Agenda item

The Panel received the Q1 2025/26 Budget Monitoring report, which was due to be considered by Cabinet on 16 September. The report was introduced by the Corporate Director of Children’s Services by exception, who gave an overview of the overall budget position in Children’s Services and highlighted any significant areas of overspend, as set out in the second agenda pack at pages 1-144. Neil Sinclair, Head of Finance was also present for this item. In summary, the Director highlighted the following:

a.    The service was projecting a £4m overspend on a budget of £77.43M. The reasons for this were attributed to three key areas. The first was non-delivery of savings relating to digitalisation. This equated to 40k last year and £750k for this year and last year. The Corporate Director advised that the service was continuing to work with Digital Services to identify areas that could be made more cost effective through digitalisation.

b.    The second area of budget pressure was around non-delivery in full of the organisation wide 5% staffing savings. The service had achieved £530k of the £2.18m over two years. The Corporate Director advised that she had worked on getting the service to the right size for eight years and that it was currently at the lowest levels of agency staffing it had been. It was also noted that the service was ahead of target for reducing its overall headcount.

c.     The third area contributing to the forecast pressure was the allocation of the social care prevention grant (£1.43m) in the budget process to offset placement pressures. The grant is ring fenced for implementing social care reforms which was not known at the time. It is currently being forecast as a pressure until the full financial implications of the reform are known.

d.    The Panel commented that it was not always clear when cost savings were put in the budget as to how they would be achieved. In response it was acknowledged that this was a discussion better suited to the budget scrutiny process.

e.    The Panel queried what didn’t happen in regard to digital savings that meant that the savings wasn’t achieved. In response, the Corporate Director advised that each directorate was apportioned a part of a wider savings target to be realised. The Director commented that achieving savings through digital change might be easier to achieve in some services than it is in Children’s, given the people-focused nature of the work. Some savings had been made but the full savings target had not been met.

f.      The Panel requested further information in relation to the closing of schools and whether there was a more comprehensive breakdown that could be provided that set out what the closure of a school looked like in terms of financial costs from redundancy etc, but also the costs associated with having a building that was no longer in use. In response, the Corporate Director commented that every school as unique and that every school had a different set of circumstances. It was commented that there was also a set of statutory processes that had to be gone through when closing a school. The Head of Finance advised that a more detailed breakdown on this would be provided as part of the Q2 report to the Panel. (Action: Neil Sinclair).

g.    A co-opted Member of the Panel raised concerns about the closure of Pendarren House. In response, the Cabinet Member advised that there were no plans to close Pendarren and that the saving in question was a relatively small saving of £25k which related to generating more commercial income from the site. The Panel was given assurances that a lot of capital funding was being spent on Pendarren and that this was about generating additional income. The Cabinet Member commented that Pendarren was very popular amongst Councillors as well parents and school children.

RESOLVED

Noted