Agenda and minutes

Please note that this meeting may be filmed or recorded by the Council for live or subsequent broadcast via the Council’s internet site or by anyone attending the meeting using any communication method. Although we ask members of the public recording, filming or reporting on the meeting not to include the public seating areas, members of the public attending the meeting should be aware that we cannot guarantee that they will not be filmed or recorded by others attending the meeting. Members of the public participating in the meeting (e.g. making deputations, asking questions, making oral protests) should be aware that they are likely to be filmed, recorded or reported on. 

By entering the meeting room and using the public seating area, you are consenting to being filmed and to the possible use of those images and sound recordings.

The chair of the meeting has the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the rights of any individual or may lead to the breach of a legal obligation by the Council.

The Chair referred Members present to agenda Item 1 as shown on the agenda in respect of filming at this meeting, and Members noted the information contained therein’.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Sheila Peacock.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business (late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with as noted below).

None.

A Member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest

becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interest are

defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct.

Cllr Pippa Connor declared an interest by virtue of her membership of the Royal College of Nursing.

Cllr Pippa Connor declared an interest by virtue of her sister working as a GP in Tottenham.

Cllr Thayahlan Iyngkaran declared an interest as a consultant radiologist and a deputy medical director.

Helena Kania declared an interest as a co-Chair of the Joint Partnership Board.

To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, Paragraph 29 of the Council’s Constitution.

None.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as an accurate record.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting held on 19th September 2024 be approved as an accurate record.

To review progress against action points from previous meetings in 2024/25.

Cllr Connor noted that she had requested further information regarding the response to action point 4 on Continuing Healthcare (CHC), specifically on why the CHC funding for patients in Haringey appeared to vary from other areas of the country. A response on this had not yet been received.

Report to follow.

Dominic O’Brien, Scrutiny Officer, updated the Panel that, following further conversations with the proposed new non-voting Co-opted member, the current intention was to bring the report on the appointment to the next meeting of the Panel on 17^th December 2024.

To scrutinise the revenue and capital proposals relating to the 2025/26 Draft Budget and the Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2025/26 to 2029/30.

The documents are:

·         Main report to scrutiny

·         APPENDIX 0 – Draft Budget report to Cabinet

·         APPENDIX 1 – Forecast Budget Pressures 2025-26

·         APPENDIX 2 – Proposed Savings 2025-26

·         APPENDIX 3 – Proposed Changes to Capital Programme 2025-26 to 2029-30

·         DOCUMENT A – Scrutiny Role

·         DOCUMENT B (PART 1) – Savings Tracker 2024-25

·         DOCUMENT B (PART 2) - Savings Tracker 2025-26 to 2028-29

An introduction to the reports for this item was provided by Neil Sinclair, Head of Finance (People). Referring to the report for the Cabinet meeting earlier in the week, Neil Sinclair explained that:

• The opening position for the planning of the revised Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) was a budget gap of around £14m.
• In addition to this, the increased pressures for 2025/26, mainly in Adults and Children’s services and housing demand, totalled around £39.6m of which around £15.1m was in Adult Social Services (see Table 1 in the Cabinet report).
• New savings and management actions had been identified to reduce the budget gap, but the revised budget gap was now £32.1m (see Table 5) and so further work was required across all services to be able to deliver a balanced budget.
• It was noted that the pressures on demand-led services were not fixed and had changed since the assumptions that were made in setting the 2024/25 budget the previous year. Demand for services and market prices were constantly moving (particularly due to inflation uplifts) and there were significant challenges in estimating future demand and costs.
• Based on current estimates, the cumulative total budget gap would be £132.8m by 2029/30 (see Table 6).
• Some headline figures on additional funding for local government had been provided by the Government at the Budget in October 2024 but information about the detailed financial settlement for Haringey was not yet available.
• A number of changes had been made to the Council’s capital programme to reflect reduced affordability (see Table 7). This impacted on some schemes related to Adults & Health.

The Panel then asked questions about the budget gap and the impact of the budget pressures which were set out in Appendix 1:

• Cllr Connor asked how the risks of the budget gap could be mitigated and how the pressures in Adult Social Care could be addressed. Neil Sinclair said that, from a finance point of view, there was a recognition that the pressures were not steady or stable and so they had improved the modelling for this to provide the best estimate possible to support decision making by the service. Beverley Tarka, Director of Adults, Health & Communities, responded that the pressures in high-demand services were an area for the whole Council to address. The overall approach was therefore to interrogate every line of spend for the Council, establish improved efficiencies and ways of working and also transformational work which could take some time to bed in.

• Asked by Cllr Iyngkaran how demand was predicted and what the current trends were, Beverley Tarka explained that there had been a significant increase in recent years for over-65s, both in terms of number of cases and also the complexity of care needs, which was similar to national trends. The forecasting in the previous year had not taken account of the Council’s significant waiting list for Care Act assessments and there had been a concerted effort recently to reduce the backlog leading to a spike in cases.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

To provide an overview of the 2024-26 work programme for the Panel and for any amendment to be proposed and considered.

Dominic O'Brien, Scrutiny Officer, informed the Panel of changes to the agenda for the next meeting on 17^th December 2024, after officers from Adults, Health & Communities had advised that the report on the CQC inspection was not yet expected to be available. The item on Quality Assurance would go ahead as planned and the Savings Tracker for 2024/25 would also now be added after having been deferred earlier in the evening. One additional item would need to be added to the agenda. In addition to these items, it may also be possible to consult the Panel on the second round of budget savings proposals but the timescales for this were not yet clear.

Cllr Brennan suggested that, in addition to the Savings Tracker, it would be useful to review what proportion of proposed savings from previous year had actually been achieved. Cllr Connor noted that information on this was provided to the Panel on a year-by-year basis and that unachieved savings had typically been mitigated in the past, including through the use of reserves. However, a more detailed study of this could be considered as a potential area of future work. (ACTION)

Cllr O’Donovan highlighted the difficulties in scrutinising multi-year savings that had been agreed in previous years and were still ongoing as part of the MTFS. Dominic O’Brien agreed that there was insufficient detail on these in the agenda pack for the meeting but noted that the additional narrative text on each of these would be available in the agenda papers from previous years, so could possibly be referred to when the Savings Tracker was considered at the next meeting on 17^th December 2024. Cllr Connor added that the format of the Savings Tracker had been clearer in previous years. (ACTION)

Cllr Mason highlighted the need to consider the impact on services of further overspends this year on next year’s budget. In addition, she was not satisfied that the level of cuts that had been proposed in this year’s budget would not have a direct impact on service delivery. It was agreed that this could be added as a recommendation and/or put to officers as a question when the second round of savings were proposed later in the budget-setting process. (ACTION)

Cllr O’Donovan highlighted the need for further discussions about the cuts to leisure services, perhaps on a joint basis across Panels. Cllr Connor noted that Cllr Buxton may be taking this forward as a future agenda item at the Overview & Scrutiny Committee so would check the next steps for this and report back. (ACTION)

Cllr Connor noted that it had recently been agreed by the Panel that an update should be requested on the progress of previous recommendations from the Scrutiny Review on Sheltered Housing. This was ahead of a proposed new Working Group of the Panel which would be visiting a number of sheltered housing blocks in the Borough to ascertain the current issues and concerns. (ACTION)

·         17^th Dec 2024 (6.30pm)

·         10^th Feb 2025 (6.30pm)

·         17^th Dec 2024 (6.30pm)

·         10^th Feb 2025 (6.30pm)