Agenda item

This report presents the results of the third round of the Council’s revenue budget monitoring process for 2024/25. The Council’s summary position is presented in section 4, with sections 5 and 6 providing the detail for the service areas within the remit of this Committee.

Discussion:

The Committee received the report on the results of the third round of the Council’s Revenue Budget monitoring process for 2024/25. The overall overspend across the Council forecast of £4.8million which was an improvement of just under £2.8million reported on at round 2 monitoring, withing the remit of this committee, there is an overspend of approximately £3.5million which is improvement of £800k from the position at round 2 reporting.

Safety Valve – It was asked what the implications would be as it appeared that the targets in the Safety Valve Improvement Plans would not be met. The Committee was informed that the service was performing slightly below target and as a result discussions took place with the schools forum and they agreed a transfer from schools block to the high needs block, and if needed, the option was to extend the programme for another year. There were issues with the high number of independent schools still being used and not enough places in Mainstream Schools. Conversations took with the DfE, and they have agreed to pay the funding for this year. Guidance had yet to be issued on continuation of the statutory override beyond March 2026 and there was potential that the outstanding deficit in March 2026 would transfer to the Councils General Fund. Medway’s Safety Valve Improvement Plans were performing better than a number of other Local Authorities who were in the same programme and as a result there was a lot of pressure being put on the DfE to extend the statutory override for a further period. Medway’s deficit would be significantly lower by March 2026.

Eden House-   Clarification was sought on the £500k pressure due to delay in opening and the number of young people placed. Clarification was also sought on the number of beds there as it was assumed that there was capacity for six young people with a further two for independent accommodation.

The Committee was informed that there were five beds in Eden House. Originally committed to getting four young people placed but due to the delay in opening, the agreement was to have three young people there by the end of the financial year and were on target to achieve that. There were some vacancies in the staffing team, which was being addressed, this was a challenge in the market with residential support workers in high demand.

There was ample staff in place to manage the 3 young people and one additional staff had since been recruited. An Ofsted inspection was expected to take place in the summer given date of registration. Regular Regulation 44 visits from an independent continue to take place which had all been positive. There was additional funding in place to refurbish the Cabin which would produce a further provision and at that time the statement of purpose would be revisited to explore unitisation by looking at pressures against sufficiency strategy.

The Committee learned that at any given point there were different matrix for the number of residents as it had the capacity for seven young people. The national picture was that a children’s home of that size was not good practice and to move away from large settings to personalised child focused provision.

Decision:

a)     The Committee noted the results of the third round of revenue budget monitoring for 2024/25.

b)     The Committee noted that Cabinet instructed the Corporate Management Team to implement urgent actions to bring expenditure back within the budget agreed by the Full Council.