Agenda item

Report of the Chief Officer for Children’s Services (CS/20/12), attached.

(Councillor McInnes and Hall attended in accordance with Standing Order 25(1) and spoke to this item at the invitation of the Committee)

The Committee received the In-Year Budget Briefing Report of the Chief Officer for Children’s Services (CS/20/12) outlining those areas of specific pressures on the budget and on action being taken to address this.  The Report highlighted that as of September 2020, the forecast position for Children’s Services, including Public Health Nursing (PHN), was an overspend of £30.9m which included a funding shortfall for the Dedicated Schools Grant of £27.8m. The greatest cost pressures related to more children coming into care, placement mix and the SEND High Needs Block.  

The Report noted that the budget for the Service had been increased year on year, partly in response to the growth in demand/unit costs and partly to enable important developments, and due to the outcome of the OFSTED Inspection in March 2020, the Council had allocated a further £2.2m in 2020/21. 

Scrutiny Members had been examining the recruitment and retention of social workers; was recommending action to make the Council more competitive with neighbouring authorities; looking to reduce the current dependency on agency staff and build a permanent workforce which was both cost effective and would deliver improved service quality and improved outcomes for children.

At the time of writing, the High Needs Block of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) was projecting a cumulative funding gap for the end of the financial year of £47.7m.  The Council (and Government) recognised the national context of rapidly escalating demand and a legal framework that increased demand without the corresponding investment.  As per DfE Guidance, the Council has held the SEND funding gap on the balance sheet rather than showing it as an overspend in recognition that the DSG was not part of the

Council’s revenue budget.  A draft Statutory Instrument suggested that the deficit would be held until April 2023 within the balance sheet separate to the Local Authority’s budget, which was also designed to allow national and local government time to tackle and resolve the fundamental drivers of SEND demand.

Children’s Social Care had also seen a sustained increase in the number of children in care, building on increases in 2019/20.  There were three main reasons for the increase:

• Improvement work had driven a firmer and more timely practice response in neglect cases, eliminating the drift identified by Ofsted in ILACS 2020;
• COVID lockdown had increased pressure on families and reduced their resilience particularly where adult mental health was a factor; and,
• Courts during COVID had delayed hearings, including final hearings, leading to a delay in those children exiting care through Adoption, Special Guardianship or other family-based outcomes.   

The increase in the number of children in care coupled with placement mix (the balance of children in higher, medium and lower cost provision) accounted for most of the reported pressure in the in-year budget.

The Public Health Nursing Service (PHN) was in-sourced in 2019, and last year the Council supplemented the Public Health Grant allocation to PHN with an additional £1m.  The challenges of recruitment in PHN have not been fully resolved in 2020 although it was expected to be in 2021/22.

Members’ discussion points with Officers included:

·       The need for an update and review on the Sufficiency Strategy; 

·       the SEND overspend in the High Needs Block had previously been noted by this Committee and the Council, and the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services advised that the Council had been in contact with the government Minister, who had assured that investigations into SEND and High Needs block would be looked in to nationally to  understand the current pressures faced by local councils;

·       the spending variation across the country per child in the 0-25 age was between £274 - £1,075 –Members requested the figure for Devon’s spend per child;

·       the Edge of Care Service and the permanent costs per year required moving forward to allow better planning and reinvestment back into the service – Members were advised that the initial investment for Edge of Care was the business rates pilot, with the money saved being used to pay for the service moving forward;

·       updates on the pressures in the school transport budget (projected £2.1m overspend year to end with £1.6m related to personalised transport) - including market pressures over the past 18 months where businesses had ceased to trade and the Council had to look further afield to get providers in place at increased cost, and the number of children that required personalised transport to access education, such as those with EHCPs, had resulted in more individual taxis required thereby increasing the budget spend;

·       Public Health Nursing and any savings to be made and the recruitment of nurses to the service;

·       Ongoing work to explore and identify a range of possible options and areas of savings for the 2021/22 financial year, to look at where there is resource within Children’s Services that could contribute to the corporate challenge of ensuring a balanced budget;

·       Early Help funding and the need to focus on prevention, early intervention and the root causes to overcome challenges; and,

·       the suggestion that the Troubled Families initiative was renamed something more positive for families

It was MOVED by Councillor Hannaford, SECONDED by Councillor Aves and

RESOLVED that

Recognising that Early Help intervention achieves lasting and sustainable change for children and families, and that it is estimated that late intervention costs the public sector in England and Wales £16.6 billion every year, the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and Schools be asked to lobby the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Devon MPs to:

(a) ensure that 2021/22 local government settlement includes ringfenced funding for the troubled families programme so that Early Help services in Devon can continue to be delivered throughout the next financial year;

(b) make a long-term funding commitment to the Troubled Families programme (or equivalent), ensuring that local authorities and partners are able to make long term, sustainable plans to prevent children and families reaching ‘crisis point’, and support them to thrive into the future;

(c) consider providing authorities (such as Devon) who have consistently shown their ability to deliver lasting and sustainable change for families through the Troubled Families programme, with ringfenced funding based on population and need, rather than ‘results’.