Agenda item

Report of Corporate Director for People

Prior to commencement of this item, Councillor Webster assumed the Chair for the remainder of the meeting.

Anna Coltman, Commissioning Manager, presented the report, informing the Committee that on 14 September 2021 the government made a commitment in the ‘COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021’ to support local authorities and social care providers to maintain safe staffing levels over the winter period and to continue working closely with the care sector to build sufficient workforce capacity across services.

The adult social care winter plan published on 3 November 2021 set out the support the government would be providing to the adult social care sector to meet the challenges it faced during the winter and included a commitment to providing workforce recruitment and retention funding to support local authorities and providers to recruit and retain sufficient staff over the winter and support growth and sustain existing workforce capacity.

Further to minute 43, dated 11 January 2022, regarding round 1 funding, this report detailed the round 2 funding (announced too late to be included in the January report to Committee), which had to be spent by 31 March 2022.

In response to a question regarding the Council’s claw-back liability if a provider went into administration having received funding from the Council that was unspent, Ms Coltman stated that she would check with Legal Services and inform members outside of the meeting.

Resolved

(1)  to approve Nottingham City Council’s acceptance and spend of Round 2 of the Workforce Recruitment and Retention Grant funding from the Department of Health and Social Care (as per the terms and conditions of the grant);

(2)  to delegate authority to the Director for Adult Health and Social Care, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Adults and Health and the Director for Commissioning and Procurement, to accept and allocate any further awards of these funds received by the Council during 2022-23, up to a maximum value of £3,000,000, in accordance with any conditions of the grant funding, to enable the timescales of the Department of Health and Social Care to be met.

Reasons for recommendations

a)  Nottingham City Council has been allocated a total of £2,987,033 from the Government’s Workforce Recruitment and retention fund (WR&R fund). The funding has been provided across two rounds. Round 1 provided £1,049,498 from 21 October 2021 and Round 2 provided £1,937,535 from 10 December 2021.

b)  Approval to accept and allocate Round 1 of the WR&R grant was provided at the Commissioning and Procurement Executive Committee on 11 January 2022.

c)  Round 2 of the WR&R funding is to be spent by 31 March 2022. The primary purpose of the WR&R fund is to deliver additional staffing capacity in adult social care through recruitment and retention activity. Round 2 funding must be fully spent during the 10 December 2021 to 31 March 2022 period.

d)  The Grant is ring-fenced and will be paid in instalments to Nottingham City Council:

·  the first instalment (70%) will be paid in January 2022;

·  the second instalment worth (30%) will be paid in February 2022 and will be conditional on local authorities having completed a return to the DHSC by 21 January 2022.

e)  The expectation is that the grant will be fully spent on addressing local workforce capacity pressures through recruitment and retention activity by 31 March 2022. The grant conditions are clear that ‘spent’ means that expenditure has been incurred between 10 December 2021 and 31 March 2022 (Round 2 funding). This means the activity leading to the expense must have happened by 31 March 2022, so that the local authority is accruing the expense and it appears in the local authority’s 2021 to 2022 accounts.

f)  The delegation to the Director for Adult Health and Social Care, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Adults and Health and the Director for Commissioning and Procurement, to receive and allocate any further allocations of this fund received during 2022-23 up to a maximum of £3,000,000 will enable the funds to be passported to providers promptly in order to meet the timescales for use of the funds as set by DHSC.

g)  This delegation will be specifically related to accepting and allocating funding for recruitment and retention activity to support staffing capacity within adult social care within the Nottingham City Council local authority area. This applies to any further grant funding received during 2022/23, as part of the WR&R grant or a replacement grant with grant conditions allowing for the same activities as the WR&R grant.

Other options considered

Given the short-time scales, we are unable to fully outline the anticipated expenditure in this report, as March 2022 meeting does not allow enough time to spend and allocate the grant funding as per the terms and conditions of the grant.