Agenda item

To consider the controls being implemented to manage the strategic risk relating to sustainability of the Council.   

The Committee considered a progress report outlining the individual risks identified within the Strategic Risk – Sustainability of the Council. Consideration was given to the sub-risk ‘Insufficient funding to deliver services,’ with Mr Steve Thompson, Director of Resources providing an update. He reported that budget monitoring had taken place from month 0, which included forecasting the impact that the pandemic would have on the Council’s financial position. The Committee heard that the residual impact of the pandemic continued to pose a risk, with government funding having been provided for the first quarter of the financial year. Mr Thompson advised that a refresh of the Medium Term Financial Sustainability Strategy would be undertaken during the year, together with an updated Medium Term Financial Plan of at least five years’ horizon. In addition, the suite of income and debt collection strategies would be reviewed over the year.

Mr Thompson informed the Committee that a restructure of the Council’s accountancy department was underway in order to refocus resources to meet reprioritised demands such as corporate finance, wholly owned companies and capital expenditure. He advised that the Council would receive a share of the £15 million allocated funding to address the recommendations from the Redmond Review, aimed at addressing capacity issues. With reference to the departmental restructure, the Committee queried whether additional resources would be required to meet the demands of the current workload. Mr Thompson responded by advising that a risk management approach would be taken to achieve a reprioritisation and redistribution of workload across existing staffing levels and to further develop existing talent within the team.

The Committee questioned whether the current spending ratio of approximately 79 per cent of the Council’s budget to social care expenditure was sustainable. Mr Thompson acknowledged social care expenditure as an area of potential concern, not just in Blackpool but nationally and advised that the Directors of Children’s and Adult’s Services were monitoring the situation.

Mr Neil Jack, Chief Executive provided an update in relation to the sub-risk ‘Insufficient central government funding for Social Care,’ in relation to Adult’s Social Care. Mr Jack reported that the Covid-19 pandemic had resulted in significant operational and financial challenges for adult social care providers and that the Council had put in place a range of financial and other support measures during the last twelve months which continued to operate subject to a review at the end of June 2021. He acknowledged that there was uncertainty with regards to the continuation of funding post-June despite the fact that Covid-related costs would continue beyond this point. Mr Jack assured the Committee that the Council would continue to raise awareness of the issues affecting the care sector with central government and to lobby for additional resources through its work with the Local Resilience Forum and other bodies.     

The Committee asked how value for money could be assured from social care providers, with Mr Jack clarifying that with regards to value for money there were other considerations aside from the financial cost of a service. He informed the Committee that the Council’s commissioning team closely monitored the provision and delivery of care services to ensure that the necessary level of care was being provided on a case-by-case basis whilst also working with providers to review individual care packages to develop bespoke care as required.

In response to the Committee’s question over whether future demographic trends had been reviewed in order to consider the use of invest to save schemes, Mr Jack reported that the Council was working with providers to consider investing to save initiatives and cited the example of the investment in Children’s Social Care to develop a more therapeutic fostering service to reduce the need for residential placements for children. He noted that such initiatives not only brought longer term financial benefits but also resulted in better outcomes for Blackpool’s children.

The Committee sought assurance that the Council was receiving a consistent level of provision from providers of specialist social care services, particularly in light of the fact that such providers were charging increasingly high amounts to the Council. Mr Jack advised that the government’s Fair Funding Review, an independent review of children’s social care, had been launched by the Department for Education on 1 March 2021 and that the summary findings of which would be provided to local authorities imminently. Mr Jack informed the Committee that in order to closely match the needs of each child to the correct service and for the best price, a team assessed each placement and ran comparisons across alternative provisions available across the market. The commissioning team, led by Ms Kate Aldridge, Head of Delivery and Performance closely monitored the services provided to ensure adequate delivery of the agreed care packages.

Mr Thompson provided an update in relation to the sub-risk ‘The Council’s wholly owned companies are no longer financially viable,’ explaining that the financial position across all the Council’s companies had been consolidated in order to gain a full understanding of the overall exposure of the Council. He noted the introduction of the Shareholder Committee of the Executive which was now in place to hold companies to account and to streamline the accountability of the elected member role with the wholly owned companies. The Shareholder Committee consisted of the Leader, Deputy Leader and a member of the opposition and would have decision-making powers. Mr Thompson highlighted the robust financial reporting mechanisms and governance arrangements in place across all the companies but acknowledged that uncertainty remained around the future restrictions and potential losses as a result of the ongoing pandemic.

The Committee sought assurance that adequate controls were in place to avoid the governance failings as identified at a number of other local authorities via recent public interest reports. Mr Mark Towers, Director of Governance and Partnerships advised that the lessons learnt from the errors of other local authorities would be used to strengthen the robust processes in place at Blackpool. Mr Towers identified that a good practice that operated currently at Blackpool which had been an issue in other authorities was the recruitment of experienced and skilled independent non-executive directors and a system of non-executive director appraisals and continued professional development across each company. In addition, he noted that recovery plans were in place for each company which had been agreed in conjunction with the Council and which were closely monitored to ensure continued achievability.

Mr Antony Lockley, Director of Strategy and Assistant Chief Executive provided an update in relation to the sub-risk ‘The Council fails to reduce carbon emissions and proactively take action to address the climate emergency.’ He advised that the Council was on track to produce and publish its route map to net zero by the end of this year and had already completed a number of key contributions to the plan. Mr Lockley reported that an internal audit was planned for later this financial year aimed at assessing progress against the climate change agenda as well as the Tourism, Economy and Communities Scrutiny Committee playing an active role in monitoring progress and receiving updates on key developments. 

Mr Lockley highlighted a number of actions which had been implemented across the Council to assist in the reduction of emissions, work towards changing organisational culture, engage the town and influence national policy. Such actions included the recruitment of additional Council officers to work on addressing climate change obligations as well as working closely with neighbouring local authorities to action change.

The Committee questioned whether the achievement of net neutrality posed any risk to the delivery of services for example by any of the Council’s wholly owned companies. In response Mr Lockley reported that a managed transition to net zero carbon by 2030 would be a potential source of growth and employment opportunities for the town.

When asked about any barriers faced by the Council in achieving the target, Mr Lockley acknowledged that addressing the climate emergency was a big challenge but one that needed to be tackled. He raised technological limitations and price as current hurdles but predicted that as advancements were made, the price would reduce to make technology more affordable. In response to a query around congestion charges, Mr Jack assured the Committee that despite a number of larger local authorities implementing such charges across their towns and cities, Blackpool would not be considering this as an option. He reported that the focus would instead be on implementing improvements to the public transport network to encourage a reduction in the use of private vehicles.