Issue - meetings

To consider any reports from Select Committees, Task Groups and any other Committees of the Council.

For Cabinet to consider the following report:

A.    Scrutiny of Draft Budget 2025/26 and Medium-term Financial Strategy to 2029/30 TO FOLLOW

RESOLVED:

1. That the Scrutiny of the 2025/26 Draft Budget And Medium-Term Financial Strategy To 2029/30 report be noted.

The Chairman of the Adults and Health Select Committee, Trefor Hogg introduced the budget recommendations from the Adults and Health Select Committee explaining that there was extraordinary pressures on the Adults Wellbeing and Health Partnerships budget which showed the net expenditure budget requirement rising by £18.5m to £524.5m in 2025-26. It was essential that the rollout of Technology Enabled Care across Surrey was encouraged to ensure better outcomes for residents. There was a recognition that changes to National Insurance and the national living wage would impact the care market and in turn impact the Council. How the Council works with the NHS needed to be factored so there is one team approach. Overall, the Select Committee felt that very strong Risk Management processes with strong independent monitoring and reporting was required to keep strict control of the risks with a focus on effective early action to correct problems.

The Leader stated that the expectation was that the increase in national insurance and the national living wage for Council employees would be reimbursed by the government but this may not extend to providers. The Government had announced £680m of additional funding into the adult social care in the budget but Surrey would get no greater than £10m of this. The majority of this would be wiped out by increased costs from providers. The Leader announced that the Government had published a white paper in relation to English devolution which sets out the government's direction of travel, which will be the first major reform of the structure of local government since 1974. The Government had requested submissions from all two tier authorities on what they believe devolution would look like. The Leader also touched upon public service reform and the council’s relationship with the NHS moving forward.

The Vice Chairman of the Children, Families, Lifelong Learning and Culture Select Committee, Jeremy Webster introduced the budget report in the absence of the Select Committee Chairman. In addition to a macro level review of the children, families, lifelong learning and cultural budget, the Select Committee chose to explore early help preventive spending and the impact of proposed funding changes on the voluntary, charity and social enterprise infrastructure organisations as its deep dive topics. The Vice-Chairman spoke on the deep dive recommendations before turning to the recommendations on the overall CFLLC budget. The committee was convinced that the value of early help improves outcomes for children and also reduces statutory demand in the long term. The Committee recommended that this spend was protected from statutory pressures. The Select Committee wanted to undertake a deep dive on voluntary sector funding but scrutiny was inhibited when a briefing on these changes promised in October was not made available to the Committee. The Committee recognised the constraints on the Councils budget and urged the Cabinet to consider any and all opportunities to extend the budget envelope proposed for the Directorate to provide further discretionary funding being ring fenced for early years funding. The Leader thanked the Vice Chairman  ...  view the full minutes text for item 186