Agenda item

Consideration was given to a briefing paper which the Board had requested to inform its approach to scrutinising emerging budget proposals for the 2019-20 financial year. The paper outlined the Council’s budget setting process for 2019/20 and the anticipated scale of the financial challenge in the medium term.

It was reported that the outline timetable for the budget setting process for 2019/20 required identified budget options to meet the estimated budget gaps for 2019/20 and 2020/21 by September 2018 in order to agree options for public consultation, supported by narrative on budget principles and approach by late September/early October. Within the timeline, consultation with Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on budget options was planned to commence on 3 October 2018, which would be followed by a detailed process of review of those budget options by Overview and Scrutiny Management Board and Cabinet Budget Working Group throughout October and November 2018.

Members noted that the finalisation of the budget proposals for 2019/20 was planned for the end of December 2018, following receipt of the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2019/20, which was expected to be issued by the Government in early December. The Budget and Council Tax 2019/20 report, incorporating the Medium Term Financial Strategy was proposed to be reported to Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on 13 February 2019, the Cabinet on 18 February 2019 and the Budget Council meeting on 27 February 2019.

It was further reported that the Cabinet had established the following Service Design Criteria, which were guiding the development of budget options:-

·         Enable more people to help themselves and each other, through customer insight, early help, early intervention, prevention and a strengths based approach to delivery.

·         Rationalise the Council’s estate, reducing the number of face to face delivery locations and ensuring that any delivery sites are co-located alongside other public services.

·         Share/integrate Council services with other public services where it makes sense to do so.

·         Move more transactions with residents online, with face-to-face delivery the exception rather than the rule.

·         Seek income generation opportunities that leverage the Council’s assets and resources and consider commercial opportunities.

·         Define, but continuously review, the Council’s core offer and stop delivering non-core services and/or seek income from residents/ businesses to fund non-core services. Consider around statutory and non-statutory service provision.

·         Consider withdrawal from the delivery or provision of services where there is a functioning local market and facilitate market growth aiming to keep value local.

·         Use incentives and sanctions in more creative ways to influence the behaviour of residents that better helps themselves and reduces cost to the Council.

·         Create the conditions for economic growth, employment and inward investment.

·         Test the 6 by 6 model for tiers of management/spans of control and benchmark against standard approaches.

·         Invest in the Council’s enabling functions, to drive efficiency, productivity and performance of council services, benchmarking with others.

·         Consider where there are invest to save opportunities to speed up service change.

·         Consider the needs of Neighbourhoods to inform service redesign.

Members reflected on the financial challenges faced by the Council, noting the specific challenges within adult and children’s social care services, and queried what proposals would be brought forward and whether re-engineering of business processes was happening. In response, the Chief Executive indicated that the recent Ofsted report could provide reassurance to Members around the quality of practice in Children and Young People’s Services, but acknowledged that further work was required to look at unit costs in both adult and children’s social care. Discussions also focused on the approaches that would need to be examined to assist in reducing unit costs associated with children’s social care and the need to move away from building based services. It was acknowledged that there would not necessarily be a eureka moment where solutions were identified and it would require ongoing work from Members and officers alike.

In response to a question around the state of the Council’s finances and the lessons from Northamptonshire County Council’s financial crisis, the Strategic Director of Finance and Customer Services confirmed that the authority was not in the same position as Northamptonshire. However, the need to address the budget challenges identified was amplified by the outcomes of the best value inspection at Northamptonshire.

Members echoed the comments that they had reported following the previous two years of budget scrutiny in respect of the timely submission of proposals for scrutiny and consultation with the public. The Leader of the Council acknowledged the frustrations of Members and provided further assurances that the Cabinet was meeting regularly to analyse early budget options so that they could be submitted for scrutiny at an earlier point. Further reflections on the impact of government intervention were also used to explain the difficulties in developing longer-term financial plans, however Members were advised that the longer term view was part of the Cabinet’s considerations. An important area of work was revisiting previously agreed savings to ensure that those targets had been met and budget savings delivered.

Resolved:-

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board, Leader of the Council and the Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Finance meet to discuss the development of the budget in more detail to inform the scrutiny process for the 2019-20 budget.