Agenda item

Interim Chief Financial Officer

Mr Paul McMenamin gave a brief presentation highlighting the emergence of budgetary pressures during July and early August; risks to the overall deliverable ability of a balanced budget outturn in relation to pressures emerging in year; how the budget was funded through efficiencies and other savings plans in the partner organisations; social care funding; the monitoring position; and self directed support funding.

Mr David Davidson thanked Mr McMenamin for his realistic overview of the current position and where the Board was headed financially.  He suggested documentation be produced to indicate the risks to the budget being sustainable at current levels and where savings might be made and what could be ceased in order to afford the budget.  He further commented that whilst the partnership had ambitions, there were significant financial challenges and ideally, the partnership should consider a reserve. This would need to be agreed across the partner agencies.  He further suggested that the Board should ensure that what was proposed to be delivered was achievable within budget and that officers be tasked with making a 2.5% saving on budgets before any investment in future projects was agreed.

The Chair suggested a separate discussion be scheduled in regard to the provision of a reserve.

Mr David Robertson commented that in regard to the COSLA discussions with the Scottish Government it had been clearly expressed that the aspirations on the living wage were not fully funded and the assumption was that 25% of the costs would be met by the Care Providers and would not be passed back to the Local Authorities.  However in reality, Care Providers were renewing contracts and passing the costs (living wage, National Insurance, etc) back to the commissioners.  He commented that whilst the Scottish Government had provided funding to pay for services, the pressures within Scottish Borders Council were a direct result of implementing Government policy.  He also suggested a reserve was a sensible strategy to pursue, however in order to establish a reserve the budget would need to be underspent which was currently not feasible. 

The Chair advised the Board that it had the authority to direct the two partner organisations to look at how they would address the financial implications coming forward and to give direction to them on the actions it wished them to take on the emerging pressures.

Mr Robertson cautioned that funding was not a defence against the equalities challenge and legal requirements.

Mrs Carol Gillie welcomed Mr McMenamin’s clear presentation and reiterated that the emerging pressures would impact on each organisation unless addressed and resolved jointly. 

Mr John McLaren requested that Mr McMenamin provide his presentation to the next meeting of the Joint Staff Forum.  Mr McMenamin advised that he would be content to provide the presentation to the Joint Staff Forum.

Mrs Elaine Torrance suggested a joint communication strategy be worked up to highlight the challenges and plan how to advise the Joint Staff Forum, wider staff and the public.

The HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD noted the report and the monitoring position on the partnership’s 2016/17 revenue budget.

The HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD approved the further direction of £1.427m recurrent social care funding to meet the further additional pressures outlined in paragraphs 5.5 to 5.10

The HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD noted that the partnership’s Chief Officer and Chief Financial Officer were working in partnership with NHS Borders’ Director of Finance, Scottish Borders Council’s Chief Financial Officer and other senior managers across delegated services, in order to identify and implement a remedial action plan to mitigate the residual reported pressure within Generic Services and to address identified non-delivery of efficiency and other savings within partners’ Financial Plans.