Agenda item

Adult Care & Community Wellbeing 2017/18 Outturn Projection

(A report by Steven Houchin, Head of Finance, Adult Care and Wellbeing, in connection with the projected outturn of the Adult Care and Community Wellbeing budget for 2017/18)

 

Minutes:

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Committee with an opportunity to consider the outturn projection for Adult Care and Community Wellbeing for 2017/18.  It was reported that the Adult Care & Community Wellbeing (AC&CW) net budget was £216.229m, and based on current information available to 31 October 2017, it was estimated that AC&CW would produce an underspend of £0.221m or 0.10% of the overall budget.

 

Members were also advised that the increasing strategic importance of the Better Care Fund (BCF) had also meant that the impact the AC&CW had to be reflected in service budgets.

 

Members were guided through the report and were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained in the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         It was highlighted that direct payments was a significant area of growth in terms of budget pressures, particularly in relation to the physical disability service.  A projected overspend of £1.300m was expected for the service with the average package of care was now costing £11,514 per annum.

·         In relation to the capital budget, it was noted that the County was hoping to work with North Kesteven District Council on the development of extra care housing schemes.  It was also commented that sites in East Lindsey were also being looked at.  It was planned that a report on housing would be brought to the Committee later in the year.

·         It was commented that one area which had come up three times within the report had been delays to assessments – fairer charging, LPFT and Deprivation of Liberty (DoL's).  It was queried whether this would be an easy issue to address.

·         In relation to DoL's assessments, members were advised that there were complications in carrying these out as there was quite a lot of legal work which needed to take place.  It was also noted that following the Cheshire West judgement, the authority had received a large amount of requests for assessments which had caused a backlog.  Members were also advised that there were several different aspects to carrying out a DoL's assessment.  It was reported that LPFT had been commissioned to undertake them, but there had been an almost 10 fold increase in requests immediately following the Cheshire West judgement.  It was also highlighted that for DoL's, three different assessments were required.  It was anticipated that the government would introduce a new scheme for processing DoL's assessments, but this was now 18 months overdue.  The authority had put aside £1.5m in the budget to tackle the backlog of requests, and it was expected that the backlog would be dealt with by the end of 2018.  It was hoped that going forward from this point, the authority would have a position it could maintain.  It was noted that the numbers of requests had increased from 10 per month to about 120 per month.

·         Members were advised that it was expected that government would introduce legislation to deal with DoL assessments by the end of the decade.

·         In relation to the capital fund, queries were raised regarding the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) as none of the funding had been allocated, it was commented whether this meant there had not been any applications within the county.  It was clarified that district councils also received DFG funding, and were responsible for allocating the funding for adaptations such as ramps, installation of wetrooms etc.  However, the money within the county council budget was capital funding and was to be used for those adaptations which were over and above what the district council could provide e.g. building of an additional room.

·         It was also commented that DFG's had gone up during this year, and they were likely to also go up next year.  The Executive Councillor advised that the district housing group was now looking at other ways to spend this money as the districts were receiving more funding than they needed for the applications submitted.  For example, one thing the Group was considering was renovating some of the districts' older housing stock which was no longer fit for purpose.  The City of Lincoln Council had recently commenced a project on this and would be helping those residents who were living in housing with less than satisfactory facilities e.g. inefficient heating systems.

·         It was highlighted that it was helpful that the report had listed the average price of a package of care for the physical disability service, and it was suggested whether this information could be included for each area.

·         Members were advised that, more often than not, Lincolnshire paid a rate lower than the national average per unit, and there was a very good robust process in place to ensure that providers could justify their fees and charges.

·         It was commented that this was a good news story, that the authority was robustly challenging the market.

·         It was also reported that dealing with the impact of the national living wage was having an effect on budgets.  However, officers were always looking for any developments taking place which could have a financial impact.

·         In terms of the missed financial assessments, it was queried whether this was a Serco or LCC issue, and if it was a Serco issue, would any charges go back into adult care.  It was commented that there was a view that it was a Serco issue as when the bid for the service was put in, they did not have a sufficient level of staff to support the service.  Additional money had been given to Serco to fund two additional posts to help mitigate this issue.  It was noted that any charges received from Serco would go back into the corporate budget rather than the adult care budget.

·         Clarification was sought regarding the reference to out of county sexual health services, and members were advised that this referred to those people whose home was out of county but they came into Lincolnshire for treatment.  It was noted that these patients were mainly students or those who lived on the edge of the county.

 

RESOLVED

 

            That the budget outturn projection for 2017/18 be noted.

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