Issue details

Proposed Decision:

     I.        Approve the acceptance of the Stop Smoking Services and Support Grant 2024/25 to 2028/29, subject to final review and consideration of detailed terms and conditions from the Department of Health and Social Care.

    II.        DELEGATE authority to the Director of Public Health, after consultation with the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, to review and agree to the required terms and conditions to enter into the necessary grant arrangements.

  III.        DELEGATE authority to the Director of Public Health, after consultation with the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Corporate Director of Finance, to accept and deploy future years’ allocations of Stop Smoking Services and Support Grant funding, provided funding is given on similar terms.

  IV.        DELEGATE authority to the Director of Public Health to take other necessary actions, including but not limited to entering into contracts or other legal agreements, as required to implement the decision.

Background

On 4 October 2023, the government published ‘Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation’ which sets out the proposed actions the government will take to tackle smoking and youth vaping.This included a programme of funding to support current smokers to quit smoking, with £70 million additional funding per year for local authority stop smoking services and support.

The aim of this additional funding is to ensure there is a nationwide comprehensive offer to help people stop smoking across England and to increase the number of smokers engaging with effective interventions to quit smoking.

Local authorities currently receive funding to provide local stop smoking services and support through the Public Health Grant.

This new funding is in addition to the Public Health Grant and will be provided through a new Section 31 Grant on top of the current Public Health Grant allocations. This funding will be ringfenced for local authority led stop smoking services and support.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will provide the grant.

Kent County Council (KCC) will receive the grant agreement in January 2024. This will provide KCC with the full grant conditions. Once received, KCC will be asked to read and return a signed copy.

The grant agreement will start from 6 April 2024.

KCC will be required to meet certain criteria to be eligible for the additional funding.To receive the funding, KCC must maintain their existing spend on stop smoking services, based on the stop smoking service data they have submitted for the year 2022 to 2023. KCC should ensure they maintain this level of funding throughout the whole grant period.

Options (other options considered but discarded)

Not accepting the Grant Funding - By not accepting the Stop smoking Services and Support Grant funding KCC would not be able to increase the number of people it supports to quit smoking each year through its current provision (circa 3000 a year). It would be likely that Kent’s smoking population would remain at its current level and if other Local Authorities were to still accept the grant funding, Kent could be an outlier in this area. Not accepting the funding would also make it difficult for KCC to target support at groups identified as part of the Smoking Needs Assessment without removing resources from the current Stop smoking provision.

How the proposed decision meets the priorities of New Models of Care and Support as set out in ‘‘Framing Kent’s Future – Our Council Strategy 2022 – 2026’

By accepting the Grant funding this will help contribute to achieving the priority of “Our commitment is to work with our partners to hardwire a preventative approach into improving the health of Kent’s population and narrowing health inequalities.” From Framing Kent’s Future. The funding will help to focus the population on healthy behaviours by quitting smoking.

How the proposed decision supports Securing Kent’s Future

Objective 4: Further transforming the operating model of the Council – the funding will allow Public Health to test new operating models and find the most efficient combination of services to help Kent residents to quit smoking.

Financial Implications

The table below shows the confirmed maximum amount of funding allocation for Kent if KCC meets all the eligible criteria.

The grant allocation will initially apply for the first year of the grant (the financial year 2024 to 2025).

To determine the 2024/2025 funding allocation for each local authority, the additional funding (£70 million per year from 2024 to 2025) was divided by the total number of smokers across England (5.6 million). This gives an approximate funding rate per smoker (£12.39). The funding rate per smoker was then multiplied by the estimated number of smokers in each local authority, to give a total allocation to each local authority.

The government cannot provide specific allocations for 2025 to 2026 and beyond at this stage. However, they have confirmed additional funding of £70 million a year for 5 years, from 2024 to 2025 through to 2028 to 2029.

Allocations will continue to be based on the average smoking prevalence over a 3-year period to ensure the allocations are based on the most robust and recent data.

Funding will be given to local authorities every 6 months. In the first 6 months, KCC will receive 70% of their allocated financial year’s funding. KCC will then be expected to provide grant reporting to the DHSC grants team to receive the second payment.