Agenda item

Cabinet Portfolio: - Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance

Strategic Directorate: - Finance and Customer Services

Consideration was given to a report that was submitted for pre-decision scrutiny ahead of the Cabinet meeting scheduled for 14 February 2022 that detailed the Council’s financial position as at the end of December 2021 based on actual cost and income figures for the first nine months of 2021/22. It was noted that the report was the fifth of a series of financial monitoring reports for the current financial year. The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance, the Strategic Director – Finance and Customer Services, the Assistant Director - Financial Services and the Head of Corporate Finance attended the meeting to present the report.

The report stated that as of November 2021 the Council was expecting to deliver the overall outturn within budget for the financial year 2021/22. It was noted that while the Directorates had a current forecast year end overspend of £8.2m on General Fund expenditure that this should be mitigated by the Government’s provision of COVID-19 emergency support grant and Sales, Fees and Charges Income Compensation. It was noted that the longer-term impacts of Covid-19, public health measures and the pace at which services could return to normal was unknown and that was situation was being further exacerbated by current uncertainties that had been brought about by the Omicron Covid-19 variant that had the potential to create further financial implications for the Council.

The report also provided a detailed narrative for the budget position of each directorate. The report also provided information on the delivery of previously agreed savings, the position of the Housing Revenue Account and the delivery of the Capital Programme.

Members noted the projected overspend and the delayed delivery of savings in the Children and Young People’s Services directorate and asked whether in this context that the directorate’s budget was realistic. The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance advised that the budget was realistic but noted the pressures that the budget was under due to the high cost of placements for looked after children. The Cabinet Member noted that the challenges presented by high costs of placements was not unique to Rotherham as this was an issue facing local authorities across the country. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services, who was in attendance at the meeting advised that the transformation activity that was being carried out in the directorate aimed to reduce slowly and safely the number of children who required to be placed into care as the high cost of some placements was a key area of budget pressure. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services advised that activity around commissioning and working collaboratively with regional partners would aim to get better value and drive the costs of placements down. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services also advised that increased spending on Early Help Services would also help to reduce demand for more costly interventions by supporting families at early stage and reducing the number of children that required being taken into care at a later stage.

Members sought further information on the Children and Young People’s Services budget and asked whether the budget was realistic given that the budget had been overspent for a number of years. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services noted the pressure that the cost of placements had been placing on the Children and Young People’s Services budget for a number of years. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services assured members that that all budgets across the Council were set after having given consideration to challenging but realistic assumptions. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services advised further that with regard to the cost of placements that a single placement for a child with a number of complex needs could have a significant impact on the budget. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services assured members that whilst reducing the cost of placements was a key objective for the Council that the activity required to do so would take time.  The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services also noted the impact of the pandemic and the pressure that it had placed on budgets across the Council.

Members asked whether the pandemic related pressures that had been experienced by children and families, including safeguarding issues had impacted on the Children and Young People’s Services budget and on the level of overspend. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services assured members that significant work was being carried out in the directorate to look at the impact of the pandemic on children and families. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services noted the work of the Education Recovery Cell that was looking to establish the impact of children being away from school and to determine the required actions that may be needed to be implemented in order to mitigate the impact. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services also noted the work that had been carried out across the Rotherham Safeguarding Partnership in in order to keep children safe throughout the pandemic. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services advised that demand for services throughout the pandemic had fluctuated, and that whilst the number of children coming into care had not increased, that due to other factors such as court delays it had meant that children had spent longer in the care of the Council than had been the case previously that had resulted in an increase in the cost of placements overall.

Members asked for further information on the predicted outturns for the directorate budgets across the Council and how confident officers were that balanced budgets would be able to be delivered when the Covid related grants that had been received from the Government were no longer available. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services advised that due to the huge uncertainties that had been created by the pandemic that it was very difficult to assess its ongoing impact into the future on Council budgets. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services also noted that the Government had not provided support for all lost income that had been experienced by the Council and the redirection of resources within the Council had also had an impact on budgets. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services noted that as not all the funding from reserves that had been allocated to support budgets in the current year had been fully utilised then these would be available to support budgets in future years.

Members noted the pressure on Adult Care services and asked for further information on how in this context the service had been able to deliver £3million of budget savings. The Acting Strategic Director for Adult Care, Housing and Public Health, who was in attendance at the meeting advised that during the pandemic many services that would have previously been funded by the Council had been funded by health partners. The Acting Strategic Director for Adult Care, Housing and Public Health also noted the impact of some services not being accessed as they normally would have been and by lower numbers of people in residential care during the pandemic on the Adult Care budget and underspend.

Members asked for further information on the factors that had enabled the Assistant Chief Executive’s directorate to achieve a predicted underspend of £400,000. The Assistant Chief Executive, who was in attendance at the meeting advised that the underspend and been created by a review of the structure of the HR Service and a resulting period where several posts were vacant. The Assistant Chief Executive advised that as these posts had now been filled the underspend would not be repeated in future years.

Members asked for further information on the reasons for the projected overspends on the transport for children budget. The Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment, who was in attendance at the meeting advised that much of the pressure on the budget was related to home to school transport and factors such as increased demand and the increased costs being faced by the transport providers. Members were assured that a working group had been established that was looking how to the pressures that were being face could be mitigated.

Members noted the current cost pressures being faced by the Children and Young People’s Services budget and asked how much of this pressure would move to adult services budgets as young people transitioned to adult services. The Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services advised that joint working between the two directorates to plan these transitions would always take place at the point where a young person was moving to adult services. The Strategic Director for Finance and Customer Services noted that a financial assessment would also always be carried out at the point of transition between services.

Members noted the significant impact that the restrictions that had been imposed during the pandemic had had on the budget for culture, sport and tourism and asked for information on how audiences were being encouraged to return to the Civic Theatre. The Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment noted that after taking the opportunity provided by the enforced closure of the theatre during the pandemic to carry out maintenance and improvements, that the theatre had reopened in September 2021. The Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment advised further that audiences had been returning to the venue and noted that work was being carried out with partners and in the service in order to encourage more people to return to the theatre.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance, the Strategic Director – Finance and Customer Services, the Assistant Director - Financial Services and the Head of Corporate Finance and the other Strategic Directors for attending the meeting and answering member questions.

Resolved: -

That Cabinet be advised that the recommendations be supported.