Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Mr Oakford and Mr Murphy. Mr Rayner and Mr McInroy were present on their behalf.

There were no declarations of interest.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting on 11 July 2024 were a correct record and that they be signed by the Chair

1.    Mr Watkins, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, provided an update on the following:

(a)  On Thursday 19^th September, Mr Watkins visited the Fusion Healthy Living Centre in Maidstone. The Centre offered information, advice and support to residents of Park Wood and the wider Maidstone community and provided targeted support to groups within the community which represented some of the most disadvantaged sectors in relation to health inequalities. The centre offered a broad range of activities to help local people keep healthy including help and support to get people into employment. Mr Watkins thanked all those involved in the visit. .

(b)  The Care Quality Commission (CQC) Assurance visit was due to take place on the week commencing 30^th September 2024. The CQC assessment framework provided an independent evaluation of how well local authorities in England met their duties under the Care Act 2014.

(c)  The 10^th September marked World Suicide Prevention Day. The Kent and Medway Suicide Prevention team had worked with the charity Living Words to produce a short film ‘Living Warriors’ which demonstrated the importance of changing the narrative on suicide and to ‘start the conversation.’ Free training and support was available. Mr Watkins thanked all those involved.

2.    Mrs Chandler, Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services, provided an update on the following:

(a)  In 2023 the Department for Education (DfE) published an updated version of the ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ initiative which removed the requirement for qualified Social Workers to work with Children in Need. This meant that alternatively qualified practitioners with the necessary skills and experience, including Social Work Assistants, Early Help Practitioners and Education and Health professionals could hold children in need case work. Implementation of the lead professional’s role would be trialled across Integrated Children’s Services, with experienced Social Work Assistants as the lead professional. The six-month pilot was due to launch in October 2024, following which an evaluation would be carried out by the practice development team.

(b)  Staff from across the various teams within the Adolescent and Youth Justice service provided their views on the service redesign. These were carefully considered alongside those from quality assurance, service managers, HR advisors, business support managers and the communication team and balanced against findings from inspections, audits and other quality assurance activities. The findings had been condensed into several proposals which would be taken forward.

(c)  Mrs Chandler expressed thanks to the staff within the Family Hubs for the support they offered to thousands of children during the school summer holidays which received positive feedback from both children and parents. A further schedule was forthcoming for the December 2024 school holiday period.

(d)  From September 2024 Early Help workers would be based in Family Hubs to ensure that families only told their stories once and received timely, targeted support to ensure children reached their full potential and would be school-ready.

(e)  Two further reception centres were due to open in September 2024 to help accommodate the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.

John Betts ( Interim Corporate Director Finance) Cath Head (Head of Finance Operations) and Joe McKay (Acting Chief Accountant) were in attendance for this item.

1.    Mr Rayner (Deputy Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services) introduced the report that set out the revenue and capital budget monitoring position as at June 2024-25 (Quarter 1). The forecast revenue outturn position was an overspend of +£16.3m (excluding schools), which represented 1.1% of the revenue budget. Overspends were being reported in Adult Social Care & Health (+£16.5m), Children, Young People & Education (+£0.1m), Growth Environment & Transport (+£6.2m) and Corporately Held Budgets (+£2.3m). Underspends were being reported in Chief Executive’s Department (-£0.9m), Deputy Chief Executive’s Department (-£0.9m) and Non Attributable Costs (-£7.1m). The Schools’ Delegated budgets were reporting an overspend of +£23.1m. From the savings target of £111.2m, the current forecasted position indicated a £93.3 in year saving to be delivered.  The savings would continue to be monitored closely across teams within the organisation as non-delivery of savings would have a significant impact on the future years’ budget. It was critical that the overspend be reduced to as near a balanced position as possible as any overspend would weaken the Council’s future financial stability. The use of reserves for one off solutions would need to be replenished. The forecast outturn capital position indicated a real overspend of £7.7m and a rephasing variance of -£63.1m (a net underspend of £55.4m). Capital budget adjustments required Cabinet approval.

2.    Further to comments and questions from Members it was noted:

·         In relation to the financial pressures within the Growth, Environment and Transport directorate, it was highlighted that the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme passes issued by the Department for Transport (DfT) had placed a £3m pressure on KCC due to the change in the reimbursement calculation whereby local authorities were required to pay bus operators for carrying concessionary passholders. Furthermore, unplanned incidents such as those relating to the need to replace the jet fans in Chestfield tunnel created further  budgetary pressures for the directorate. These demonstrated areas of financial pressure faced by the Council which were not foreseen and where further savings would need to be made to offset those spends.

·         In regard to the Dedicated Schools Grant budget, work was underway to bring this back under control and onto a sustainable footing. Those changes would start to be seen in later iterations of financial reporting. The Council continued to spend more than it was funded for through the Government’s national funding formula and this needed to end. The reforms which were being taken forward by the Council, which included the Special Schools Review and the locality model amongst others all aimed to improve the offer for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and provide long-term solutions which were also fair on the council tax-payer.

·         The Adult Social Care budget was in a more positive position compared to the same period last year, however, whilst the forecast position indicated that the directorate was 3% off its  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66.

David Whittle (Director of Strategy, Policy, Relationships & Corporate Assurance) was in attendance for this item.

1.    Mr Whittle outlined the report for Quarter 1 (Q1) which set out the performance data up to the end of June 2024. Mr Whittle said that out of the 40 KPIs contained within the Quarterly Performance Report (QPR), 17 achieved or exceeded target (rated Green), 14 achieved or exceeded the floor standard but did not meet the target (rated Amber), and 8 did not meet floor standard (rated Red). The direction of travel analysis indicated 11 with a positive trend (2 more than the previous Quarter); 21 were stable or with no clear trend (one more than the previous Quarter), and 7 were showing a negative trend (2 fewer than the previous Quarter). The data was significantly different from Q1 for 2023-2024 where only 4 indicators had a positive trend and 10 were showing a negative trend. In relation to improving KPIs. Mr Whittle addressed the KPIs assessed as Red, those indicating signs of improvement and those which continued to exceed target.

2.    Further to comments and questions from Members it was noted:

• In response to the number of potholes repaired, performance continued to improve since the introduction of KCC Highways staff completing minor and urgent repairs, however, the level of demand continued to be high. The number of pothole repair requests had risen from 5,376 to 7,856 for the same period last year. Mr Baker paid tribute to all staff for their exceptional and continued hard work which kept the county moving.

• In response to the statistics for the number of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) issued within 20 weeks, it was noted that the data was based on a rolling 12-month average and therefore the impact of the significant work that had been undertaken within the SEND service to improve delays would only come to fruition in the Q1 KPIs. It was anticipated that significant improvement would start to be seen in the like-for-like comparison to previous quarters going forward.

• In response to Ofsted inspection data which highlighted Kent’s schools as performing above the national average, it was noted that the data would be discontinued following Government’s proposed reforms to Ofsted grading.   It was noted that the removal of Ofsted ratings concealed information from parents that would help to shape their choices of school for their child’s future.

• Members commented on the improvements to the Strengthening Independence Service and the hard work of staff.

• In response to the percentage of case-holding Social Worker posts held by permanent qualified Social Workers, it was noted that a number of initiatives had been rolled out to ensure increased retention and recruitment rates, which included joining the national front line charity initiative to increase recruitment capacity and training. The Government had also issued new guidelines for agency Social Workers which placed more restrictions on the ability of Social Workers to transfer to agency work, which as a result could hinder the Council’s ability to retain  ...  view the full minutes text for item 67.