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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Clinton and Fortescue Rooms, Committee Suite - County Hall

Contact: Julia E Jones 01392 380547  Email: julia.e.jones@devon.gov.uk

Note: The meeting will be livestreamed, please copy and paste the following link into your browser: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZGM5NWM2NWUtOTlhOS00M2JmLWEyM2MtN2Q4ZDIyMmE5YjJl%40thread.v2/0?context=%7B%22Tid%22%3A%228da13783-cb68-443f-bb4b-997f77fd5bfb%22%2C%22Oid%22%3A%223d9c340a-0429-4b53-a982-1317fcf719c1%22%2C%22IsBroadcastMeeting%22%3Atrue%2C%22role%22%3A%22a%22%7D&btype=a&role=a 

Media

Items
Note No. Item

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81.

Items Requiring Urgent Attention

Items which in the opinion of the Chairman should be considered at the meeting as matters of urgency.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

There was no item raised as a matter of urgency.

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82.

Public Participation

Members of the public may make representations/presentations on any substantive matter listed in the published agenda, as set out hereunder, relating to a specific matter or an examination of services or facilities provided or to be provided.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

There were no oral representations from members of the public.

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83.

'Budget 2023/24 and Capital Programme for 2023/24 to 2027/28' pdf icon PDF 495 KB

Overall Approach

 

The 2023/24 budget proposals will be scrutinised with consideration of relevant service area budgets by Scrutiny Committees with the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Scrutiny Committee considering both its own budget responsibilities as well as any issues raised by the Children’s Scrutiny Committee and the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee, to produce an overarching set of recommendations.

 

This approach enables all Scrutiny Members to question and challenge the budget proposals across services, to better understand the implications of the budget proposals across the Council and to make effective recommendations to Cabinet and Council.

 

The proceedings of all Scrutiny Committees will be livestreamed and publicised through normal channels.

 

The Council must have full regard to and consider the impact of any proposals in relation to equalities prior to making any decisions, as set out in equality impact assessments, and any identified risks and mitigation action required.

 

Public Participation

 

There will be an opportunity for members of the public to address each Scrutiny Committee meeting and make oral representations/presentations on any matter relating to the proposed budget, in line with the public participation scheme.

 

This Meeting

 

At this and other Scrutiny Committees in the current cycle, Members are asked to identify salient issues within each Committee’s areas of responsibility, to examine the general thrust of the budget and take an overview of priorities and prospects.

 

At this meeting Directors / Heads of Services will report on

 

           the Cabinet’s Target Budget for Services and likely implications of the 2023/24 target for individual areas of service (e.g. in percentage terms compared to current levels) and how those areas have been prioritised;

           any comparisons between the current year and next year’s proposals for the major service areas, to illustrate the scale of change within those activities and how the budget has been allocated across services in those years (to illustrate changes of emphasis or priority);

           any “alternative delivery models” or other initiatives contemplated for given services and how it is thought that these may reduce costs; and

           impact assessments undertaken in relation to the draft budget.

 

 

 

Report and Budget 2023/24

 

Joint Report of the Director of Finance and Public Value; Director of Integrated Adult Social Care; and Director of Public Health, Prosperity and Communities (DF/23/03) on the proposed budget for Adult Social Care Services and Public Health for 2023/24, attached.

 

For ease of reference: Adult Social Care Service area(Page 12) and Public Health area (Page 20)

 

[NB: An overview of the impact assessments for all service areas entitled ‘Budget 2023/24 Impact Assessment’ has been made available to all Members of the Council so that Scrutiny Committees have access to all equality impact assessments undertaken as part of the budget’s preparation which will be available at Budget Impact Assessments - Impact Assessment (devon.gov.uk)

 

Members are asked to consider the contents and retain it for future meetings, accepting that individual assessments may be updated with time.  Members must have full regard to and consider the impact of any proposals  ...  view the full agenda text for item 83.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

(Councillor J McInnes attended in accordance with Standing Order 25(1) and spoke to this item in regard to the Health and Adult Care budget proposals and referred to a very challenging budget and the difficult financial times that the Council and others across the country were in. He highlighted that we were not yet post pandemic and the effect of that had been quite difficult particularly in social care. The proposed budget was to make social care sustainable in the longer term with a savings target of £30m).

 

The Committee noted that the proposed budget for the 2023/24 financial year would be scrutinised by the individual Scrutiny Committees.

 

The Chairs of the Children’s Scrutiny Committee and the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee would present any relevant resolutions and an overview of those issues arising to the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Committee.  This Committee would also consider the draft budget proposals within its own remit, providing an opportunity for Scrutiny Members to comment on proposals for the Council’s Budget in its entirety. The resulting resolutions from Scrutiny will be reported to Cabinet and Council.

 

This would follow the opportunity for individual Scrutiny Committees – 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 Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Committee for incorporation into any recommendations to Cabinet and Council.

 

The Committee then considered the Joint Report of the Director of Finance and Public Value and the Director of Integrated Adult Social Care and Director of Public Health, Communities and Prosperity (DF/23/03) on the provisional financial settlement made by Government and the spending targets set by the Cabinet for each service area which included inflation, commitments and any service prioritisation reductions. The Report also showed that no bids were received in regard to the Capital Programme for Integrated Adult Social Care.

 

The Cabinet, at its meeting of 11 January 2023, had set Revenue Budget targets for 2023/24. That Report outlined the targets in paragraph 3.8 which represented a net increase in service budgets of £66.2 million, which was a 10.5% increase.

 

As detailed within budget monitoring reports, significant pressures had been and were continuing to be experienced within Devon and across the country. The cost of living and geopolitical situation had created huge financial pressures nationally. As a consequence, the Authority had faced unprecedented price and demand pressures in the current year and although significant savings had been found to offset this many had been one off measures. In addition, there had been much more uncertainty in terms of central government funding to local government, combined with the most challenging budget round that the Authority had faced in recent decades.

 

Budget monitoring at month 2 identified an unprecedented forecast overspend and therefore since the month 2 report, a Financial Sustainability Programme had been set up to address the level of overspending. The programme had been successful in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 83.


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