To report on the monitoring of the revenue budget, for the period to the end of October, for the Children & Young People’s Directorate.

The Committee scrutinised the report on the monitoring of the revenue budget, for the period to the end of October, for the Children & Young People’s Directorate.

The Director of Children’s Services reported that the trend towards an overspend continued and the monitoring of expenditure to October 31st now projected an overspend of £214,000 at year-end, as indicated in the figures set out in Appendix 1 to the report.  The overspend was largely due to increasing external agency placements in the Safeguarding and Assessment Budget.  Placements had risen from 24 at the beginning of the year to 29 now.  The number of children in foster care had also risen from 111 at the beginning of the year to 121 now.  Additionally extra spend on filling social work vacancies and agency staff had been incurred in order to improve services in line with the Joint Area Review.

The Directorate Finance Manager reported that income under the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), which the Council had to pay to schools in March but didn’t receive final notification of from government until June, had been less than expected. 

During the course of scrutinising the monitoring report the Committee noted the following points in response to questions raised:

• There needed to be clear lines of monitoring in relation to the use of in-year grants received under the Early Years Childcare Grant, which was used to offset some early years expenditure.
• The Council was seeking an increase in funding from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to support the Special Educational Need (SEN) cost of post-16 pupils.
• External agency placements were generally negotiated, however, costs were typically £150,000 for each place per annum provided by the private or voluntary sectors.  On the face of it these costs were thought to be expensive and the Audit Commission were undertaking a national audit study into better management of expensive ‘out county’ placements.  However, the agencies did provide a range of highly specialist services to children most in need.
• An audit of the child’s need was always undertaken to ensure proper placement of the child.
• Herefordshire together with Worcestershire and Shropshire were awaiting the outcome of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding request to the DfES to jointly commission a placement facility in Ludlow, which would provide for 12 placements, 2 of which would be for Herefordshire.
• The DfES had awarded greater than inflation rises (on a per pupil basis) to school budgets and although, in general, schools in Herefordshire had high balances funding was expected to reduce in line with falling pupil numbers and schools would have to reduce their staffing and expenditure in coming years.
• The Directorate worked with schools that had a deficit budget to assist them in balancing their funds. The Directorate anticipate that the number of schools to be in deficit may rise in coming years.
• While the Assessment and Family Support budget currently showed an underspend, new initiatives coming on line were expected to put a strain on this budget in the future.
• Grant money received usually had clear criteria governing its use.

RESOLVED That the report be noted.

At this point the Committee adjourned for approximately five minutes and reconvened at 11.30 am.