Agenda item

Children's Services Budget Proposals 2014/15 and 2015/16

(To receive a report which invites the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee to consider a report on Children's Services budgets for 2014/15 and 2015/16)

Minutes:

The Committee received a report which provided an opportunity to consider the Children's Services budgets for 2014/15 and 2015/16.

 

It was reported that the authority's vision was for "Every Child, in every part of the County to achieve their potential" and were underpinned by a number of principles which determined how services were commissioned and delivered in order to achieve the vision.  These principles included Early Help; Safeguarding; Aspiration; Learning and Achievement; and Best Use of Resources.  There were also four commissioning strategies within the Children's Services area which were:

·         Readiness for School;

·         Learn and Achieve;

·         Readiness for Adult Life;

·         Children are Safe and Healthy.

 

It was reported that the overall funding for these four commissioning strategies was £102.281m, of which £39.508m was determined as a high priority service, with the remaining services being a medium priority.

 

The Committee was guided through the report, and some of the points highlighted to members included the following:

·         The proposals including the protection of services for safeguarding children, and it was noted that it was positive that the authority was in a position to be able to do this;

·         Lincolnshire had the 2nd lowest planned spending on Looked After Children.  This included fostering, adoption, residential care and leaving care support (£146 per pupil compared to the England mean of £277 per pupil);

·         Lincolnshire had the 5th highest planned spending on home to school and college transport (£244 per pupil compared to the England mean of £120 per pupil);

·         Since the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010, Children's Services had worked hard to deliver a significant level of savings, and had been highly effective in reducing its spend;

·         Savings of £27.631m in the period 2010/11 to 2013/14 had been delivered, and officers were confident that the savings for the current year of £2.626m would be delivered in full;

·         Lincolnshire was seeing a significant demand for children's social care, due to a sharp rise in looked after children;

·         A number of savings within Children's Services had been identified to be delivered within 2015/16 following the Fundamental Budget Review process;

·         The majority of capital spend in relation to schools was used to ensure sufficiency of school places;

·         An additional £500,000 had been requested to provide support for foster carers and adoptive parents who needed extensions to their properties.  This would usually involve ensuring the suitability of accommodation for children with disabilities and enabling properties to be developed in order to provide increased living space for siblings to be placed together for permanence or adoption;

 

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

·         Provisional budget information had been received which indicated that £5m of funding would be transferred from NHS England as part of the health visitors programme.  Due diligence was ongoing around this at the moment, but it was thought that there was likely to be a 'sunset clause' so the authority would not be able to do anything differently for the next 18 months;

·         Concerns were raised regarding the proposals to withdraw funding from the initiatives in schools which supported schools in addressing health outcomes using universal services to promote positive health messages.  Members were advised that there was a need to make savings, and that many schools had underspends in their budgets and they were able to buy in these services if they felt they were appropriate;

·         Schools and teachers were very aware of the healthy schools agenda;

·         There were concerns that the withdrawing of some of these initiatives could mean that more social workers were required in the future;

·         There would still be targeted programmes running in deprived areas, i.e. Positive Futures;

·         Reductions to the school improvement service were not seen as a significant risk, as with more schools moving towards becoming academies, less support was required;

·         The Music Service would be considering and consulting on changing to a new delivery model as without local authority funding it would be eligible for other grants, which could make the service stronger;

·         Schools did receive money for sports, and officers were confident that schools would meet the gap and put interventions in place;

·         Concerns were raised regarding the removal of county council funding from the Music Service, and it was commented that there was no evidence that it would be successful in gaining additional grants;

·         It was commented that those children who would suffer most would be those whose parents could not afford to pay for the music lessons.  There were concerns that this could have far reaching consequences;

·         It was suggested whether the discretionary element of school transport could be looked at as an areas to find extra funding for services such as the Music Service.  However, members were advised that most of the funding was allocated to the statutory element of the service with grammar and post 16 being the main non statutory transport issues;

·         Members were informed that of the £200,000 proposed cuts to the Music Service, just under £100,000 of that related to 2 management positions;

·         It was suggested that it would have been helpful if the report had shown how much of the total budgets of each activity the proposed reductions equated to;

·         It was queried whether the authority could apply to the government for more money, as children were entitled to music and arts under the national curriculum;

·         In terms of the School Improvement Service, any move to a new model would require pump priming and investment.  Schools were funded separately, and their budgets went to the Schools' Forum meeting for considerations.  The Dedicated Schools Budget was £480m and was ring fenced for education;

·         Any proposal around the stopping of any service would be subject to consultation and impact analysis;

·         The total underspend by schools was significant and was about £20m;

·         There was no suggestion that any money should be taken away from schools;

·         All grants that were provided to foster carers were subject to legal agreements, and if the person stopped being a foster carer, the money could be reclaimed;

·         It was commented that the concerns regarding the Music Service were understood, but thought that it would be useful to see some modelling regarding what additional resources could be gained that they were not currently eligible for as it received funding from the County Council.  It was also considered important that the costs of music lessons remained at a level that was accessible;

·         It was commented that the authority frequently lobbied for increases to the schools grant, but counties always struggled in this area.  It was also noted that the government was not particularly happy about schools having underspends.  The Dedicated Schools Budget had been increased by approximately £3.7m which was some recognition for the problems faced by shire counties;

·         There was a policy in place which allowed for a carry forward of 8% of the budget for primary schools and 5% of the budget for secondary schools.  It was noted that any money which was clawed back from schools would need to be given back in equal parts to all maintained schools and academies;

·         Within Children's Services there was normally an underspend of approximately £1m to carry forward to the following year, but it was not thought that it would be this much for this year.  It was more likely to be about £500,000;

·         There was a lot of work underway to make efficiencies within home to school transport;

·         One of the challenges of the curriculum was that it did not create the additional time required for teachers to provide these services themselves.  There was often not time in the school day due to teachers having to fulfil Ofsted requirements

·         Members were reassured that the authority was arguing nationally on the transport issues, and it was felt that there should not have to be a compromise for rural counties;

·         There were concerns that the training given to governors was minimal, and the Executive Director agreed to look into the issues around governor support;

·         It was noted that the LGA Children's Board had asked the government to carry out a review of Ofsted;

·         In relation to the reduction of funding to Children's Centres of £0.9m, this would include withdrawal of services such as debt advice, counselling services, reduction to Homestart etc.;

·         It was noted that these were currently proposals and there would be a need to consult and undertake impact analysis before any decisions were made.

 

RESOLVED

 

1.    That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee support the proposed budget;

2.    That the following comment be passed to the Executive:

·         That the withdrawal of funding from sports provision, children's centres and the music service should be reconsidered;

 

 

 

Supporting documents:

 

 
 
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