Agenda item

(Item 8 – report by Mr J Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance and Business Support and Andy Wood, Corporate Director, Finance and Procurement)

(During the item Mr Gibbens declared a personal non-pecuniary interest by virtue of his wife being a member of the Canterbury and Herne Bay Volunteer Bureaux, a voluntary sector organisation which could be impacted by changes to delivery of services)

Cabinet received a report of the above named member and officer the purpose of which was to provide the proposed response from Cabinet to the 2013 /14 Budget Consultation.

Mr Simmonds introduced the report to Cabinet for consideration.  In particular he referred to the following points within it:

·         That the Chancellor, Mr Osborne, would make a statement on 5^th December and Mr Pickles would further qualify that statement for local government on the 19^th or 20^th December.  The budget proposals therefore would not be finalised until after these speeches.

·         That the draft document was a living document and had undergone some changes since being consulted upon.  One of these changes was as a result of the announcement of the continuation of the Council Tax Freeze Grant, which had now been guaranteed for two more years.

·         Early intervention grant and LACSEG, the central staffing functions carried out by KCC had been adapted by Rt Hon Michael Gove MP.  The result was likely to be a lower settlement.

·         Costs of the consultation have been approx £38,000.  Mr Simmonds defended the spend against some reported criticism and explained that a large proportion of this had been spent on the MORI workshops which had been invaluable in collecting opinions from a genuine cross section of the County’s residents.

Mr Simmonds reported that themes from respondents to the consultation included:

·         Council Tax – for the first time there was no appetite for raising council tax to meet other needs.  In addition residents favoured the use of reserves to meet identified need as opposed to a raise in Council Tax.

·         The need for service delivery to be efficient and effective.

·         Support for vulnerable adults and children continued to be important to residents in Kent and the transformational approach that was being taken would be crucial in the delivery of these services.

·         Community responsibility was emphasised by respondents when considering the future provision of non-statutory duties.

·         A desire to see any move towards online communications coupled with support for the elderly in order that certain demographics were not disadvantaged in their relations with the council.

Matt Burrows, Director of Communications and Engagement, Customer and Communities and Dave Shipton, Head of Financial Strategy, BSS were in attendance and made a presentation, the purpose of which was to describe the methodology behind the consultation and to report the key themes within the responses. [A copy of the presentation is attached as appendix 1 to these minutes]

In response to questions received during and after the presentation, Cabinet heard the following information from officers:

·         That MORI was a well established and highly regarded research body and its services had been commissioned by KCC to conduct independent workshops.  MORI recruited residents to take part in workshops that reflected the demographics of the county.

The Leader of the County Council, Mr Paul Carter, made the following comments in response to the presentation and the information contained within the report:

·         He commended the consultation document and felt that it had helped to secure a genuine dialogue with residents.  Many of the themes were to be expected in difficult financial times.

·          In addition the Leader argued that the communication policy on health reforms must be clear and simple to understand the respondents to the consultation were sceptical and this must be properly addressed.  The council must make clear that services could be delivered more efficiently without standards of care being reduced.  Indeed it was predicted that services would improve.

·         He was disappointed by the low number of respondents but felt that all efforts had been made to maximise this figure

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, Mr Graham Gibbens reported that the responses which related to his portfolio, in particular Adult Social Care, acknowledged that change was required.  However respondents were clear that top slicing services was not acceptable.  He argued therefore that the transformation agenda was the only practical and acceptable way forward.  Changes planned would allow the council to continue to protect the most vulnerable in our communities.  

One consistent theme within the responses received was that young people in receipt of Adult Social Care services should contribute more towards those services.  The Cabinet Member endorsed that principle and referred to the recommendations contained within the Dilnott report which were also in accordance with this view. He congratulated the Leader on work already carried out to push forward the findings of the Dilnott report and welcomed the County Council decision that its recommendations should be implemented by 2015.  He argued that once the recommendations were in place the insurance sector would take up its place and contributions by working age adults to social care would increase.

He reminded those present that the transformation agenda would require investment in the infrastructure to provide care and services in people’s own homes, for example in the community and voluntary sectors and less in residential care.  

Finally he noted that respondents were sceptical about the integration of health and social care services.  He confirmed that he was committed to the agenda and that he believed it was an area where joint working would allow efficiencies to be made without compromising services.

The Leader thanked Mr Gibbens for his comments and congratulated officers and members involved in the integration programme for the good work already completed.

The Cabinet Member for Customer and Communities, Mr Mike Hill addressed Cabinet; he was encouraged by the responses related to his portfolio in particular the acceptance of respondents that new ways of working and of delivering services, were needed.  In particular respondents supported better and greater use of the voluntary sector and further provision of online services. These sentiments fit well with the approaches being taken to service delivery and to the customer strategy underway.

The Leader thanked Mr Hill and additionally noted that in the last financial year work procured by Kent businesses and the Kent voluntary and community sector had increased by 10%. 

The Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Waste, Mr Bryan Sweetland was pleased that the consensus within the consultation results was to continue to deliver the services in his portfolio from within the council and felt that this was recognition of the investments made for road improvements under this administration.

He was further encouraged to see that there was support for the safe and sensible approach to street lighting which had been on the agenda for some time.  He reminded members of the themes central to the debate which were the desire to cut Co2 and spending whilst maintaining resident safety.  He assured members that while the environment, light pollution and costs would be considered it would not be at the expanse of the safety of residents and this desire was reflected in the responses.  The subject would be further discussed with residents in the New Year.

The Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services, Mrs Jenny Whittle, welcomed the messages received through the consultation which related to her portfolio.  She urged a cautious attitude to the sometimes held view that additional investment would necessarily equal better services and argued that this was only one of many strategies for delivering quality services for residents, for example the work recently undertaken to produce a robust workforce strategy to decrease reliance on agency social workers. 

Mrs Whittle continued to report that, In line with the comments made previously with regard to Adult Services, there was a desire within Children’s Services to deliver more services through the voluntary and community sector.  Part of this process had been to move from grant based funding to the commissioning of services in order to monitor and maintain agreed standards. The work done to date towards this end had shown good results for residents. 

The Cabinet Member for Education, Learning and Skills, Mr Mike Whiting, addressed Cabinet.  He reported that the responses related to his portfolio were positive and welcomed the support that they implied for policies and approaches already being progressed, for example the devolvement of budgets to individual schools.  

The Leader referred to the recommendations, he assured Cabinet Members, in relation to the first recommendation, that all possible avenues were being explored in order to reduce the impact of any Government announcements this month, on KCC.

It was RESOLVED: