Report of the Executive Director Adult Social Services and Director of Public Health attached

The report of the Executive Director for Adult Social Services and Director of Public Health explained how the budget proposals for the Directorate had been developed.

The report examined the elements of the Council’s own budgets that were within and outside of the pooled budget arrangements for the MLCO. The key changes and pressures that had been addressed in 2022/23 were set out, as were the savings proposals where such had been possible:-

It was reported that the finance settlement included the following changes and increased the funding available for adults social care by £11.306m.

·                The Council’s spending power included the assumption that the 1% social care precept would be raised. A 1% increase would generate c£1.9m. This combined with, improvements to Council Tax collection rates and an increase in the tax base due to new house building growth,  meant that this increased the amount attributable to the ASC precept to a total increase of £3.259m; and

·                The additional £1.6bn of national funding included £8.047m for social care and the costs for the 1.25% national insurance increase

In addition, direct funding of £2.7m had been received and would be passed on directly to the Adults Social Care budget as follows:-

·                £0.9m for inflation on the Better Care fund; and

·                £1.8m via the ‘social care levy’ to fund the fair cost of care and associated preparatory work

Once the one off capacity funding of £2.690m from 2021/22 was removed, there would be a net increase in external funding of £11.438m. 

In addition there was a small increase in the overall core funding allocated to the Adults and Social Care budget to mainly cover the cost of the National Insurance increase.

It was reported that £10.656m of investment had also been identified to cover the inflation and pay award costs of £5.516m and £5.5m of system support towards the Better Outcomes Better Lives (BOBL) programme, which was partially offset by the removal of the one off capacity funding of £2.690m, which had been removed from the 2022/23 budget.  This brought the total additional investment into the aligned budget to £21.095m, before the BOBL and vacancy factor savings of £9.386m were removed, giving a net increase to the Adults and Social Care budgets of £11.709m.

It was noted that the budget report had also been considered at a recent meeting of the Health Scrutiny Committee and the committee had endorsed the proposals in the report (Minute HSC/22/09).

Decisions

The Executive:-

(1)      Approve the Directorate budget proposals as set out in the report.

(2)      Note the aspiration for the Council to ensure that all care contracts pay their staff the Real Living Wage and to use the opportunity of the market sustainability review to help deliver on this