Agenda item

The Director of Children and Families will attend the meeting to provide a presentation for Members on current budget issues facing this service area.

Mustafa Salih (Assistant Director – Finance and Performance, Children and Families) gave a presentation on this item and advised that an overspend of £3.295m was forecast in the Children and Families budget for 2010/11.  A small amount of the overspend, £340,000, was from the schools budget which was in any case ring-fenced and would not affect the council.  However, the remaining overspend of £2.995 would impact upon the budget and this needed to be addressed.  Members heard that up until 2010/11, an invest to save programme had been successful in controlling spending levels.  The amount of looked after children had also fallen until a very recent sharp increase and the rise in demand would need to be managed carefully.  The number of non looked after children being supported by the council was also rising and this would mean increased costs in areas such as adoption.  Mustafa Salih referred to the Children’s Social Care Transformation project, an ongoing gold project aimed at achieving both greater efficiency and savings.  Members noted the different support options for child care and Mustafa Salih stated that changing support options to lower unit costs was being considered. 

Mustafa Salih commented on the difficulty in predicting school places, however the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) forecast had lower figures than Brent’s own forecast.  Members noted that the council’s own forecast had prevented there being a shortage of places in previous years, however as demand for places continued to rise, for this year there were presently 111 children without school places.  In addition, there could be further shortages created because of parents pursuing a particular school of their choice.  Members heard that the Capital Programme had identified £26m to deliver an additional ten forms of entry by 2015/16, however there may be a need for up to 15 further additional forms after that year and this would need to be closely monitored.  Mustafa Salih advised that the Government was undertaking a review in respect of the size and focus of future capital funding for schools.

Graham Genoni (Assistant Director – Social Care, Children and Families) added that in the case of non looked after children being supported, there had been a significant increase in referrals in the range of 25% to 33% since the Baby P case and this would entail increased costs for support care, including support of both children and their family members, whilst court costs were also increasing.  Non looked after children being supported costs would include a mixture of discretionary and statutory costs.

With the approval of the Chair, Robert Dunwell addressed the committee.  Robert Dunwell commented that local authorities had long queried the official population statistics and stated that they could take joint direct action to lobby the Government or even explore legal means to challenge the figures.

During Members’ discussion, Councillor Van Kalwala sought further explanation as to why levels of deprivation had increased.  Councillor Long enquired how savings could be achieved in relation to foster care and enquired how the council would attract foster carers in view that agencies provided higher allowances.  She also asked whether consideration was being given to councils co-operating with each other to compete with the independent foster agencies.

The Chair sought views with regard to the council’s threshold in relation to referrals and whether demand could be described as cyclical.  He expressed concern about the relatively high overspend and sought further details with regard to the approximate £600,000 overspend in staffing and photocopying and clarity was sought with regard to the photocopying contract.

In reply to the issues raised, Graham Genoni felt that the referral thresholds were both safe and appropriate and benchmarking with other local authorities confirmed this.  He stated that lowering the cases the council became involved in could present a risk, whilst referrals were increasing nationally.  Demand could sometimes be cyclical, although it was notoriously difficult to predict.  Members heard that 369 children were presently looked after by the council, although care was provided through an increasing variety of methods, whilst there was a total of 1,800 open cases currently in Child Care.  Graham Genoni explained that the foster care market was a competitive one, however a council project was seeking to improve the fostering service and increase the number of foster carers for the council through advertising and a proactive publicity campaign.   He advised that co-operation between local authorities was unlikely as each was in competition with the others.  Members noted that on average a council foster carer was £400 per week cheaper than the costs in using an independent foster carer.

Graham Genoni confirmed that the £420,000 overspend was down to staffing costs due to the minimum number of staff not being correctly budgeted for during the establishment exercise, a budgeting gap that needed to be addressed.  A further £180,000 overspend was due to photocopying costs attributable to the photocopying contract being an expensive one, exacerbated by the fact that Children and Families presently used offices in a number of buildings.  However, the introduction of a corporate photocopying contract and the move to the Civic Centre would address this issue.

Krutika Pau (Director of Children and Families) advised that the child population in Brent was rising and this would increase demand, whilst cases were becoming more complex.  Deprivation levels in Brent had also increased in the last three years due to increasing unemployment and pressures on healthcare.  Krutika Pau confirmed that local authorities continued to lobby the Government in respect of population figures and the impact of population discrepancies would impact upon the budget.

Clive Heaphy added that the 2011 Census would provide the opportunity for the council to gain all the necessary information together to challenge the Office for National Statistics figures and lobby the Government.  Members noted that the introduction of a multi-use machine and reducing the number of photocopying machines was being considered, whilst service areas were being encouraged to make use of more on-line materials and to move document management on-line.  Clive Heaphy also commented that some schools were also on costly, inefficient photocopying contracts and these would need to be addressed.