Agenda item

The report presents the financial monitoring information for the Authority for the financial year 2024/25, using information available as at the end of September 2024.

Cllr Mark Elliott, Cabinet Member for Resources, introduced the report, moved the officer recommendation and made the following points:

·  Despite efforts to better understand the pressures causing the projected overspends and working with departments on mitigation plans to bring the spending back in line, the projected overspend is now £5.54m.

·  the vast majority of the overspend is due to the huge pressures on Children’s Services and Home to School Transport, where there is a predicted £5.51m overspend. There are also pressures in other areas, the corporate estate has issues around the holding costs on vacant buildings, for example, and there are staffing pressures in Waste Management, but these are relatively small compared to the Children’s Services overspend figures, and following the regular meetings with senior staff from those departments, there is a plan to bring them back into line.

·  The issues in Children’s Services are more deep-rooted and more widely systemic. There is a need to build in-house provision to take back the care of our most vulnerable, most high-need, children from for-profit, private equity owned providers, and we are pursuing that, but that is not a provision we can build quickly. It is also important to work effectively with NHS colleagues to ensure that the split between Social Care and NHS funding is fair and equitable.  A further pressure within Children’s Services which wasn’t as evident in Quarter 1, but which is now showing a significant problem is Home to School transport. The issue is the fact that we use private companies to provide this service, and the market is failing to provide sensible competition, meaning that prices have gone up astronomically. Three or four years ago we were spending £6m on home to school transport, this year that figure is likely to be over £11m, against a budget of £9m. We need to radically rethink how this service works if we are going to stop this unmanageable increase every year.

·  There has been a strong start to the year on parking income due to high visitor numbers, and higher interest rates and lower than expected debt charges have helped to mitigate some of the pressures.

·  Regarding capital spend, an underspend of £23m on a £200m budget is predicted.  Most of that being due to slippage of schemes into future years.  £10.7m of borrowing requirement for our property company Aequus is expected now to come in 2025/26 instead of 2024/25.

·  Compared to many councils we are in a solid position; our reserves are good, and we are well managed.  The focus of our attention over the coming months should be to get Children’s Services back on track.

Cllr Paul May seconded the motion and made the following points:

·  Unfortunately, the impact of the pandemic is still being felt in the nature and complexity of the issues that have resulted in the growth of demand on the Children’s Services.

·  The SEND issues are not just a local problem.  The new government has received a National Audit report which has identified the scale of the problem being around £4.9bn a year and getting worse. We need to submit a business plan to reduce our expenditure back to the Dedicated Schools Grant allocation and in the DFE scheme called safety valve. Our submission is still on hold so we hope the DFE can release additional revenue funding to allow proposals to be funded.

·  The challenge of Children’s Services spend is a major issue dependent on ensuring that the service is effective, and we continue to recognise that as an authority with a “good” Ofsted rating we maintain our standards for the most vulnerable people in our community.  This means developing business plans which are returning services to within the council’s means over the medium-term including capital investment to deal with the significantly high costs for children being cared for outside of our area, the high costs of agency staff, the considerable growth in home to school transport, which is a demand that is set in legislation, but there must be new ways to improve. We are also working with our partners in health to ensure that the joint costs are correctly picked up by developing an agreed matrix assessment tool to identify responsibilities. We have introduced a weekly health panel to assess costs and brought in new B&NES financial controls re expenditure.

·  We prize our “good” Ofsted rating because it reflects our care for children, and staff have consistently been dealing with heavy workload pressures and these pressures are not a criticism of their dedication.

·  The Council is committed to being transparent about public finances.

Cllr Kevin Guy acknowledged the current financial pressures, especially in relation to the social care budget.  However, this is not a unique position, and the council is continuing to lobby central government on this issue.

RESOLVED (unanimously):

(1)  To note the 2024/25 revenue budget position (as at the end of September 2024).

(2)  To note the revenue virements listed in Appendix 3(i) of the report.

(3)  To note the capital year-end forecast detailed in paragraph 3.39 of the report.

(4)  To note the changes in the capital programme including capital schemes that have been agreed for full approval under delegation listed in Appendix 4(i) of the report.