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Agenda item

Scrutiny of the draft Capital and Revenue proposals for 2020-21 within the context of the four year Medium Term Financial Plan

Refer to the link below for details – Cabinet Agenda 20th December 2019:

 

·         Draft Capital Budget Proposals 2020/21 to 2023/24.

·         Draft Revenue Budget Proposals 2020/21.

 

https://democracy.monmouthshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=144&MId=4192

Minutes:

Given that we have already set the context for the budget saving proposals through discussing the pressures and you have had the proposals and the Wellbeing of Future Generations Assessments and the Cumulative Impact Assessments that went to Cabinet in December, we shall have a brief explanation of the savings proposals before taking questions.

 

The Finance Manager explained that the budget setting process for each year begins with an assessment of the baseline budget, the known pressures, the Welsh Government settlement and the Council Tax input and then try to bridge the gap between this with saving proposals. The headline is that we have a £5.5 million pressure for next year for this service area. The revenue budget is more relevant to this service area as it is not a major contributor to the capital budget. 

 

Headline Pressures of £5.5 million

 

·         £1 million pressure for adults with disabilities ~ due to increasing age of the population, increased demand for residential college placements and supported living placements and the throughput from children becoming adults.

·         £373k pressure for provider fee increases ~ this is tied into the recent announcement of living wage increase of approximately 6.2%.

·         Turning The World Upside Down (our domiciliary care model) ~ with unmet need outstanding, we will require £1.048 million extra funding for next year.

·         MIST project in children’s services (multi agency team looking at high end care for children) ~ requires £287k to increase team support.

·         In year pressures in children services of £2.6 million.

·         Proposal to bolster the safeguarding team at a cost of £153k.

 

Savings proposals totalling £1 million:

 

·         £116k as a result of Welsh Government increasing the non-residential weekly charge cap which will provide us additional income.

·         Renegotiation of the contract with the health sector on bed provision at Severn view contract which could amount to £166k.

·         Savings within legal provision in children’s services amounting to £100k.

·         MIST ~ whilst it is asking for £287k investment, it plans to deliver savings of £250k.

·         Overall fees and charges in social care (including public protection charges) amounting to £189k.

·         Some smaller efficiency savings

·         £150k as part of the practice change agenda

 

Challenge:

 

  • Why has the Integrated Care Funding for the MIST project ceased? 
    It was a specific project with Blaenau Gwent for a multi-disciplinary team for children’s services.

 

  • Whilst we are concentrating mainly on the adult’s services remit, recognising that the situation is likely to get increasingly difficult and acknowledging there needs to be a national solution, we still need consider how to balance our books. So in efforts to think outside the box, Turning The World Upside Down has been such a good example of innovative practice, would there be merit in investing in our own staff rather than commissioning commercial providers? 

The question of whether to ‘grow your own’ service through investing in your staff versus commissioning external provision is something that we have considered. We’ve had to consider whether it would work even if it was possible, because at the moment, we are struggling to attract staff and so is the private sector. It’s a massive nationwide problem.  Even if we had a huge cash injection, I’m not sure we could change that dynamic. We are having to be very creative as we receive the lowest level of funding and it has required us to be inventive.   Welsh Government are currently drafting a report “Rebalancing Care”, so it will be interesting to see if it addresses the issues and what the comparative picture is across Wales.

 

Outcome and Chair’s Conclusion:

 

The committee has found it really challenging to scrutinise this budget as we cannot draw conclusions that the service is significantly under resourced and we also recognise that staff are trying to be creative and think differently.

 

We have discussed the social care pressures in detail and we acknowledge that recruitment in the sector is a major issue.  We note the grant income received and the committee welcomes the approval to use capital receipts to assist the revenue budget position.  The committee remains concerned that the use of capital receipts to support the revenue position is an unsustainable approach to address the underlying budgetary issues already presented at month 7.

Members are pleased to see that no cost increase has been proposed for the community meals service.  Members also welcome the new monthly budget monitoring approach which is assisting departments in forecasting overspends and enabling mitigations to be put in place where possible. 

The committee feels strongly that the funding formula disproportionally disadvantages Monmouthshire and supports the Chief Officer’s attempts to raise this with Welsh Government and to request a funding floor, which would significantly assist Monmouthshire and several other rural authorities.  The committee supports the efforts by the Chief Officer for Resources and the Leader to progress via the WLGA an independent review of the formula and asked that a seminar be held in the Spring.

Supporting documents: