Present:-

Councillors Randall Johnson (Chairman), Biederman, Dewhirst, Eastman, Hannaford, Hannan, Hosking, Mathews, Rowe and Squires

Members attending in accordance with Standing Order 25:-

Councillors Barker, Brazil, Clatworthy, Davis, Hart and McInnes

Apologies:-

Councillors Connett, Hone, Sellis and Sanders and Ms Fontana (Primary Parent Governor) and Mrs Mabin (Church of England)

*139 Minutes

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 8 January 2016 be signed as a correct record.

*140 Budget 2016/17

(Councillor Barker (Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care Health Services) and Councillor McInnes (Cabinet Member for Children, Schools Skills) attended in accordance with Standing Order 25(2) and spoke to this item at the invitation of the Committee)

(Councillor Biederman declared a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in this matter by virtue of his daughter receiving school transport as a child with special educational needs and withdrew from the meeting during the consideration of this element of the budget).

The Committee first noted that, in line with previous practice, the proposed budget for the 2016/17 financial year would be scrutinised collectively, with a joint meeting of Scrutiny Committees to be held on 29 January 2016, providing an opportunity for Members to comment on proposals for the Council s Budget in its entirety.

This would follow the opportunity for individual Scrutiny Committees - as at this meeting - to have an initial overview of the budget proposals and examine them to identify any specific issues or areas of interest that might be considered at the joint meeting referred to above for incorporation into any recommendations to Cabinet and Council.

The Committee then considered the Joint Report of the County Treasurer and the Strategic Director, People (CT/16/4 - supplementary information CT/16/4) on the provisional financial settlement made by Government within the current and anticipated public sector funding regime and the spending targets set by the Cabinet for People s Services which included inflation, commitments and service prioritisation reductions.

The Report also contained the detailed budget proposals for People s Services, prepared in line with those targets, reflecting the different pressures and influences faced by services. The proposed budget of 316,118,000 provided inflation and commitments at 36,052,000 and required budget savings of 19,876,000 within the proposed target budget of 443,500,000 for the Council as a whole.

Members noted that overall, service inflation and commitments for the Council for the year were estimated at 43,900,000 and that to manage those combined pressures and set a budget within Government provisional targets, total savings of 34,300,000 would need to be found in the 2016/17 budget. The announcement by Government on the final settlement and Council Tax Regulations was expected shortly.

The Committee were reminded that its consideration of the draft People s Services budget was just part of the process of setting the Council s budget which, following this meeting and the further joint scrutiny session on 29 January 2016 would culminate in the Cabinet on 12 February 2016 formulating a budget for consideration by the County Council on 18 February 2016.

The Strategic Director, People and Heads of Service, in commenting on the likely implications of the 2016/17 target for individual areas of service, confirmed that within those services the overall approach had been to strike a balance between the reality of the financial challenges facing the Council against the increasing demands of front-line services and operational demands in a time of organisational and transformational change. This involved not only driving out waste or unnecessary expenditure and increasing income but delivering services more effectively through cross-cutting strategies, collaborative working and the development of new delivery models including partnership working and joint venture arrangements. The Strategic Director highlighted four areas of focus across People s Services; namely performance, workforce, demand management and strategic commissioning and also drew attention to the uncertainties in Education and Learning partly due to the Government s intention to increase the number of academies, and an anticipated consultation on a national funding formula for schools. Increasing cost pressures in both Adult Social Care and Children s Services reflected the impact of the National Living Wage.

The proposed People s Services capital programme would continue to invest in the county s educational infrastructure and support development, inter alia, of multi-service hubs, extra care housing schemes and services within the Better Care Fund.

The Report now before the Committee also referred to the Budget 2016/17 Impact Assessment, circulated prior to the meeting, giving an overview of the impact assessments for all service areas (available at: https://new.devon.gov.uk/impact/published/budget-setting-201617/), for the attention of Members at this meeting in order that they may be aware of the equality impact assessments undertaken as part of the budget s preparation and that any risk assessments and projections were adequate and that the evidence supported the assumptions made in the formulation of the budget. That Assessment recognised that with the majority of savings strategies having been agreed in the 2015/16 budget there were few new proposals put forward for 2016/17. Acknowledging also that the preparation of Impact Assessments was necessarily a dynamic process and that individual assessments for specific proposals may necessarily have to be developed and updated with time, Members of the Council must have full regard to and consider the impact of any proposals in relation to equalities prior to making any decisions and any identified significant risks and mitigating action required.

Members recognised:

that the proposed budget acknowledged the need for more funding for Children s Social Work and Child Protection with a net increase of 11,300,000, within a net overall increase of 16,200,000 of the People s Services budget over the previous year, notwithstanding the savings required and delineated in the savings strategies analysis set out therein;

the continuing challenge of containing spending within budgets in People s Services with the statutory duty to meet the needs of the most vulnerable especially where those needs are difficult to predict and a market similarly influenced by external pressures.

Specific issues and observations arising from the current budget proposals raised at the meeting included the following, namely:

welcoming the increase of the People s Services budget and particularly that for Children s Social Work and Child Protection;

endorsing concerns expressed elsewhere at the impact of the late notification by Government of the provisional settlement upon budget preparation and time for effective scrutiny by the Council of proposed budgets and also for schools themselves with the final Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) not likely to be announced until the end of March 2016;

that Cabinet should be satisfied that there will be no repeat of the previous years experience where the level of projected savings was probably too great to deliver while also providing necessary improvements in quality at that time and that current strategies and plans to maintain and consolidate those improvements will be more accurate and confidence therein is not misplaced;

recognising that the volatility of markets - particularly in relation to Adult Services - could create difficulties for the Council going forward in the light of the obligation on it to ensure future market sufficiency for care services; assurances given at the meeting that current forecasts and proposed budgets were as accurate as possible and sufficient based on data available at the time those were prepared were to be welcomed; acknowledging also the consequences of any change in that position;

the potential impact of reduced funding from the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for Protection of Adult Services for 2016/17 through the Better Care Fund on service delivery by the Council and equally the uncertainty of any impact of the Success Regime on funding and services commissioned by the CCG and the implications for pooled funding in future years;

recognising any increase in Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) that may flow from the new national funding formula and the f40 campaign for increased funding for rural schools may reduce the impact on the Council s budget;

the continuing need across Adult and Children s Services for enhanced partnerships within the Council and beyond - working with CCGs and NHS providers to ensure a coherent, integrated approach to service delivery and a common approach to assessing and identifying need prior to any formal assessment of need by the Council against eligibility criteria.

Members also identified the following areas where the Committee might usefully ask for further information or undertake further scrutiny, viz:

that the Children s Standing Overview Group monitor closely the delivery of Early Help mechanisms, including family group conferencing and focusing on teenagers which it is anticipated will lead to fewer children entering care, to ensure these expectations are delivered;

that recognising the risks illustrated by the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care Health Services, a review be undertaken of the Council s planning for and possible interventions to ensure market sufficiency for care services and appropriate quality standards, and actions to monitor trends and service delivery to identify any potential budgetary impacts, including the needs and demands of providers and take-up of places in both the private and public sector.

It was MOVED by Councillor Randall Johnson, SECONDED by Councillor Hannaford and

RESOLVED that the provisional financial settlement and its impact on spending targets and on the proposed People s Services budget for 2016/17 be noted and the issues and/or observations set out above be drawn to the attention of the Joint Budget meeting on 29 January 2016.

*DENOTES DELEGATED MATTER WITH POWER TO ACT

The meeting started at 10.00am and finished at 12.30pm.

The Minutes of this Committee are published on the County Council s Website at:-