The ever increasing cost of children’s services in Sefton is squeezing the borough’s budget into deficit with a further £5m added to its costs in the last six months.
In March, the council agreed a budget that included £80m set aside for its troubled children’s services – which is currently undergoing a period of transformation after a dire Ofsted inspection.
This included an extra £21m of investment after recommendations from the commissioner about how the council decides its children’s services budget.
With a further £110m going on adult social care from a total council expenditure of £289m, that means nearly 70% of the total expenditure is going on forms of social care in the borough.
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Since March, however, pressures have continued on the children’s services budget which has led to an additional expenditure for the year forecast at a further £5m.
This is linked to the high cost of care packages, according to the report – as well as the council’s current reliance on expensive agency staff and managed teams – a situation the report notes should improve as the council takes on more in-house social workers recruited via its new academy and from overseas.
At a meeting of the borough’s regulatory, compliance and corporate services audit and governance committee held at Bootle Town Hall yesterday, September 12, Cllr Leo Evans said that he had recently been in a meeting with the Department for Education-appointed commissioner overseeing the borough’s children’s services improvement programme at which he had been told the service had in previous years been refused additional funds needs.
Cllr Evans said “legacy issues” were discussed at the meeting, including “times in the past when the service was needing more money, they’ve gone to ask for it and been told tought there’s no money and you have to deal with it. The commissioner told us that’s an unacceptable level of response, that the number one priority is looking after children and that money would have to be found.”
Addressing the borough’s director of finance, Stefan Van Arendsen, Cllr Evans said; “Is that a comment that you recognise” to which Mr Van Arendsen responded “no.”
Mr Van Arendsen said it was “clear” from the council’s current budget that children’s services was the “number one priority” and had emerged in part in response to recommendations from the commissioner.
Cllr Les Byrom, chairing the meeting, said there was an “irony” in the commissioner’s calls for “we need more money all the time, we need more money, spend more money”.
He said: “I totally agree with that of course, but when does the commissioner say when I look at the totality of how you run your authority do you not think you are a bit top heavy on this – or does that person come out and say it’s extremely difficult to manage this service because its demand led not supply based.
“We don’t say how many people we’re going to look after at that budget, we cope with the number of vulnerable children who present to us.”
Cllr Ron Watson said he agreed, adding: “It is very difficult to assess what you’re going to need for a particular service; all you can do is base demand on past demand.”
He also cited the high cost of care packages for children which could run into thousands of pounds per week as well as problems with other local authorities placing children in the borough but not covering the additional costs, including housing and education.
Cllr Watson said: “None of these things are considered as part of the package and they should be.”
Mr Van Arendsen said the overall extra expenditure on children’s services was broadly in line with a 5% budget tolerance recommended by the commissioner, adding: “The key is the priority is children, it will continue to be the priority.”
He added that many other services were at a balanced position or were likely to generate an underspend, with measures to rectify the deficit through a remedial plan to be brought to councillors at a later date “to provide full transparency.”
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