Issue - meetings

Miss M Goldsmith, Directorate Finance Manager, was in attendance for this item.

(1)       Miss Goldsmith introduced the report and explained that the Directorate had a number of underspends and overspends across various services – mostly underspends – but that she expected the budget to balance by the end of the financial year.  With Mr Mills and Mr Leidecker, Miss Goldsmith answered questions of detail on the following:-

(a)       the variance in cost of ordinary residential care and residential care for people with Dementia, the latter having a higher unit cost; 

(b)       the difficulty in showing an exact value for Direct Payments take-up at any one time, as the patterns of take-up were complex and included one-off payments.  The numbers reported were a snapshot at each month-end;

(c)        the system by which someone placed by another local authority can become ‘ordinarily resident’ in Kent, and thus become the financial responsibility of Kent rather than the authority which had placed them. Kent had long since been a net importer of placements from other local authorities in residential homes, primarily of adults with a learning disability.  If the home then de-registers as a residential home, and the resident chooses to be ordinarily resident in Kent in supported living, the responsibility passes to KASS, and KASS has challenged cases in the past without success; and

 (d)      the way in which debts (money owed to the KCC by service users) are recorded and recovered, and the need for a flexible and sensitive approach, resorting to legal recovery only if and when appropriate.

(2)       RESOLVED that:-

(a)       the information in the report, and given in response to Members’ questions, be noted, with thanks; and

(b)       an Informal Member Group be set up to meet in November to look in detail at the Medium Term Plan and attempt to identify priorities and areas of potential saving.