Agenda item

Recommendations were received from the Adult Social Care Select Committee, Communities Select Committee and Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Responses to the Adult Social Care Select Committee and Communities Select Committee were tabled and are attached as Appendicies 4 and 5 to these Minutes respectively.

The Chairman of the Communities Select Committee, Mrs Denise Saliagopoulos, presented the Committee’s recommendation to Cabinet on fire service deployment in Spelthorne. Mrs Saliagopoulos noted that the development of an option which included two engines in Spelthorne showed that residents’ concerns had been listened to and it was on this basis that Members of the Communities Select Committee had been able to support option 5. The importance of ensuring the same professional high standard of response in Spelthorne, whether provided by full time or retained crews, was stressed. Mrs Saliagopoulos asked that her thanks to the fire and rescue service for their work in Spelthorne with the recent flooding be recorded.

The report of the Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee was considered as part of agenda item 7 - Revenue and Capital Budget 2014/15 to 2018/2019. In response to the recommendations, the Chairman welcomed the focus of the Scrutiny Committee on the challenges within the Medium Term Financial Plan and the recognition of the enormous achievement to date in terms of the Council’s budget. The budget was complex and required very careful attention to the relevant details. The Chairman advised that he believed some of the comments to be based on inaccuracies and misunderstandings. The Cabinet had been clear on the considerable challenges facing all councils. Whilst the Medium Term Financial Plan was dependant on the delivery of identified and agreed savings, it was crucial to note that at this stage, services had not been asked to find additional savings.

In terms of inaccuracies, £20 million of the £26million cited had come from the Budget Equalisation Reserve. This reserve had been specifically built up over the previous few years in order to smooth council spend across the medium term. Accordingly, only £6million was being applied this year from other reserves. Savings anticipated from Families, Friends and Communities are significant and considerable work was underway to identify the scale and timing of how these would be delivered. It was crucial to recognise that this was the correct strategy and therefore the discussion was entirely about the execution of the approach.

The Chairman advised that the Committee had missed the point about risk contingency. This was created by adding additional savings targets to savings and to date it hadn’t been required. It would be illogical at this point to add further pressures to services such as Adult Social Care in order to create a contingency in case they didn’t meet their existing targets.

It was clear that the future of Adult Social Care services was fundamentally entwined with how health and social care was integrated. Detailed conversations had taken place with CCG colleagues in the health service to confirm both how whole system funding with work in 2014/15 and how we will work together with Better Care Funding proposals from 2015 onwards. There was no lack in the clarity of this process or the shared objectives with health colleagues.

With regard to the Committee’s recommendations, the Chairman advised that it would be a tough year and that no secret had been made about this fact. This is why the Council had been adamant about the need for a council tax strategy for Surrey. It would be simply wrong to say that there was no contingency or reserves to manage slippages. Reserves were in a healthy position than they were in 2008 and the Council had reasonable levels although it was careful not to build up unnecessarily large reserves in a period where householders were facing severe challenges. The strategy of working with Members of Parliament to secure a fairer share of national funding, not least when Surrey contributed so much to the Exchequer (Surrey was the second most contributor to the Exchequer in the country), was already working.  The Council was also working very well with health colleagues on Better Care Funding.