Agenda item

Children's Services - Budget Monitoring - Month 3

To consider PowerPoint presentation.

 

Note – the Chair will allow 20 minutes for this agenda item.

Decision:

The Committee received a presentation which provided an update on the budget position for Children’s Services - Month 3 (2024/25), with a £5.4m forecast overspend (3.8% of budget). The overspend predominantly relates to external placements (residential, unregistered), education cost pressures, DSG High Needs Block.

 

The Committee noted the update position.

Minutes:

The Committee received a presentation from the Council’s Head of Finance Business Partnering, C Evans who provided an update on the budget position for Children’s Services - Month 3 (2024/25), with a £5.4m forecast overspend (3.8% of budget). The overspend predominantly relates to external placements (residential, unregistered), education cost pressures, DSG High Needs Block.

 

The Committee discussed the update, asked a number of questions and made a number of comments, which were responded to at the meeting:-

·      query about external placements and information in the table on page 27 – mentioned the ‘residential parent and child’ placement is not one used very often and is usually ordered by the Family Courts – when do use them, they are very expensive because the risks are so high and due to its nature, is also unpredictable; there are delays in the Family Courts system as well because the court system is overwhelmed which can have an impact on this.

·      external placements and query about the ‘other’ figure in the table on page 27, and what is included – this includes other smaller placement types such as secure placements; leaving care accommodation costs – further details will be circulated to the Committee.

·      query about the £5.4m forecast overspend figure. The Chair mentioned that the two main areas of overspend have been external placements and home school transport and the Committee has done Task and Finish Group’s on both issues – the item on the agenda later at the meeting on Transport will reference this – in response to the points referenced, do try to pull every lever to do best thing for child; for example the Homes and Horizons intervention is helping to disrupt the marketplace.

·      requested details on the ‘unregistered placements’ and information about the impact of the pause of Homes and Horizons – the Executive Director provided current position on the 5 unregistered placements and also the impact Homes & Horizons is having; 5 are open and 3 are being built but have been delayed due to capacity in corporate teams – homes 6 and 7 are delayed between 4 and 6 months; home 8 is delayed by about 3 – 4 months; having an impact on savings as homes and horizons for the most complex children is significantly lower cost than unregistered placement. She also referenced the Children’s Transformation Board which is chaired independently.

·      the Committee agreed to ask the Executive to highlight if there are any Council related blockers to try to resolve them.

·      query whether the budget setting is realistic in the first place – budget is based and set on very clear / in depth modelling, but number of children in care has rise by 15% and this was not expected as the number of children in care has been reasonably consistent over a number of years – split between children under 2 in foster placements and 10-15 year olds with complex needs and are in residential care; insufficiency of foster placements both in the Council and nationally – noted the Committee will receive the Children’s Transformation Board deep dive report on CLA at its next meeting.

·      query about school exclusions – not all children excluded from school come into care system; small proportion of the children who are excluded from school do come into the care system because of getting involved in other things, including serious violence; explained the purpose / use of the revenue grant and DSG; also doing work on ‘banding’ (amount schools receive for children and specific needs at different levels) it is a complex piece of work and this will come to the Committee to look at as well.

 

In conclusion, the Chair said that he was sure that all Committee members would find it helpful to contact their local operations office or go into a school or education team as part of their learning and to ask questions between meetings to help build their knowledge / information base. Following a young person’s journey ‘through the service’ is also informative and interesting.

 

On behalf of the Committee, the Chair thanked officers for the presentation and the Committee noted the budget position.

Supporting documents: