Report of the Chief Executive and the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer

This report provides an update on the Council’s overall financial position and sets out the next steps in the budget process, including scrutiny of the budget proposals and budget report by this Committee.

Each Scrutiny Committee will receive a budget report aligned to its remit, showing the main changes proposed to delivery and funding. The services to be considered by each scrutiny committee are shown at table five. The report also outlines the proposals for how the Council could deliver a balanced budget for 2020/21, the details of which will be discussed at the relevant scrutiny committees.

The Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive and the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, which provided an update on the Council’s overall financial position and set out the next steps in the budget process, including scrutiny of the budget proposals and budget report by this Committee.

In conjunction to the above, the Committee also considered the Children and Education Services Budget 2020/21 which provided the final budget proposals following the contents of the provisional Local Government Settlement received late December 2019 and feedback from scrutiny committees during January 2020.  In addition, the Committee received the School Budgets 2020/21 which provided a summary of the confirmed Dedicated School Grant (DSG) allocation from the 2020/21 settlement announced on 19 December 2019, and the budget allocation across individual school budgets and Council-retained schools budgets.

The proposed 2020/21 budget reflected the fact the Council had declared a climate emergency by making carbon reduction a key consideration in the Council’s planning and budget proposals.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources outlined the national context within which the budget was being set, highlighting the significant decrease in funding to the Council since 2010.

The Ward Councillor for Miles Platting and Newton Heath highlighted the issue of homeless families being placed in temporary accommodation in a different area and who would fund transport to school, where it was in the child’s interests to continue to attend their existing school.  The Executive Member for Children and Schools outlined how Executive Members were working together to look at how services could be better co-ordinated to address homelessness and meet the needs of people who were homeless.  He reported that he would also be meeting with the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services, the Director of Homelessness and Deputy Leader Councillor Sue Murphy to consider how Children’s Services and the Homelessness Service could work better together to support homeless families.  He advised that he would take forward the issue raised by the Member.  The Chair requested that the Committee receive a report at a future meeting on this area of work.  A Member questioned whether a joint subgroup should be established with the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee to look at this issue in more detail.  The Chair advised that he would not be recommending this at this time but that he would speak to the Chair of the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee about how best to scrutinise this subject.  

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• Educational Psychology including the overspend and the future commissioning arrangements;
• That the Troubled Families grant had recently been confirmed for a further year by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and was the Council prepared if this funding was not continued in future years; and
• That additional money had been allocated to the High Needs Block of the DSG but that this followed several years of the funding being frozen when the number of pupils in Manchester was increasing.

In response to points raised by Members in relation to fostering, adoption and residential placements, the Chair advised Members that these issues were regularly discussed at the Corporate Parenting Panel, which all Members were invited to attend, and that reports on these issues would also be considered at future Committee meetings.

The Director of Education informed Members that there had been an overspend on the Educational Psychology budget because of the increasing numbers of children with an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) and she outlined when Educational Psychology services were used in relation to EHCPs.  She reported that the Council would be carrying out an open tender for Educational Psychology services.  The Chair requested that the Committee receive a short note in a future Overview Report on the tendering process for the Educational Psychology service.

The Deputy Director of Children’s Services reported that plans had been made to spend the Troubled Families funding which had recently been confirmed, stating that this work was well-evaluated, achieving good outcomes and providing value for money.  The Head of Finance advised that this was a one-year budget and that, if no further funding was provided by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government for this programme, the Council would need to make a decision in next year’s budget process about what its priorities were.

Decisions

1.            To agree the strategy outlined in the reports.

2.            To request that the Committee receive a report on the work taking place to better co-ordinate services to support families, children and young people affected by homelessness.

3.            To request a short note in a future Overview Report on the tendering process for the Educational Psychology service.