Agenda item

(Report byMr K Abbott (Director Resources and Planning Group, Ms R Turner, Managing Director, Children, Families & Education Directorate and Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education)

(1)         The Committee considered a report thatidentified the proposed strategy for determining next year’s budget and the financial plans for the following years.  This included an initial analysis of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2010, the likely impact on the overall funding for KCC, the indicative cash limit for the Children, Families and Education portfolio, and the latest indications of likely pressures facing the Children, Families and Education portfolio.

(2)         The Chairman asked Mr Abbott to introduce the report.  Mr Abbott highlighted that much of the detailed information was to come through the local government settlement in early December particularly information on specific grants and the dedicated schools grant which would be coming from the DFE following the Local government settlement.  This was crucial as the £1.4b spent each year of which £1.2b was received through government grants.  Many of the grants would be unringfenced and a lot of the specific grants to schools were being moved to the overall dedicated schools grant.

(3)         In response to a question by Mr Vye about the staffing underspend in the monitoring and the impact on the MTP , Mr Abbott explained that the forecast underspend on staffing would be the level of vacancy saving on the staffing at year end.  At the end of the last financial year there was a £3.7m underspend.  All of the work carried out in particular in recruiting front line social workers was beginning to have an impact which was why the forecast was lower.  One reason why that figure would not go down further in the current year was that a number of staff recruited had only recently taken up post and therefore there was a part year saving. As now all the money in that budget would be used for recruiting and funding front line social workers.  There was and additional £4.8m in the revised budget and cash limit for the pressures of fostering and adoption and 16+ as it was recognised that they need funding and, in line with the policy of previous years we would not be relying on funding from the social worker vacancies as part of the MTP process. The current vacancies were actively being filled.

(4)         Mr Cooke advised that as the pupil premium became clear advice would be given to Members and would be added to the items to be covered in the Members briefing in the Spring.

(5)         In response to questions by Mr Tolputt, Mr Abbott advised that the pupil premium was a significant new income stream to schools depending on the circumstances.  The Secretary of State was clear that the pupil premium would be a separate grant and would be an addition to the existing mechanisms.  There was  an issue in that the position had moved from saying that it was completely funded from outside the education budget to a position where only a third would be funded outside the education budget.  The pupil premium was being phased in over a 4 year budget; therefore would not all appear next year. In respect of the specific grants, on which detail was waited for, the understanding was that a number would continue but be frozen at the cash level of the current year for each of the next 4 years, some of those would be stopped as a specific grant and/or put into the overall dedicated schools grant.  A briefing note would be sent to schools as soon as the details were received to aid their planning. There may also be a need for an additional meeting with the Schools Funding Forum or its Executive.

(6)         In response to a question on asylum seekers, Mr Abbott advised that following meetings with the UK Boarder Agency (UKBA), the Home Office, the Leader of the County Council and Officers, there were agreements reached.  One of the concerns, raised at the meetings, for KCC was the number of asylum seekers who had exhausted all rights of appeal and were due to return to their country of origin but the UKBA was not doing that particularly quickly, that was where KCC picked up the cost.  There was an agreement that the HO and UKBA agreed to fund KCC and the other “gateway” authorities for 3 months after an individual had got to the stage of all rights of appeal exhausted and at the same time they would speed up the process of returning those individual to their country of origin.  They had speeded the process up but not enough to avoid Kent incurring costs.  This was being looked at with legal advice on what costs Kent should be picking up.  Mr Abbott agreed to seek advice on the issue of asylum seekers that had been naturalized and report back to Mr Tolputt outside the meeting.

(7)         In response to Mr Desmoyers-Davies, Mr Ward advised that carbon reduction was a national target and that originally businesses and authorities were being required to buy carbon credits and then get payments back based upon their delivery of carbon reductions.  However, in the budget the Chancellor changed all this and the credits became a tax.

(8)          In response to a question by Mr Christie, Mr Abbott explained that there were concerns regarding the national distribution of ringfenced grants.  He advised that he had been in contact with the DFE who had indicated that there may be options given to the local authorities when the unringfenced grants were put in the dedicated schools grants. There still could be a degree of ringfencing for the first year but that may be down to a local decision, possibly of the Schools Funding Forum.

(9)         In reply to a question regarding the Ofsted inspections of Children‘s Social Services, Mr Cooke stressed that there was an absolute commitment to ensure that the recommendations were complied with in the time given.

(10)    Mr Smith, Chairman of the CFE Budget Informal Member Group (IMG) advised that the IMG had met to discuss the priority budget headings using the information available.  Following the Local Government Finance settlement which was due to be received in early December the IMG would meet on 6 December to look at the broadbase budget. A report with recommendations would be submitted to the Joint CFE Committee in January to aid the Committees deliberations on its response to the Cabinet.  Mrs Hohler suggested that it would be helpful if the IMG could give her a steer on the budget headings it was considering.

(11)    RESOLVED that:

(a)   the responses to questions by Members be noted;

(b)   the latest information arising from the Spending Review 2010 be noted;

(c)    the proposed additional funding for pressures included in the indicative cash limits and outlined in paragraph 6.4 of the report be noted; and

(d)   the CFE Budget IMG agreed to submit a report at the meeting of the CFE Joint POSC on 14 January 2011 identifying priorities for delivering the indicative cash limits be noted.