Agenda and minutes

Resolved – That Dr Peter Mack be appointed Vice-Chair for the Municipal Year 2012/12

There were no declarations of interest.

            The Head of Commissioning, Children’s and Adults submitted a report providing an overview of the unaudited provisional financial outturn position for the commissioning budgets which are included within the Section 75 agreement and, for the 2011/12 financial year, total £25.1m.

            Although the 11/12 provisional outturn position is an underspend, the position for future years is uncertain. The Local Government finance settlement required Swindon Borough Council to make significant recurring savings during each year of the current Comprehensive Spending Review period and Children Services has formulated plans to achieve a savings target of £2.3m which was agreed by Cabinet.  There is a strong expectation that further significant savings will be required in subsequent years.  All areas of departmental spending will need to be kept under review including services covered by the Section 75 agreement.  

            NHS funding is also constrained and in addition to embedding recurrent savings to contain costs within 2011/12 funding allocations without a heavy reliance on vacancy savings, further savings will need to be achieved in future years. 

Councillor Renard pointed out discrepancies between the narrative of the report and the budget figures contained within the appendix.

Ruth Fitzjohn queried overspends in the budget with regard to out of Borough placements and short breaks.

Resolved – That the Board:

(1)  Note the 2011-12 financial position and implications for the 2012/13 financial position.

(2)  Note the performance report and proposed management actions, including those contained within the performance report attached at Appendix 2.

The Commissioning Director, Children’s and Adults submitted a report concerning the outturn financial position for the section 75 Adult Commissioning – Mental Health services aligned budget for 2011/12.

The community care budgets total £4,547m. The final outturn position is an overspend of £0.037m which is an improvement of £0.075m on the forecast position of £0.112m.  The improvement in financial position was due to higher than expected fee income and slippage in some placements

The net overspend on Mental Health services aligned budget is £0.202m. The Social care budgets show an overspend of £0.056m and the Health care budgets an underspend of 0.258m

Resolved – That the outturn financial position for the Mental Health services aligned budget 2011/12 be noted.

The Commissioning Director, Children’s and Adults submitted a report concerning the outturn financial position for the s75 Adult Commissioning – Learning Disability services aligned budget for 2011/12.

The forecast outturn is an overspend of £0.201m at £16.080m.  This is an improvement of £0.110m on the position reported in January 2012.

Resolved – That the outturn financial position for the Learning Disability aligned budget 2011/12 and the performance report be noted.

The Commissioning Director, Children’s and Adults, submitted a report concerning the outturn financial position for the section 75 Adult Commissioning – Adult Community services aligned budget for 2011/12.

The outturn position 2011/12 is an underspend of £0.0.79m, a reduction of £0.224m on the £0.303m January position. One off costs and unrecoverable VAT costs associated with the setting up of SEQOL and commitments associated with the expansion of re-ablement project were main reason for movement. 

The pressures identified in the report relate to social care budgets, the Health budgets are forecast to breakeven.  Any net underspending on Adults pool (social care side) will be used to meet additional commitments on Learning Disability and Mental Health pool.

Resolved – That the outturn financial position and performance for the Adult Community aligned budget 2011/12 be noted.

Paul Bearman presented a performance report from Sarah Gibbs for the Commissioned Health Services part for the Section 75 Agreements.

Resolved – That the report be noted and that the author be requested to present future reports in a more meaningful way.

The Head of Commissioning, Children’s and Adults submitted a performance report for the Adult Social Care Commissioning for the Section 75 Agreements.

Angela Plummer explained the reasons behind the performance indicators that were “Stuck Reds”.

Councillor Renard asked a series of questions about waiting time figures being potentially being massaged by staff to conform to their agreed target figures.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

Sue Wald presented a report of The Board Director Commissioning outlining the consultation process with voluntary sector organisations who are currently providing adult social care, mental health and services to children, young people and families under contract with the Council.

The Board discussed the Cabinet approval of savings plans for Adult Social care services in 2011/12 which included 100k savings 'delivering better value for money' in voluntary sector contracts and a further 20k in budget proposals for 2012/13. At the same time the medium term resources plan for Adult Social Services is built on an assumption of a 30% reduction in funding to the voluntary sector from existing contracts.

Resolved – (1) That the consultation process outlined in Appendix 2 of the report be agreed.

            (2) That the Board agree the principles and direction of travel outlined in the Board Directors report, and a further report on project plans be submitted to a future meeting.

The Board Director, Commissioning submitted a report concerning the outcome of the recent Ofsted Thematic Inspection on protecting children with disabilities, held on the 17th and 18th April 2012 and the action plan that has been developed to respond to and learn from the feedback received from Ofsted.

This inspection was a national thematic inspection of protecting disabled children which will not be formally reported by Ofsted. It was noted that no areas of concern around the safeguarding of disabled children were identified during this inspection, and no priority actions for immediate follow up were identified. Some areas for development were identified, and these will inform practice going forward and are detailed in the report. Several areas of good practice were identified, and noted in the report, and some of these have been followed up by Ofsted to inform national good practice.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

The Board Director, Commissioning, and the Cabinet Member Children’s Services submitted a report concerning (a) issues that were raised in the Ofsted inspection of Safeguarding and Looked After Children in December 2009, and (b) what is being done to prepare for inspections under the new Ofsted Inspection Framework.

Resolved – That the report be noted.