Members will consider the progress in delivering the Council’s Financial Strategy [and therefore the Business Plan] and help inform the refresh and any refocus for 2015/16 onwards.

The Committee will work with the Financial Strategy and the Business Plan as 3 year rolling documents.  Members will be given the opportunity to undertake proactive scrutiny by feeding back and sharing issues and thoughts on the areas that may require updating or refocusing in the coming year’s refresh of the Business Plan [as the delivery part of the Financial Strategy] to achieve the required savings.

The following documents are included:

a)    Performance report and dashboards relevant to the Committee’s specific remit [TO FOLLOW]

b)    Quarter 1 performance report and dashboards [from 15 October 2014 Cabinet meeting]

c)    Business Plan and Financial Strategy document [from 27 February 2014 Council meeting]

d)    Financial Strategy [from 30 July 2014 Cabinet]

The Performance Manager explained that the documentation before the Committee provided Members with the opportunity to have a high level view and be able to take detail on board, to identify issues and to look at areas within the Business Plan.  The Committee would meet again at the end of the month in order to collate the comments from the other Scrutiny Committees in order to provide a composite scrutiny comment to Cabinet on 10 December 2014.

The Chief Executive set the context and explained that the Council was working in a time of unprecedented cuts and had £80M savings yet to make in addition to the cuts of £40M already made in this year alone.  Referring to the Business Plan, he explained that this had been approved by Council in February 2014; there were savings that had been made, savings yet to be made and some that would be impossible to make through a mix of timing and some that were just not possible to make.

He suggested that scrutiny should focus its attentions on ‘Red’ areas of savings e.g. there are less people in the system re adult social care but currently the costs do not reflect this reduction as there are existing people in the system, also issues within finance and care systems as the two systems do not work in synch to reflect the true costs. 

The Committee Chairman agreed that scrutiny should focus its attention on the Red areas and should liaise closely with Cabinet and Directors to offer help and assistance.  He suggested that rationalisation of assets was a key area for Performance Management Scrutiny to assist.  The Chief Executive cautioned that scrutiny should not seek to revisit the work being undertaken by the Assets Board but could seek an update from the Board to understand the dilemmas faced and determine whether scrutiny assistance could be beneficial in this work area.

Implications of the Social Care Act were not yet known and guidance was still awaited but there was a fear that it would have a detrimental impact on the Council’s future plans; the Chief Executive added that a big change was imminent and the Council had been assured that funding to implement the Act would be available.

The Committee considered the 4 technical dashboards, as follows:

·         Progress on delivering ‘Your money’ outcome

·         Progress on delivering ‘Your environment’ outcome

·         Progress on delivering ‘Your life’ outcome

·         Progress on delivering ‘Your health’ outcome

Youth Services - Referring to the ‘Your environment’ dashboard, a member questioned whether the 3% increase in reported offences in Shropshire could be attributed to the abolition of youth services in the county.  The Leader commented that the money had been redistributed and targeted to demographics; less money was spent but with better outcomes, less money spent on staff and more on the actual projects.  Information on a Dragons’ Den style event run under the auspices of Oswestry Community Alcohol Project was noted as an excellent event that had provided a wealth of information on activities and projects that young people wanted. 

Some Members were concerned that the reduction in youth service funding would have a detrimental impact and believed that diversionary activities for young people had kept crime low.  However, the majority agreed that doing things differently with targeted and measurable outcomes represented the way forward and that money did not always equate to quality; the Council was seeking to ‘do things differently’.  The majority agreed that allocation of funding in this area should be based on need.

Several issues were highlighted by members of the Committee as needing further information, for example:

·         ASC personalisation – are people receiving appropriate information?

·         The dip in Looked After Children [LAC] not having a second Child Protection Plan – this dip was noted as a positive trend as the Council’s Strategy was to ensure that children needed to be brought into care; aim to reduce the need for a child to be in care for a long time

·         Education standards appear to be in decline and needed to be addressed,

·         The dashboard information did not give any indication of staff satisfaction in the various service areas.  The Chief Executive commented that dashboards were a new way of presenting information and added that statistics could present a skewed view that needed to be investigated in more depth in order to ascertain the full facts.

·         Reduction in adults being admitted to permanent care [relates to over 65s] – a good news story.  The Council is promoting an aspirational expectation that people can live independently and in their own homes for as long as possible.  It was noted that a detailed review was ongoing and would be reported to next month’s meeting of the Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee.

·         Reduction in the personal budget – It was noted that the Council was no.1 in the region to offer a personalised service and give people control of the money to address their needs in a way that suited them best.  The Council had become more creative in how this support could be met and the statistics currently did not keep up with the innovative work undertaken by the Council’s staff; it would be interesting to note any change in this statistic in future reports.

It was noted that the next meeting of this Committee on 26 November 2014 would provide an opportunity to consider feedback from all of the Council’s Scrutiny Committees from their debates on the progress made in delivering the Council’s Financial Strategy and to form an overarching scrutiny view report to Cabinet at its meeting on 10 December 2014.