Agenda item

(To receive a report from Mark Popplewell, Head of Finance – Children's Services, which invites the Committee to consider and comment on the 2022/23 budget implications for the Council's Children's Services activities)

The Committee considered a report which invited them to consider and comment on the 2022/23 budget implications for the Council's Children's Services activities. The Chairman invited the Executive Director – Children’s Services to present the report. Members were advised that, for 2022/23, the budget was balanced, however in 2023/24, 2024/25, and 2025/26 there were budget shortfalls of £9.335m, £6.480m, and £6.909m respectively. The Medium-Term Financial Plan included a number of savings and efficiencies which arose from various projects within the Transformation Programme. The Financial Volatility reserve stood at £44.483m and was considered at an acceptable rate. Members were given a breakdown of Children’s Education and Children’s Social Care Budgets. Children's Education service activities were proposing to make savings of £0.106m in 2022/23, of which smarter working savings contributed £0.105m. The Council responded strongly to a DfE consultation, exploring the removal of the funding for Local Authorities School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering Grant for school improvement activities supporting maintained schools, estimated at £0.585m. The Home to Schools and College Transport delivery and budget responsibility was proposed to be transferred to the Place Directorate from April 2022. It was reported that the Council had budgeted for a 2% pay award. Children's Social Care Services were proposing to make savings of £0.329m in 2022/23, £0.189m would be saved from smarter working arrangements. Children in Care (CiC) saw a cost pressure of £3.013m, through increased CiC numbers reflecting the impact of the pandemic. To address this, earmarked funding from the Council’s reserves was proposed. Additional cost pressures included a £0.386m increase in costs across the composition of placement types supporting this vulnerable group, a two per cent increase to internal foster carers’ weekly allowances from April 2022 and a further proposed cost pressure of £0.273m in relation to growth in the CiC population increasing by 0.5 per 10,000. The combined life costs of the Building Communities of Specialist Provision Strategy capital programme were £86.794m across five years from 2019. The new school funding requirement had reduced by £9.259m over the period to 2033/34 to £33.442m due to lower birth rates. Lincolnshire's indicative Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocation for 2022/23 was £675.176m and was used to support all schools in Lincolnshire.

Members of the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present, their responses are included below:

• The Home to School Transport budget had been moved to the Place Directorate as the commissioning of home to school transport was undertaken by Place due to the connections with the public transport network. As a result, this budget would now be reported to the Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee. A new transport management system had recently been implemented to support the delivery of operations but also to allow better tracking of the budget and the impact of the cost of each contract which would enable the budget to be better predicted. Children’s Services would continue to have oversight of the budget and delivery of home to school transport to ensure some consistency of expertise in this complex area. A cost pressure of around £6.5m had been identified for the Home to School Transport budget. Through transformation work, overall costs were planned to reduce by about £1.2m, leaving a net cost pressure of approximately £5.3m. The current transformation work was aimed at bringing these cost pressures down and to try to stabilise and galvanise the market to increase competition. The Committee requested a report back in six months’ time to consider how the transition has worked and the transformational changes which have been made in relation to Home to School Transport. 
• The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) delegated funding to schools and services to the sector were funded from the High Needs Block of the Dedicated Schools Grant which was under increasing pressure and was a significant financial risk for the Council. SEND spending levels was a national concern. The Children’s Education budget was for funding the SEND team, school improvement, safeguarding and other education support services.
• The lower average cost per child in care in Lincolnshire was due to the internal fostering service and the large number of foster carers working for the Council which made it more cost effective and better for the individual. Several other councils were more reliant on independent foster carers or the residential market which were more costly.

The Committee congratulated officers on an excellent report despite the difficult financial challenges facing Children’s Services and the Council.

The Committee was disappointed to learn of the removal of the funding for Local Authorities School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering Grant for school improvement activities supporting maintained schools, which would be managed by the Council from April 2022 while a review was undertaken. It was recognised that this could have a detrimental impact on small schools in Lincolnshire. The Committee requested a report back to a future meeting outlining some options and recommendations for responding to the removal of this funding.

RESOLVED

1. That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee agreed to unanimously support the budget proposals for Children's Services for 2022/23.

2. That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee agreed that the comments listed above be forwarded on to the Executive in relation to this item.