget.

For 2016/17 officers were working on which pressures from the previous years would come over plus allocating growth funding. The Public Health budget had also been reduced by government by £924,000. This presented a big challenge.

For the years from 2017/18 to 2019/20 the Council was looking at a total reduction of budget by £18.5 million with £7 million being in the year 2017/18. This assumed there would be a council tax increase of 3.99% each year. If the Council wished to spend more money it would need to find this funding from elsewhere.

Budget Review panels would be in place for the next municipal year and services could be protected either by:

·         generating income,

·         becoming more efficient (through managing contracts and other means)

·         reducing the demand for certain services

·         reducing or stopping services.

The Chair explored the use of staff resources and wondered whether the services that were seeing greater demand could be bolstered by recruitment and whether vacancies in other services could be used to offset increasing staff in other areas. Officers stated that workflows were monitored  and staffing was altered as a response, although budgets were fixed within each service and the vacancies in these services could not be easily removed to send the funding over to another service entirely. Social Care services were under great pressure and staff efficiency in these areas was at maximum.  It was added that the majority of the social care budget was now focussed on commissioning and the staff were not necessarily internal Council employees. It was further added that the Council had invested in Local Area Coordinators who worked to reduce the demand on essential services.

Officers agreed that a strategic level the workflows of services could be looked at and the structure of the Council recalibrated to prioritise high demand services. Officers would undertake a metric based  assessment of services rather than simply monetary indicators and this would show which services were most important to the Council.

It was highlighted that other services such as Central Services had the majority of its budget invested in staff and certain services, like Legal Services, was focussing on income generation to maintain its service. There was currently no recruitment freeze although the use of agency staff was a challenge. Compulsory redundancies had been avoided by running a successful voluntary redundancy scheme.  

The Committee recognised that the budget review panel was an inclusive exercise that involved all political parties and was not a decision making body.

Resolved That:

1. The Committee note the financial pressures still being faced in    

    Children’s Services.

2. The Committee note the need to identify £18.5 million through a

    combination of additional income and cost reduction over the period

    2017/18 to 2019/20.

3. The Committee note the assumptions set out in the Medium Term

    Financial Strategy forecasts as set out in paragraph 4.2

4. The Committee recommend that at one of the first meetings next year,

     the committee receive and shape the terms of reference for the   

    second phase of the Budget Review Panels process, which will

    include the list of services and costings for the service.