The Executive Lead for Children’s Services to provide an update on the progress against the Children’s Services Medium Tern Financial Strategy and Children’s Services Improvement Plan.

The Mayor and Executive Lead for Children’s Services to answer the Board’s questions.

The Board to consider making any comments and/or recommendations.

The Director of Children’s Services and the Executive Lead for Children’s Services presented the current position in relation to the Children’s Services Medium Term Financial Strategy and the Improvement Plan.  The latest monitoring letter from Ofsted was also before the Board.

A number of questions were raised around the actions being taken to stabilise the financial position in Children’s Services over the coming months.

In terms of the monitoring letter from Ofsted, the Board was disappointed with the findings especially in relation to the Council’s role as a corporate parent.  The Chief Executive explained to the Board that work was in progress to ensure that the Council’s collective responsibility was reflected across the organisation and within its policies.

To consider the submitted report on the above.

The Council considered the submitted report on a review by the Director of Children’s Services of the previously approved Children’s Services 5 Year Financial Strategy as to whether the targets within the strategy were realistic and achievable.  It was noted that the review identified that the savings envisaged in the original strategy were not achievable due to a range of factors and the Director of Children’s Services had prepared a revised Children’s Services Medium Term Financial Strategy (2017-2021) as a result. 

Councillor Parrott proposed and Councillor Mills seconded a motion, which was agreed (unanimously) by the Council as set out below:

that the Children’s Services Medium Term Finance Strategy (MTFS) (2017 – 2021) and the revised contribution to the 2017/2018 Revenue Budget as set out in Appendix 1 to the submitted report be approved.

The Director of Children’s Services to present the draft Children’s Services Medium Tern Financial Strategy.

The Mayor and Executive Lead for Children’s Services to answer the Board’s questions.

The Board to review the document and make any comments and/or recommendations for consideration by the Council.

The Executive Lead and Director of Children’s Services presented the proposed Children’s Services Medium Term Financial Strategy.  The objectives of the Strategy included bringing staffing and support costs and placement costs more in line with statistical comparator authorities and aligning activity to reduce expenditure with improvement activity.

The Strategy also aimed to ensure that the Children’s Services budget was stabilised to support the transition of the service to an alternative delivery model.

The Strategy included a Financial Improvement Plan covering the period up to 2020/2021.  Whilst the Board were comfortable with the figures within the Plan for the next financial year, it was felt that there was still further work to be undertaken to determine whether all of the future years’ savings could be delivered.

The proposed Strategy was noted and the Board indicated that it would monitor its implementation on a regular basis.