Agenda item

(To receive a report from Mark Popplewell, Head of Finance, Children's Services, which invites the Scrutiny Committee to consider the 2020/21 budget implications for the Council's Children's Services activities)

The Committee considered a report, which set out the budget proposals for 2020-21 for children's services, which were organised into four areas: children's commissioning and health; children's early help services; children's safeguarding; and education and special educational needs and disability services.  For each of these four areas, savings and cost pressures were detailed. 

The report also set out details of the schools budget, funded by the dedicated schools grant.  Unlike many local authorities, which were in deficit for their designated schools grant, Lincolnshire was in surplus, but this needed to be managed in the future.

The report provided details of the Council's ten year capital programme, which for children's services, included an allocation of basic provision school needs grant; and allocation for two small children's homes. 

The following points were clarified by the Committee through questioning:

·         There would be no impact on service delivery from the changes to the Children's Services budget.

·         The approach across the Council this year was to identify any savings by removing flexibilities from budgets, that could be given up to help with balancing the Council's budget to avoid making cuts to services and staffing.

·         The Home to School/College Transport budget would be directly impacted by any major increases in fuel prices.  Assurance could not be provided that there would be no cost pressure arising from fuel price rises. The budget had been reviewed and cost increases were considered and built within the 2020-21 requirements. This budget was monitored on a monthly basis, as it was volatile and demand-led. If a cost pressure arose, it would be reported through the budget monitoring process, and managed corporately.

·         The budget for the Building Communities of Specialist Provision Strategy consisted mainly of government grant funding. The government's Special Provision Fund allocations to transform SEND capital infrastructure was relatively small compared to what was actually required. The finances of this programme of works (£50.637m) were regularly reviewed as surveys and requirements of the schemes' progress, including the completion of capital appraisals for Executive approval and exploring alternative funding streams that come available.  It was agreed that a working group be established to consider the programme of capital scheme appraisals and undertake visits to some of the special schools to gain an understanding of the current situation and what was planned for them in the capital scheme appraisals.

·         All schools would be receiving an increase in per pupil funding under the schools national funding formula for 2020/21. There was a government review on how to make small schools more sustainable which may lead to greater certainty for small schools. It was suggested that the Committee considers the government review of school funding for small schools once it had been published.

RESOLVED

(1)          That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee's support for the children's services budget proposals for 2020-21 be recorded.

(2)          That the comments of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee on the children's services budget proposals for 2020-21 be forwarded to the Executive.

(3)          That a working group be established to consider the programme of capital scheme appraisals for special schools, comprising Councillors Mrs W Bowkett, C Matthews, S R Parkin, L Wootten, R Wootten and any other nominations from the Committee's membership received by the Senior Scrutiny Officer.