Agenda item

Mark Scarrott, Finance Manager (Adult Services) presented the submitted report which provided a financial forecast for the Adult Services Department within the Neighbourhoods and Adult Services Directorate to the end of March 2010 based on actual income and expenditure to the end of November 2009.

The latest budget monitoring report for Adult Services showed some underlying pressures, however after taking account of a number of achieved savings and assuming the achievement of all management actions implemented to address identified pressures it was forecast that there would be an overall net overspend of £189k by the end of the financial year.

Management actions of £1.139m had been identified to reduce the budget pressures. A total of £954k had already been achieved to-date and were now included in the detailed forecasts. This reduced the underlying pressures to £374k and left a balance of £185k identified management actions to be achieved by the end of the financial year. The Directorate was continuously reviewing planned spend to identify any further potential opportunities to mitigate the remaining forecast overspend. 

The latest year end forecast showed the main budget pressures in the following areas:-

• Home Care as a result of delays in shifting the balance of provision to the independent sector (+£572k). The 70/30 split was achieved at the end of July 2009 and the balance had now moved beyond 70/30 towards an 80/20 ration that the Cabinet recognises as the optimum level based on experience elsewhere in the country.
• Increase in residential and nursing care short stays over and above approved budget for clients with a physical and sensory disability (+£147k).
• Independent sector home care provision for Physical and Sensory Disability clients had increased by an additional 970 hours since April 2009 and a further 38 clients were now receiving a service. This was resulting in an overspend of £352k against the approved budget.
•  A significant increase above approved budget in clients receiving a Direct Payment within Physical and Sensory Disabilities and Older Peoples Services (+£280k), reduced by Social Care Reform Grant Allocation of (-£100k).
• Additional one-off expenditure was being incurred in respect of the costs of boarding up, removal of utilities and security costs at the former residential care homes prior to them transferring to the Council’s property bank (+£200k).
• Delays in the implementation of budget savings agreed as part of the budget setting process for 2009/10 in respect of meals on wheels (+£241k), laundry (+£125k) and the bathing service (+£40k).
• Continued pressure on the cost of external transport provision for Learning Disability Day care clients (+£134k).

The above pressures had been reduced by :-

•  Additional income from continuing health care funding from NHS Rotherham (-£222k).

·        Delays in the implementation of new supported living schemes within Learning Disability services (-£395k).

·        Savings within independent residential care due to an increase in income from property charges (-£586k) and slippage in intermediate care spot beds (-£40k).

·        Savings on the reconfiguration of Extra Care housing (-£340k).

·        Planned delay in developing rehabilitation and supported living facilities for clients with a physical and sensory disability (-£157k) plus agreed delay in developing respite care provision (-£157k).

·        Slippage in recruitment to a number of new posts (-£74k) where additional funding was agreed within the 2009/10 budget process.

The Directorate continued to identify additional management actions to mitigate the outstanding budget pressures above and a number of management actions had already been achieved (£954k) and were included in the financial forecasts. These included additional savings on supported living, residential short stay placements, independent residential care costs within Older People services and savings from the decommissioning of in-house residential care.

Members had requested that all future reports included details of expenditure on Agency and Consultancy. This report detailed the monthly spend on Agency for Adult Services.  There was no expenditure on consultancy to date. Total Agency spend from April to November was £308,282  

To further mitigate the financial pressures within the service all vacancies continued to require the approval of the Directorate Management Team.

There was also a moratorium in place on uncommitted, non-essential non-pay expenditure.

Budget meetings with Service Directors and managers took place on a monthly basis to robustly monitor financial performance against approved budget including progress on delivering the proposed management actions and to consider all potential options for managing expenditure within the approved revenue budget.

A question and answer session ensued and the following issues were raised:-

• Reference was made to the shift from 70/30 to 80/20 and that there had not been an official minute agreeing this.  It was agreed that the Director of Health and Wellbeing would prepare a report giving details of how the split between in house and the independent sector would work in the future and to gain formal agreement for this to happen.
• Concern was raised that there had been no budget set in respect of the decommissioning of the in-house residential homes.  It was confirmed that no consideration had been given because it had been expected that all homes would have been closed prior to the end of the 2008/09 financial year and that there had been delays in decommissioning the utilities in particular.  It was however agreed that this should have been considered.