Agenda item

To consider the outturn reports for both Adults and Children’s Services.

Documents:

·         Adult Social Care Outturn 2018/19

·         Children’s Services Outturn 2018/19

Discussion:

·         Committee noted that Adult Social Care ended the year with an underspend of £1.936M which took into consideration the growth within the budget of £6.5M.  Children’s Services ended the year with an overspend of £5.639M

·         The Committee noted a significant level of debt within the service which amounted to 72% of the debt of the Authority

·         A large proportion of this debt was linked to the Powys teaching Health Board.  The Corporate Director, Transformation informed the Committee that much of this debt had been cleared since year end and that discussions with PtHB were ongoing regarding the element outstanding which related to a longstanding issue in relation to the learning disability resettlement scheme.  These discussions were open, positive and constructive.  A report would be provided to Committee to update them at their next meeting.

·         Members raised the issue of paying for continuing care – agreement had been reached with the Chief Executive of PtHB that further work on continuing care would be undertaken by an independent expert to ensure the service can progress with less dispute.  There has been a lack of clarity regarding criteria and this is being addressed.

·         Members were aware that he number of providers had dropped from 19 to 12 and asked whether those clients had been taken on by the in-house team and what the cost implications were.  Clients had been transferred to other providers through a tendering process. The majority of these had been domiciliary care clients.  The market was considered fragile but that 19 providers may have been too many.  There is an intention to look at the implications of different options.  It was confirmed that the using the in-house service would have a significant financial impact.

·         It was acknowledged that savings had been exceeded.  There were issues around calculating cost avoidance.  Future budgets were to be based on an outcome budgeting basis.

·         The issue of recruitment was known but the majority of posts were now filled and underspends of a similar level were unlikely in the future.  It was inevitable that there would be some slippage between one officer leaving and another being recruited.

·         The level of agency staff was unsustainable but recruitment was difficult in some areas – this may not be based on pay but on the reputation of the Authority, geography and the cost of living

·         An analysis of pay across different authorities was being undertaken

·         The number of Children Looked After (CLA) had increased in the last two years.  The Committee was informed that there were 246 CLA at the time the accounts were closed.  Of these, 43 were placed with family and had no cost to the budget.

·         .

·         The number of CLAs had peaked at 250 in February and is now 243.  The numbers of children placed out of county have also reduced although the percentage remains the same.  In general, Wales has seen an increase in all CLAs.

·         Members were concerned that the budget was difficult to monitor when the number of CLAs could be volatile.  A lot of work has been undertaken including edge of care, prevention and work to return children to families as safely as possible.

·         There needed to be a political strategy and vision

·         A review of 37 children on care orders had been carried out to see if these could be transferred to special guardianship orders.  A similar review will be carried out with regard to placement orders.  It was possible that 45 children could be taken out of care by these methods.  However, this would take some time for court processes to be completed and there could be increased legal costs.

County Councillor D Rowlands left the meeting at 12.15

Outcomes:

·         The Committee receive a further presentation on Children Looked After

The Committee adjourned until 13.45

Present:  County Councillors A Williams (Chair), D Davies, H Hulme, A Jenner, G Morgan, K Roberts-Jones and R Williams