Agenda item

Presentation from Claire Stuart and Louise Whitelock of The Promise.  (Attached)

6.1       With reference to paragraph 6 of the Minute of 8 September 2022, copies of a presentation on “Using Money Differently” had been circulated.  Claire Stuart and Louise Whitelock of The Promise gave the presentation, highlighting the key points:

·         How to use money differently was not a new issue as it had been included in the Community Planning statement of ambition (2012), Single Outcome Agreement guidance (2012), Scottish Borders Community Planning Audit Report (2013).

·         The Promise 21-24 had 5 priority areas, covering a good childhood; whole family support; planning; supporting the workforce; and building capacity.  These were being taken forward through a number of actions, underpinned by the fundamentals of what matters to children and families, listening, poverty, children’s rights, and language.  

·         “Follow the Money” report showed the human and financial costs of the ‘system’ failures.

·         The overall approach to using the money differently – by establishing how resources were currently spent on children and families in and around the care system; by thinking about how we could use the money differently in future, to deliver better outcomes and better value for money; and to understand the strategic investment required to get from where we were to where we needed to be.

·         Pilot areas – there had been extensive engagement in all 3 pilot areas with Councils and partnerships and initial work carried out to estimate how much was currently being spent on children and families in and around the care system.  This latter work used the headings in the Follow The Money report of “operation costs of the current care system” and “costs associated with the current care system”.  Some caution was required in the figures, but for Scottish Borders Council operational costs were £15.9m with associated costs of £4m (education); for North Lanarkshire operational costs of £42.8m with associated costs of £13.8m (education); and for Clackmannanshire operational costs of £16.1m with associated cost of £7.5m (education and housing). 

·         Gathering the data had been difficult which mirrored some of the challenges faced in the Independent Care Review and while some assumptions could be made about some of the spend on care experienced children and young people in universal services, particularly education, it got more difficult once the net was cast wider.

·         The Whole Family Wellbeing Fund – this worked towards the ambition in the Programme for Government that 5% of all community based health and social care spend would be spent on preventative whole family support measures by 2030.  Scottish Borders shared of element one of this Fund was £668k.  However, there were a number of concerns about this type of funding, with repurposing investment difficult and the need for longer term commitment.  Key would be effective partnership working and good governance in using money differently. 

·         A new approach to governance would need to achieve accountability for, and assurance on, the proper and effective use of public money, providing clarity of roles and responsibilities and openness and transparency on how the money was used.  This would involve building on shared ownership across multiple stakeholder groups, managing risks effectively, facilitating learning and improvement, and making things simple to avoid more ‘governance clutter’.  

6.2       In response to a question regarding governance, Ms Whitelock advised that The Promise Oversight Board was a national body which existed to check up on whether Scotland was keeping “The Promise” by holding it to account and checking on performance.  The operational team within the Borders for implementation of The Promise was led by the Director Social Work and Practice.  Ms Whitelock was working closely with this team which was looking at all aspects of the care system such as education, social work (which included foster carers) and health, with a series of workshops being delivered to forester carers around The Promise.  Councillors were not directly involved in operational work as they had a specific strategic role to play.  The Director Resilient Communities advised that the proposed landscape map of groups, referred to earlier in the meeting, would include where The Promise sat.  The Chief Executive SBHA confirmed that Registered Social Landlords were playing a significant role, working together with others on transitions for care experienced people, and looking at how this model could be expanded.  The Chair thanked Ms Stuart and Ms Whitelock for their presentation which gave the Strategic Board an insight into developments around The Promise.

            DECISION

            NOTED.