Agenda and minutes

The Committee agreed to defer the item to the next meeting.

Councillor Georgia Power (personal reasons).

None.

To confirm the Minutes held on 13 September 2023

The Minutes of the meeting held on 13 September 2023 were confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

Verbal updates from the Chairs of the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committees outlining current and future work taking place within their remit

The Scrutiny Chairs were asked to give brief verbal updates on work that is currently taking place within their committees.

Councillor Naim Salim outlined what was being done within the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee with the most recent meeting receiving an update on the Children’s Services Improvement journey following the services’ inadequate rating and a recent OFSTED monitoring visit. It also considered special educational needs and disability (SEND) provisions for children following areas of improvement which were identified following the OFSTED and Care Quality Commission local area inspection of SEND provision in 2021.

Councillor Sam Harris provided an update on work carried out by the Housing and City Development Scrutiny Committee which included reviewing the Council’s approach to responding to the current levels of homelessness and rough sleeping in the City, as well as assessing its preparations for a potential rise in demand.

Councillor Georgia Power had provided a written update to the Committee due to not being present at the meeting. The Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee looked at Tomorrow’s NUH Programme with the Committee giving its support to the Integrated Care Board to consult with residents. It made a number of recommendations which included considering language barriers that could prevent diverse communities from taking part in the consultation process. The Committee also assessed winter planning (including lessons learnt from winter 2023 and plans for 2024), and the Adult Social Care Transformation Programme which included the Mental Health Reablement Service and the Social Care Online Portal.

Councillor Imran Jalil updated the Committee on issues considered within the Communities and Environment Scrutiny Committee which included the Municipal Resources and Waste Strategy 2023-2050 Implementation and for the next meeting best value reviews on community resilience and environmental services.

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

A)  A report on the in-year position of the Council’s Transformation Programme

B)  An update on how the Council is addressing the overspend generated in the Children and Adults Department and its impact on the MTFP

The Chair advised that this item would be considered in two parts. Part A would outline the overall position of the Council’s Transformation Programme at position 2 of the financial year. Part B would be deeper dives from the Adult and Children’s department on their Transformation Programmes.

The Director of Policy, Performance and Communications presented a report which outlined the current position of the Council’s Transformation Programme. The following information was highlighted:

a)  The information provided is the Transformation Programme at P2 of the financial year.

b)  The Transformation Programme is in its second year of delivery.

c)  Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) gross savings of £15.671 million are set to be delivered in 2023/24 in addition to the savings target of £1.765 million in 2022/23.

d)  The gross 2023/24 transformation savings are made up of both service led (£3.134 million) and transformation led savings (£12.537 million).

e)  As at period 2, across the total target of £15.671 million, 5.4% had been delivered, 15.6% are on track to be delivered, 28.9% are at amber risk of non-delivery, and 50.10% are at red risk of non-delivery.

f)  The Committee heard about the governance procedures in place to assist with the delivery of the Transformation Programme including monthly transformation oversight boards.

g)  Also in place to support the successful delivery of the programme, Directors as Senior Responsible Officers (SRO’s) and programme leads are working closely with colleagues to review options and ensure that savings are delivered in 2023/24. It was stated that some of the savings at risk could be mitigated through targeted interventions, departmental actions and acceleration or changes to existing projects.

h)  Transformation led savings are made up of five key programmes: Adults, Childrens, Homelessness, Customer Support, and Corporate Landlord.

i)  The Committee noted that the majority of those savings deemed at red risk of non-delivery were within Children and Adults services.

The Committee then received a presentation from the Director of Adult Health and Social Care, and Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care and Health outlining the Department’s specific Transformation Programme. The following points were made:

j)  ‘Better lives, better outcomes’ is the overarching strategy that focused on prevention, community connections, independent lives, choice and control.

k)  The Adult Social Care ambition includes promoting independence, preventing and delaying the need for longer term care; developing the service offer to provide better outcomes; and strengthening and developing the workforce.

l)  £67 million in savings need to be delivered.

m)  There are a number of projects including development of options for independent living, community interventions, technology enabled care, and mental health reablement. The programme outputs and expected programme outcomes of these projects were discussed.

n)  The Committee noted that a new grant, the market sustainability and improvement fund have been made available which could be used to address waiting lists and fund other projects.

o)  Corrective action is underway to address the shortfall.

In response to questions from the Committee and during subsequent discussion the following points were made:

p)  The Committee asked for further information on the shared lives project including the financials.

q)  The Committee discussed increased demand and challenges around recruitment and retention and the impact this could have on the successful delivery of the Transformation Programme.

r)  The officers had confidence in the forecast, however it was impossible to forecast events such as economic downturns and interest rate rises, and the war in Ukraine and energy price rises that have all had an impact. Model scenarios were made when designing projects and these were based on credible assumptions and the input of senior officers and directors.

s)  The importance of the Transformation Programme and its help in balancing the budget was outlined. It was explained that as demand increased, the projects outlined would help the service meet financial targets as well as supporting residents through early intervention and helping them remain in their own homes when appropriate. It was states that the Transformation Programme was both good for the Council and good for residents.

t)  The figures were regularly tracked by the Transformation Oversight Board and there was confidence that the department was prioritising and delivering the right projects aligned to the strategic direction of the Council.

The Director of Children’s Integrated Services and Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Education gave a presentation outlining the Department’s specific Transformation Programme. The following points were made:

u)  The national picture is proving challenging with children’s services across the country reporting an overspend. Four in five local authorities were overspent on their children’s budgets in 2021/22. Nottingham was seeing similar experiences to the national trends.

v)  The overspend on the children’s budget is driven by both increased numbers of children who need care, as well as an increase in the cost of the care provision due to high interest rates and inflation.

w)  The Committee heard that there are four key workstreams that the Children’s Integrated Services Transformation Programme consisted of. These were child in need and child protection plans; preventing long term care starts; modernising fostering; and achieving permanence out of care.

x)  The Transformation Programme had been running since November 2022.

y)  The year-to-date performance of the Programme demonstrated cumulative savings ahead of target. The savings came from a number of service improvements such as reduced caseloads, reduced number of children on protection plans due to early intervention, and reduced number of foster care resignations. The biggest cost to the service is residential care where the costs were high (upwards of £20,000 per person per week in some cases) and outcomes generally poor. Children going into care in a family members home or foster care rather than residential care was increasing.

z)  On current trajectory, the expectation was that realised savings of £1.98 million will be delivered.

aa)The Transformation Programme is expected to deliver ongoing benefits for the next 10 years.

bb)The Committee heard that to mitigate the gap in the MTFP a mitigation action plan was implemented to speed up the delivery of the savings.

cc)The late start of the Transformation Programme had left a proportion of savings at risk of non-delivery.

The Committee commented on the importance of it having timely access to up-to-date information and data to enable it to carry out its role effectively and expressed disappointment that the latest data had not been provided to the Committee for consideration at this meeting, as requested.

Resolved to:

1)  Assess options in holding a working group or informal meeting of Committee Members to facilitate consideration of the latest data that had not been provided to the Committee for this meeting; and

2)  request that presentations to be given at committee meetings are circulated to the Committee in advance of the meeting so that effective pre-scrutiny can be given.

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

The Work Programme was noted.