Issue - meetings

In February 2015 Surrey County Council (SCC) received £729,000 of revenue funding (funding to be expensed immediately and not to be used to acquire or improve a long term asset) from the Department for Education’s (DfE) Social Innovation Fund. This funding was granted following a bid to create an out of hours Assessment and Support Service and respite unit for young people in mental health crisis. SCC and partners (NHS Guildford and Waverley Clinical Commissioning Group and Surrey and Borders NHS Foundation Trust) have been working since this funding was granted to put the bid into operation.

The proposed site for the respite unit is on the site of a SCC owned and operated children’s home: Libertas, in Guildford. An existing building on the site has been identified as being suitable. The funding for this capital scheme was due to be met from a budget carry forward of £150,000 at the end of 2014/15. However, the estimate cost is now slightly higher than this original estimate. There is scope to potentially use an underspend in capital funding from 2015/16 to cover the additional cost.

The purpose of this paper is to seek approval to proceed with this scheme at a different cost.