Agenda item

Karen Stone,Revenue Finance Manager (0 - 25 services), Dave Shipton, Head of Finance (Policy, Planning & Strategy) and Zena Cooke, Corporate Director of Finance were in attendance for this item.

1.    Mr Oakford, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services, provided a high level overview of the budget position.  He noted that at the midpoint of the current year, there was a total overspend of around £36,000,000.  Around £28,000,000 of this overspend coming from providing Children, Young People and Education (CYPE) services.  Kent County Council’s (KCC) reserves were low and should not be regularly relied upon to balance overspends at the end of the year.

Initially the 2024-25 budget had a £100,000,000 deficit however savings had been identified to reduce this to around £50,000,000.  Work would continue to identify further savings and income opportunities in order to present a balanced budget to Council in February 2024.  

2.    Mrs Chandler, Cabinet Member for Integrated Childrens Services and Mr Love, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, provided the Committee with further details relating specifically to their portfolios.  The following points were noted:

·       The costs relating to children in care (CIC) placements and disabled children’s services continued to rise despite careful management of the demand.  These costs were mainly driven by rises in the market costs of care provision. 

·       KCC was part of two regional initiatives, one for placements and one for foster care, recruitment and retention.  These initiatives could help to stabilise the cost of care.  Further savings had been identified as part of ongoing work to review how services were delivered.

·       The increase in the cost of home to school transport was a challenge to manage.  Action had already been taken around discretionary services, but further action would be required.

·       The increase in the cost of providing special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) pupils with home to school transport was a concern.  The costs were partly due to the number of children identified as eligible for the support.  The SEND team were taking action to identify the most urgent cases in accordance with the SEND Code of Practice. 

3.     Further to questions and comments from Members, it was noted that:

·       Kent had a relatively low number of children in care compared to other counties however, the cost of children’s care placements were high.

·       It was good to have the budget so early, as it allowed questions to be raised before Council in February 2024.

·       When service cuts were proposed to save money, it was important to ensure that the costs were not passed on to other services or delayed until later.  Some issues could become more acute and more expensive to support if they were left unaddressed.  For example, a reduction in the early help offer might lead to more referrals later in life.

·       Early care preventive services helped to reduce the number of children in care.  Some discretionary services provided a cost saving overall by addressing problems at an early stage.

·       The dashboards were a good addition to the report this year.

·       The Family Hubs model looked to reduce open access costs by £1,500,000.  KCC’s services would be co-located with other service providers.

·       A reduction of £1,200,000 funding for the maintenance of local authority schools would place an additional burden on schools; however, the school maintenance thresholds had remained unchanged for ten years so were due to be updated.

·       There was a continued drive to reduce the reliance on agency staff.

·       All discretionary services would be reviewed to ensure they offered value for money.

·       KCC seemed to be increasingly reliant on Government grants.  These grants came with limitations and conditions on how the money could be spent which took control away from the Council.

·       There looked to be a lot of areas where services were being reduced, it was important not to turn vulnerable children and families away.  It would be good to have an estimate of the number of people affected by the proposed changes.

·       Mr Oakford welcomed suggestions from Members that could help to close the budget gap.

4. RESOLVED to note the initial draft capital and revenue budgets including responses to consultation.