The Committee to commence its budget scrutiny process for 2022-23 with a particular focus on the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust Budget.
Minutes:
The Committee received a presentation from the Chief Executive and the Director of Finance and Resources of the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) which provided an overview of the Children’s Trust budget and its main cost drivers.
In introducing the presentation, the Chief Executive (NCT) outlined that the shared mission between West Northamptonshire Council and North Northamptonshire Council was to create a service capable of radically improving services for children, young people, and families across Northamptonshire. The present leadership of the trust acknowledged that the trust had emerged out of a very difficult set of circumstances with the former Northamptonshire County Council, however the new model had been set on a clear path towards improvement.
The Chief Executive (NCT) explained that a core ambition for the trust was to achieve a ‘Good’ rating in the next full Ofsted inspection scheduled for 2025, however the result of the recent inspection carried out over the autumn of 2022 would not be made public until late November 2022. Some of the key achievements of the trust so far included:
1) Delivered 6,000 more placement days using approx. same funds as 2019/20
2) Improved quality of social care practice and management oversight, which is helping to keep children safe, as evidenced in Ofsted visits and inspections, peer reviews and internal quality assurance
3) More of our social worker posts are filled 15.8% social worker vacancies in June 2022 (England average 17%) compared with 22.28% in October 2019 and no unallocated cases
4) Improved working with our partners and a stronger strategic approach to early help; improved early help assessment, step down process and timeliness of support
5) An embedded quality assurance framework working alongside practitioners to collaboratively reflect on practice, celebrate good practice and identify learning, which is ‘improving children’s experiences’
6) Achieved 100% supporting families PBR grant funds through improving practice 21/22 (previous best 37%)
7) Reducing pressures in the system in the context of increasing demand
In outlining the key cost drivers behind the Children’s Trust budget, the Chief Executive (NCT) explained that these were an increase in children’s social care cases in the care system, and increased number of children in care, increased cost and reduced availability of placements, increasing independent fostering agency fees, and workforce pressures. In terms of additional pressures aside from the key cost drivers that were outlined, the contract negotiation also included the implementation of a staff pay award above the contract sum provision (£1.9m) based on the flat rate of increase of £1,925. There were also additional pressures related to demand growth in children’s placements (£4.380m), inflationary increases above the contract sum in placements (£2.062m) and transport (0.675m), the non-delivery of £1.2m o for the development of children’s homes which had been built into future savings forecasts following the confirmation of capital funding in October 2022, and a cost of £0.844m following a Local Government Ombudsman judgement relating to adoption.
In response to questions from the Committee regarding how the Trust was managing workforce pressures, the Chief Executive (NCT) explained that following several years of upheaval, instability and reliance on agency staff, the overarching ambition was to return the service to a position of stability and make the Trust an attractive employer, however noted the national shortage in children’s social workers.
The Chief Executive (NCT) also outlined that the percentage of social worker posts that were vacant across Prevention and Safeguarding and Corporate Parenting (17%) not only compared favourably to the Trust’s KPI target of 20% but had reduced by 2.2% since October 2022. However, the percentage of the social worker workforce filled by agency staff across Prevention and Safeguarding was 18.63%, which remained slightly above the Trust’s KPI target of 18%, however this excluded temporary funded posts.
In outlining the current budget position of the Trust, the Chief Executive (NCT) advised that the forecast outturn position for 2022-23 was an overspend of £11.062m against the approved net budget of £128.33m. In accordance with the contractual split percentage between West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) and North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) this equated to an overspend of £5.973m for WNC and £5.09m for NNC respectively, with the full savings programme of £2.99m having been contained withing the forecast outturn position.
In response to questions from the Committee regarding how the Trust planned to mitigate this overspend, the Chief Executive (NCT) explained that in order to achieve planned savings whilst simultaneously improving the service offer, separate one-off investment options of £1.35m revenue and £1.8m, however both options would be subjected to separate detailed business cases in accordance with each Council’s governance processes.
At the conclusion of the presentation, the Chair thanked the Chief Executive (NCT) and the Director or Finance and Resources (NCT) for their detailed analysis of the Children’s Trust Budget, and the Committee agreed that the cost drivers for the Children’s Trust Budget would become a key focus of its budget scrutiny work throughout the budget setting process.
The Chair also explained that once arrangements had been finalised with Officers for the format of the Committee’s budget scrutiny process, such arrangements would be communicated to Members of the Committee in due course.
Resolved
(1) That the information on cost drivers of the Children’s Trust Budget be fully utilised to inform the Committee’s budget scrutiny activity going forward.
(2) That, once finalised with officers, it be agreed that arrangements for the Committee’s budget scrutiny process be communicated to Members of the Committee as soon as practicable.