Agenda item

Resolved:

 

The Committee resolved to advise the Public Accounts Select Committee of the following:

 

A6 and A8: Public Health programme review

 

The Committee raised concerns about the impacts of reductions in funding for Sexual Health and Maternal & Child Health (particularly vitamin D supplements and child death bereavement) and recommended that the Healthier Communities Select Committee should take particular consideration of these as part of its scrutiny of the A6 and A8 savings proposals.

 

K2: YOS reorganisation, changes in interventions & reduction in contracts

 

The Committee highlighted that reductions in spending from Lewisham, as well as potential reductions from other local authorities and purchasers of youth offending related services, could have a cumulative negative impact on service providers, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

The Committee also recommended that the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee should have the opportunity to scrutinise the K2 saving proposals

 

Q2: Reduction in Youth Service provision

 

The Committee supported Option 1 presented in the savings proposal and agreed that officers should pursue an employee-led mutual to deliver youth services from April 2016.

 

In addition, the Committee recommended that there is voluntary and community sector involvement and strong representation in the governance structures of any new mutual organisation.

 

The Committee raised concerns about the local impact of the savings proposals related to a reduction to youth worker capacity and removal of Council staff from the Ladywell and Rockbourne sites. The Committee recommended that alternative provision for current users of the service should be identified and made available in the local areas affected by the savings proposal.

 

The Committee highlighted that reductions in spending by the Council on youth related services across the organisation could have a cumulative negative impact on those providing services, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

The Committee also recommended that the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee should have the opportunity to scrutinise the Q2 saving proposals.

 

David Austin (Head of Corporate Resources) introduced the report, highlighting that it provides the context for the Lewisham Future Programme. There is a need to save £85m over the next 3 financial years. £40m of savings are presented in this report, with £30m required in 2015/16 and £10m in 2016/17. This will be achieved via the different work strands identified in the report.

 

Frankie Sulke (Executive Director for Children & Young People) highlighted that it has been difficult for officers to bring forward these proposals as they represent significant savings that cannot be achieved without having a negative impact. Officers have taken directions from Mayoral priorities and the work strands identified in the report to develop proposals. Some proposals will involve slicing budgets while others are more transformational. The Committee accepted that there will be negative consequences as a result of the savings being forced upon local authorities by central government and appreciated the efforts by officers to develop the proposals.

 

In response to questions from the Committee, Alan Docksey (Head of Resources and Performance) and Frankie Sulke informed the Committee that the budget for the school uniform grant was £40k per year but expenditure hadn’t gone past £20k for the last few years. The grant funding was a leftover from previous times where the local authority provided funding and support for uniforms for children. This is the responsibility of the schools themselves and all schools support pupils and families around issues like uniform and PE kits. The suggestion to remove the grant was raised at the Schools Forum, where schools agreed to its removal.

 

K2: YOS reorganisation, changes in interventions & reduction in contracts 

 

Geeta Subramaniam-Mooney (Head of Crime & Supporting People) introduced the savings proposal, highlighting the following key points:

·         The Youth Offending Service (YOS) is funded joint by Lewisham and by the Ministry of Justice. The proposal is to reduce £200k of Council funding.

·         There is a statutory obligation to provide YOS and the proposals are based around the minimum standards of provision needed to fulfil our statutory duties.

·         The proposals have 4 areas of savings:

o  Reduction in general overhead costs through moving to a paperless office and streamlining processes

o  Reduction in reparation projects, with officers looking at other options to deliver this either for free or at a reduced cost.

o  Reduction in externally funded programmes and contracts. There will be a renegotiation of the joint contract held with Bromley as well as a reduction in the summer arts programme.

o  Deletion of 1 vacant post within the team, which will result in an increased workload for the remaining team.

 

In response to questions from the Committee, Geeta Subramaniam-Mooney provided the following information:

·         Officers are looking at expanding the work carried out with organisations that provide services for free, such as Food Banks and the Canal and River Trust. The aim will be to maintain as many options as possible as these programmes help the community and aid rehabilitation. If alternatives cannot be found YOS officers may have to deliver some of the programmes themselves. This will result in extra pressures on their time and less options for young offenders in their rehabilitation programmes.

·         The Court sets the number of hours that offenders need to do as part of their sentence, but it doesn’t decide what needs to be done with those hours. Officers work with young people to develop programmes that will be useful for the young people.

·         The deleted post has been vacant since April 2014, so it has been accommodated within the team up until now with slightly increased workloads. There are currently fewer cases being dealt with, but the cases are more complex. There will not be a full consultation on this proposal, but staff will be given the opportunity to respond to proposed changes.

·         50% of funding for YOS comes from the Youth Justice Board and in the last 3 years they have cut funding year on year for YOS by 23%, 20% and 18%.

·         Local authorities now pick up the costs of young people on remand in prison, with some funding coming from MOJ for a contribution towards prison remands but not for secure remands There is huge variability in spend on this and there has been overspend in the past.

·         Young offenders have to complete their court mandated hours of reparation and under these proposals they will be able to do so and it is important that the young person is able to complete their sentence. However there could be fewer options in how they do this.

·         The YOS Manager is part of the Court User Group, and takes part in the SE London cluster meeting.

·         The organisations used to deliver external projects are generally medium sized. Therefore the reduction in income from Lewisham will not be significant, however if others also reduce funding for YOS in similar ways then there could be a cumulative impact.

·         The Appropriate Adult Service reduction will be around £10k. Robust monitoring of the service by the Council and by the Police is in place.

 

Resolved:

 

The Committee recommended that the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee should have the opportunity to scrutinise the K2 saving proposals

 

The Committee decided to refer the following to the Public Accounts Select Committee meeting to be held on 5 November:

 

·         The Committee highlighted that reductions in spending from Lewisham, as well as potential reductions from other local authorities and purchasers of youth offending related services, could have a cumulative negative impact on service providers, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

A6 and A8: Public Health programme review

 

Dr Donal O’Sullivan (Consultant in Public Health Medicine) introduced the report, highlighting the following key points:

·         Responsibility for Public Health has only recently moved to the Local Authority. At this time Public Health also took on new responsibilities including Genito-Urinary Medicine funding and funding of stop smoking medication.

·         The Public Health budget is ring-fenced, therefore savings proposed will not be withdrawn from Public Health, but will be redirected to areas that will have more impact. These areas will include those that have been affected by cuts made elsewhere in the organisation.

·         The savings are for £1.5m under the A6 proposal and just under £1.8m under the A8 proposal.

·         The savings proposed will have an impact, but efforts will be made to protect certain areas that have the most impact in terms of Public Health. For example, sexual health clinics that are used more by young people, especially clinics used by those at high risk will be protected from closure or reduced funding.

·         Savings related to mental health should be mitigated by the work being carried out by the new Headstart project.

·         Reductions related to smoking control will have an impact, especially in schools and on young people’s awareness of the dangers of smoking.

·         Currently, Breastfeeding Cafes are run on licence, operating almost like a franchise. However if they are run in a slightly different way, without licence, this will result in a saving and is one of the savings proposed.

 

In response to questions from the Committee, Dr Donal O’Sullivan, Frankie Sulke and Warwick Tomsett (Head of Targeted Services and Joint Commissioning) provided the following information:

·         There is a highly integrated approach to children’s health that includes public health and utilises Children’s Centres to improve outcomes for children like improved uptake of immunisation.

·         Departmental efficiency savings would probably include redundancies and a restructure.

·         Around 500 under 19s attend sexual health clinics per month and of these 5-7% are Looked After Children, who are encouraged to attend. At least 1sexual health clinic will probably need to be closed, but those used by young people will be protected. Officers are very aware of the safeguarding issues surrounding children and young people’s sexual health.

·         The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has guaranteed funding for the supply of free Vitamin D, however the storage and distribution of Vitamins and the management of contracts are the responsibility of Public Health. Current arrangements for these arrangements would need to change with delivery via Children’s Centres. It is difficult to run and the logistics have to be made to work, hence there are risks that would have to be minimised.

·         There is a risk attached to untreated sexual health problems, especially in the long-term.

·         Cuts to the child death overview function will include changes to the designated consultant for Child Death Review as well as the child death liaison nurse. The latter will mean that development work on improving bereavement support for parents will not be possible. Different GPs will deal with patients who have experienced child death in different ways and work does need to be done to improve this.

·         The overall spend on Public Health will not be cut as the budget is ring-fenced, however judgements are being made on relative impact and budgets shifted to have the most impact.

 

Resolved:

 

The Committee raised concerns about the impacts of reductions in funding for Sexual Health and Maternal & Child Health (particularly Vitamin D supplements and child death bereavement) and recommended that the Healthier Communities Select Committee should take particular consideration of these as part of its scrutiny of the A6 and A8 savings proposals.

 

Q2: Reduction in Youth Service provision

 

Warwick Tomsett introduced the savings proposal, highlighting the following key points:

·         There are £1.4m of savings proposed that will be taken in 2015/16.

·         There are also two options proposed for the future of the youth service, with a decision required now to set the direction the youth service will take.

·         Option 1 is the mutualisation of youth service, which could result in increased ownership and engagement of young people and stakeholders. It will also allow access to income generation, funding and sponsorship opportunities that are not available now. The proposal is that the mutual would be funded by the Council for 3 years before that is withdrawn, with the opportunity to gradually decrease the funding over the 3 years.

·         Option 2 is to make the saving now and keep only the statutory duties (NEET tracking and signposting to youth activities).

 

David French (Chair of the Lewisham Children & Young People Voluntary Sector Forum) then spoke to the Committee, highlighting the following key points:

·         The voluntary sector hopes that option 2 will not be pursued.

·         There are benefits to mutualisation and it can release of lot of energy and innovation. However there are risks involved in pursuing mutualisation. Mutualisation involves entrepreneurship, which is not a traditional strength of local authorities. It may be more suitable to experiment with mutualisation of a section of the youth service to see how it works before pursuing full mutualisation. Moving to a mutual all at once could increase the risk.

·         One of the strengths of Lewisham is in its diverse voluntary and community sector (VCS). However a mutual could attract all funding for youth services in the area and damage this diversity. It would be a major concern if Lewisham lost voluntary organisations because they are not getting funding.

·         The new mutual would need to involve the VCS from the start as a partner.

 

Warwick Tomsett and Frankie Sulke then addressed the points raised, highlighting that:

·         There is entrepreneurship already the in youth service and a new mutual would allow this to increase.

·         2 other local authorities have created mutuals for delivering youth services, although these are both fairly new ventures.

·         So far the engagement of youth service staff has been good.

·         A new mutual would want to work closely with VCS providers and engage the Lewisham Children & Young People Voluntary Sector Forum during the business planning stage.

·         Phasing in the mutual would not be possible, as it would require a lot of resource to carry out the work on the mutual while maintaining current services. While there is risk attached in pursuing a mutualisation, officers believe it would be better to do it all at once rather than in stages.

·         A mutual would open up avenues for increased income generation such as hiring out venues and for increased volunteering. Increased sponsorship could also be pursued as sponsors often do want to give local authorities money, although they will give it to schools and voluntary organisations.

·         If the future direction of the youth service is  not set now,  then it is likely that savings will have to be taken in the future as financial pressures increase. These would only be able to come from a reduction in service.

·         Lewisham’s youth service budget still compares well to other local authorities.

·         The Council will have to accept that it would not be directly involved in the new mutual, although there will need to be some accountability if the proposed funding of £1.2m is provided.

·          The new mutual will not be required to keep the commissioning pot as it stands. However, the new organisation would still want to work in partnership with the voluntary sector to provide services and will need flexibility to commission as appropriate.

 

In response to questions from the Committee around the 2 options, Frankie Sulke and Warwick Tomsett provided the following information:

·         The idea of mutualisation has come from what other local authorities have done, as well as from the youth service itself. Support is available from the Cabinet Office in developing a business plan.

·         The retained statutory provision for youth services will cost £0.3m. There is no duty on the local authority to provide direct youth services as Lewisham does at the moment.

·         The recent restructure of the youth service has built in monitoring of direct provision and commissioned services to provide information on the impact services have on young people. This information is now starting to come in.

·         Other local authorities take different approaches and there is no one model in delivering youth services, hence it is very hard to carry out direct comparisons between them. Most authorities across the country are reducing budgets and services for youth provision. In 2011/12 Lewisham were the 2^nd highest funders of youth provision in London, while in 2013/14 after the recent restructure and budget reduction Lewisham was around the median of the group.

·         The Lewisham Council website offers information about activities that are available for young people in the borough.

·         There is an agreement with schools that they should offer lower rates for VCS organisations and schools do offer a lot of activities for young people outside school hours.

·         The business planning for the creation of the mutual still needs to be developed in detail over the next year.

 

The Committee then discussed the following points:

·         That the mutualisation of the service could be regarded by some as a privatisation of it.

·         Models for the mutualisation of the service will need to be explored fully. The move to a mutual organisation cannot be made in a half-hearted manner if it is to succeed. There will need to be thorough scrutiny and transparency in the financial planning for any new mutual organisation.

·         A mutual will need to engage with young people, as if it does not respond to their needs they will vote with their feet and not use services provided.

·         The importance of voluntary and community sector involvement in any new mutual organisation and the need for strong representation of the voluntary and community sector in the governance structures of any new mutual organisation.

 

In response to questions from the Committee around the proposed youth service savings, Frankie Sulke and Warwick Tomsett provided the following information:

·         The savings for Rockbourne and Ladywell will represent a reduction in staffing capacity. These centres were selected as they have the potential to find alternative organisations to use their centres and are therefore viable in the long term.

·         2 years ago there were a high number of users at Ladywell, however they were going for a single activity and interest in this activity has now dropped off.

·         Some of the adventure playground sites in the borough have the potential to be used more, especially in the evenings. However any increase in opening hours of these facilities will decrease the savings available.

·         It may be possible to pursue a similar arrangement as at Oakridge, but that would be on the condition that alternative provision is not paid for by the Council. The provider at Oakridge is currently paying a staggered increase in rent to the Council but generates income.

·         Funding for managing the change associated with the savings and the mutual has been allocated and will provide the capacity needed to handle it.

·         The Council has a statutory responsibility to monitor and track NEETs and to support vulnerable NEETs. Increased links to targeted family support will help support this.

 

The Committee then discussed the following:

·         Concerns about the local impact of the savings proposals related to a reduction to youth worker capacity and removal of Council staff from the Ladywell and Rockbourne sites. Alternative provision for current users of the service should be identified and made available in the local areas affected by the savings proposal.

·         Reductions in spending by the Council on youth related services across the organisation could have a cumulative negative impact on those providing services, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

Resolved:

 

The Committee supported Option 1, with Councillor Luke Sorba voting against the proposal.

 

The Committee recommended that the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee should have the opportunity to scrutinise the Q2 saving proposals.

 

The Committee recommended that further details of any new mutual organisation should be brought to the Children and Young People Select.

 

The Committee decided to refer the following to the Public Accounts Select Committee meeting on 5 November:

 

·         The Committee supported Option 1 presented in the savings proposal and agreed that officers should pursue an employee-led mutual to deliver youth services from April 2016.

 

·         In addition, the Committee recommended that there is voluntary and community sector involvement and strong representation in the governance structures of any new mutual organisation.

 

·         The Committee raised concerns about the local impact of the savings proposals related to a reduction to youth worker capacity and removal of Council staff from the Ladywell and Rockbourne sites. The Committee recommended that alternative provision for current users of the service should be identified and made available in the local areas affected by the savings proposal.

 

·         The Committee highlighted that reductions in spending by the Council on youth related services across the organisation could have a cumulative negative impact on those providing services, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

G1: Increasing income from services to schools, debt collection & investment strategy

 

Alan Docksey introduced the savings proposal, highlighting that the £200k saving was out of a budget of £200m for schools across the borough. The savings represent 0.1% of the budget of a secondary school and 0.5% of a budget for a primary school. The proposal went to the Schools Forum in September, who were broadly supportive of it.

 

J1: Increasing income from Educational Psychologists and Learning Difficulties teams

 

Alan Docksey introduced the savings proposal, highlighting that the service could have been reduced to only provide the statutory minimum required, but that doing so would make it difficult to retain and recruit staff. Therefore the proposal is to increase the amount of traded work. Staff know their customer base and have already been successful in trading and will build on this.

 

The Committee acknowledged that the work Education Psychologist Team, especially in developing Education and Health Care Plans, is valued.

 

Q1: Improve triage for Children’s Social Care services & re-design Children Centre & Early Intervention offer

 

Ian Smith (Director of Children’s Social Care) introduced the savings proposal and highlighted the following key points:

·         The savings will produce a saving £4.2m in 2015/16 and a total of £5.5m over 2015-18. However £3.2m of this will be used to fund a shortfall for the Looked After Children budget, meaning that the actual saving will be £973k.

·         A different approach to triage will be introduced that will identify the best person to provide the services needed. There does not necessarily need to be an assessment by a social worker, so by reducing social worker assessment it is possible to reduce the associated costs. Lewisham already has a multidisciplinary front-door so the structure is in place, what is required is to build capacity.

·         Children’s Centre contracts will be changed as they are re-procured to reduce costs.

·         Children’s Centres will also be more flexible and focused. Some Children’s Centres are not performing as well as they could and this change could help them achieve this. Centres will still provide universal services and work closely with health providers.

·         An option for Children’s Centres could be closer links to schools, as those centres run by schools seem to be doing better. Schools have their own staff so overheads can be reduced.

·         The best performing Children’s Centres use small amounts of money well and work well with partners such as health visitors and the voluntary sector.

·         There is no plan to close any Children’s Centres, but what operates out of them could change.

·         The Troubled Families Grant will be used to fund more early intervention work.

·         Efficiencies for Children’s Social Care include reducing expensive placements at children’s homes by using specialist foster carers instead, which is better for children and less expensive. The expanded use of supported lodgings is also being explored with the provider NRS, who Lewisham currently works for fostering care.

·         The long term aim is to reduce the number of children in Lewisham’s care. This can be done by building up targeted family support so that cases do not progress to the point where the local authority has to step in and take children into care.

·         There are risks attached to these savings as they are ambitious, however the risks are the financial impacts of not achieving the savings rather than risks to the welfare of the children involved. No proposals have been put forward that will risk the safeguarding of children.

 

In response to questions from the Committee around the proposed savings, Ian Smith and Warwick Tomsett provided the following information:

·         While targets for the number of families helped by Children’s Centres will be lower, other services such as school nurses and health visitors will be able to also identify and refer on families.

·         Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care is being introduced for difficult children. This involves placing somebody into a family’s home and is potentially more effective and cheaper than residential care. The evidence base has shown it can work and while it will be a challenge other local authorities have introduced it.

·         A social work Team Manager will often not be sure of who should deal with a referral, often due to a lack of information provided with the referral, so will send a social worker to visit. However it does not have to be a social worker carrying this out, it could be a different professional such as a health, especially as 10% of cases that come in need a referral to social services. Other professionals are trained in safeguarding and can recognise these issues, if they have concerns they can still refer directly to social workers.

·         Social workers should be dealing with the most vulnerable, this approach should allow them to do this more. This approach can also smooth out services so there are less silos as well as avoiding families having a social worker knocking on the door.

·         The contracts for Children’s’ Centres would not simply be renewed, providers have to meet targets set and once contracts finish they would have to bid to run the services.

·         Foster carers will receive all information that the local authorities have on their foster children. To not do so is illegal, in addition not passing on important information could lead to the placement breaking down, which is not good for the child.

·         There will not be any redundancies in the social work team as these can be achieved through deleting vacancies. There will be some redundancies from the Family Support Team.

 

Resolved:

 

The Committee resolved to advise the Public Accounts Select Committee of the following:

 

A6 and A8: Public Health programme review

 

The Committee raised concerns about the impacts of reductions in funding for Sexual Health and Maternal & Child Health (particularly vitamin D supplements and child death bereavement) and recommended that the Healthier Communities Select Committee should take particular consideration of these as part of its scrutiny of the A6 and A8 savings proposals.

 

K2: YOS reorganisation, changes in interventions & reduction in contracts

 

The Committee highlighted that reductions in spending from Lewisham, as well as potential reductions from other local authorities and purchasers of youth offending related services, could have a cumulative negative impact on service providers, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

The Committee also recommended that the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee should have the opportunity to scrutinise the K2 saving proposals

 

Q2: Reduction in Youth Service provision

 

The Committee supported Option 1 presented in the savings proposal and agreed that officers should pursue an employee-led mutual to deliver youth services from April 2016.

 

In addition, the Committee recommended that there is voluntary and community sector involvement and strong representation in the governance structures of any new mutual organisation.

 

The Committee raised concerns about the local impact of the savings proposals related to a reduction to youth worker capacity and removal of Council staff from the Ladywell and Rockbourne sites. The Committee recommended that alternative provision for current users of the service should be identified and made available in the local areas affected by the savings proposal.

 

The Committee highlighted that reductions in spending by the Council on youth related services across the organisation could have a cumulative negative impact on those providing services, meaning that services may no longer be viable in the future.

 

The Committee also recommended that the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee should have the opportunity to scrutinise the Q2 saving proposals.