Agenda item

As part of the Council’s consultation process, the Forum received a report on the 2016/17 further savings proposals of the Executive in respect of the revenue budget for the Children, Young People and Learning Department. This reflected the confirmed financial settlement for the Council which was £2.4m worse than expected.

Without this information, Council-wide initial budget proposals included economies of approximately £4m which left a potential budget gap of around £6.044m.  An increase in Council Tax, an appropriate contribution from the Council’s revenue reserves and identification of further economies were available as options to bridge this gap.  The Council had established a Transformation Board to review the delivery of all services over the next four years and identify where further savings could be made.  The initial review of five service areas, which did not include CYPL, identified potential economies of £2.183m for 2016/17 of which £1.816m was expected to be available to contribute to closing the £6.044m gap. 

The provisional Local Government Financial Settlement was announced in December 2015 confirming the £2.4m gap in the initial budget proposals.  Other Councils in Berkshire were similarly affected by the provisional Settlement and as such, a delegation of Berkshire Council Leaders, headed by the Leader of Bracknell, met with the Minister for Local Government and put forward a strong case for Berkshire to be treated more favourably.  This had the result that Bracknell Forest would receive a newly introduced transitional grant of £0.9m in both 2016/17 and 2017/18.  However, the Revenue Support Grant loss of £5.4m in 2016/17, which was £2.4m more than the anticipated loss, meant that in overall terms this still represented a further £1.5m loss of grant in 2016/17.

In respect of additional economies for CYPL in 2016/17, the report detailed the following proposed savings:

• A reduction in universal service provision within the Alders & Chestnuts Children’s Centre area of £75,000.

• A number of savings within the Early Help Offer of £217,000.  These included:

·           A reduction in resource support for the Every Child a Talker Programme.

·          Deletion of 2.2 FTE Development Officer posts.

·          Removal of resources budget at the Family Information Service.

·          50% reduction in grant allocated to Homestart for the provision of trained volunteers to support families requiring early help.

·          Deletion of voluntary sector grant support to KIDS Young Carers.

The timetable for these proposals included a twelve week consultation period from 24 February 2016 to 17 May 2016, recommendations to the Council by the Executive on 14 June 2016 with the Council considering the Executive’s recommendations on 13 July 2016.

The Forum was advised that generally speaking a number of service contracts were coming to an end and this had provided officers with an opportunity to review actual spend against service delivery.  Anne Shillcock expressed her concern at the proposed additional savings and the likely implication of a reduced service to the most vulnerable families.  In particular, Anne was concerned about the reductions in support for the Every Child a Talker Programme and in the Homestart grant which could impact on whether a vulnerable, young child would be ready to start school.  In addition, Anne raised her concern about the deletion of the grant to KIDS Young Carers and asked what organisation would be able to replace the work carried out by KIDS at no cost.  David Watkins, Chief Officer, Children, Young People and Learning advised members that £20,000 would still remain in the budget for young carers and therefore the service provided by KIDS Young Carers would be integrated into other service areas and support to young carers would continue to be provided but just delivered differently.  Members were advised that the Department’s performance in terms of early years had increased and in some areas was in the top three in the country.  As a consequence, officers had worked hard to look at the impact of potential savings and recognised that the proposed cuts were significant for a small authority.  Members were advised that if the proposed savings were implemented following the consultation the affected services would be monitored very carefully and kept under strict review.

The Forum discussed alternative revenue streams to help offset the proposed savings such as bidding in the Big Lottery Fund.  David Watkins advised this had been looked at by the Council and would continue to be pursued whilst being mindful they were competing against larger authorities who were able to demonstrate they could make a bigger and better impact on more children.  In addition, Members were advised that the Department would look at partners such as Health, CCGs and CAMHS to assist in service delivery in order to build on the good start that had been made with the Family Focus Programme.

Members were advised that the additional capital savings proposals would be reviewed at a future meeting but it was noted that the reductions to buildings planned maintenance did not include schools.  The Forum discussed the significant budget in 2016/17 for the construction of Binfield Learning Village.  The forecast for school places meant the site was still required but even if the planned phasing for the completion and release of housing stock changed and affected that forecast, money from the capital programme could not be used to fill gaps in the revenue budget.

Members requested the following COMMENT was fed back to the Executive in respect of the 2016/17 further savings proposals:

The Schools Forum were unanimous in their view that the 2016/17 proposed further savings in respect of the revenue budget for CYPL would have a significant and detrimental affect on the outcomes for young people which, once realised, would be too late for those young people.  The Schools Forum believed officers faced an unrealistic timeframe in which to determine where the cuts should be made and Members felt they too faced an unworkable timeframe in which to offer viable alternatives to the proposed cuts.