Over £21m of services cut from Devon's people budget
Councillors at a budget scrutiny meeting of Devon county council have recommended a real terms spending cut of £21.4 million from the authority’s people services.
The authority’s people services which cover areas such as the youth service, child protection services, adult social care and schools and education will see some services reduce their abilities.
However due to ongoing spending pressures including those from the review of the council’s child protection services the people budget will only make savings of £4 million on last year’s budget.
The proposed budget now stands at a little under £315 million for the next financial year.
Several councillors expressed frustration at the reach of the savings plans and with the lack of communication from central government on the amount of money available from government grants
The current spending plan which aims for a balanced budget is based off assumed figures but the government has yet to confirm the amount available from its final grant settlement for the new financial year.
The details of the council tax base and business rate yield are also still to be confirmed and the authority warns that the budget may change as a result of this.
Chair of the committee Cllr Sara Randell Johnson said that it was “bonkers” that the council was unable to know the final amount available from central government “hours before fixing it.”
The scale of the cuts means that only the most vulnerable will eligible for many of the council’s people services and will see universal care removed from areas such as the youth service and early years children’s centres.
21 of the 23 homes for older people owned by the council are expected to be considered for closure in this next year, although this includes some with very few residents.
Around 1,000 older people in sheltered housing will be re-assessed to see if they are eligible for social care if not they could lose access to council funded care.
The council’s three children’s homes, including the Rifford Road home currently at the centre of a child sexual exploitation probe, are likely to be closed as well.
The council’s ‘Community meals’ programme which currently serves around 406 people with ‘critical’ or ‘substantial’ needs will not be renewed in July with current users directed to commercial and voluntary providers instead.
£1.5 milliion in savings is to be taken from the council’s early years budget and may see services that are delivered through Children’s Centres including parenting support, health services and advice and guidance on routes into training/employment be reduced in many centres.
It is proposed that these centres now focus more on the most vulnerable families rather than offer a universal service.
One of these three homes, Rifford Road in Exeter is currently at the centre of an ongoing child sexual exploitation probe.
All these spending reductions are still at a proposal level and have not yet been approved although no element was directly protested by councillors in today's scrutiny meeting.
The budget reports highlights that there are increasing spending pressures from inflation as well as an increased number of people using the council’s services especially in children’s social care, which was highly criticised in its last Ofsted report .
The number of children going into care has increased both nationally and locally however the rise in children going into care in Devon is more than double the national average ( a 2.1% rise nationally against a 4.9% rise in Devon).
This has come alongside a general increase in the number of referrals, child protection investigations, child protection plans and court cases related to child protection.
Due to a lack of council employed social workers, to process this increase in payload the council has had to hire outside agency staff to ensure that Devon’s vulnerable children are protected.
Although the deficit of council social workers is due to the council being unable to hire on more staff (caused, in part, by a national shortage of social workers) the cost is a taking up a significant portion of the budget set aside for child protection.
The council are hoping that this will be mitigated by the new structure for childcare protection which council officers argue will reduce the number of caseloads with better more focused casework and therefore bring down the workforce costs.
An additional £2.3 million in funding will be spent on building this new structure over the coming financial year.
The report presented to councillors also identified that very high demand in adult social care there was a much larger pressure on its budget leading to a “high risk of an overspend.”
The council has said it will put in place a monitoring system to ensure that, if necessary, action can be taken by managers.
Councillors also discussed the affect of the ‘ordinary homes’ rule which dictates which authority is financially responsible for a person in care.
This means if a person is placed in a residential home outside of their original local authority the orginal authority is still financially and legally responsible for that person.
However this is based off of the category of care home a person is in and if the home changes its category Devon can become being financially responsible for the person placed.
The report argues that this has seen Devon lose out while other local authorities have made savings in part due to a larger than average number of residential care homes in the county several of which have changed their status.
Currently 50% of the residential homes places in Devon are from outside authorities which could pose a significant risk to future budgets.
It is estimated these type of cases will cost Devon at least £1.1 million extra next year.
“Across People as a whole, the pressures due to additional demand and higher prices total £17.4 million,” says Jenny Stephens, the council’s director of People’s services.
“This has to be found before People can contribute anything to help meet the reduction in the council’s funding.
“Across the country, financial austerity means that the boundary between what the state will provide and what individuals or communities can be expected to do for themselves is being tested.
“It is essential that we continue to protect the vulnerable and meet our statutory duties.
“In doing so, we must look always for innovative ways of maximising the effectiveness of our spending.”
