Issue - meetings

To receive the financial update for the year 2022/23.

The Committee received a report which provided an overview of the Cheshire East Council forecast outturn for the financial year 2022/23 and a financial update and forecast outturn for the adults and Health Committee’s areas of responsibility.

In response to questions and comments from members officers reported that

-       in respect of the Discharge fund, spending for this year and the next financial year was very much focused on the Home First model with beds being used at the bare minimum. In previous years, mainly due to covid and the need to spend very quickly and to get people out of hospital as quickly as possible beds were used by the Council and by health colleagues out of necessity so there would have been an impact from previous years. Forecast overspend for adult social care in the current year was due to 50% price increases and about 50% additional activity linked to discharge. There had been an overspend last year which was linked to people in beds post discharge and as result through the current year the full year effect had been felt and more people had been in beds as a result of supporting the NHS with discharge. Some of those had converted to long stay placements which had resulted in an increase in that area. However as a result of some really concerted work by the Council and NHS colleagues there had been a shift following the implementation of the Home First strategy. What had underpinned that was the 14% inflationary increase that had been given to domiciliary care providers in year in order to increase the amount of domiciliary care capacity that the Council had been able to purchase. That had impacted on the Council’s waiting lists and the number of people coming out of hospitals which had resulted in a decrease in the number of people in short stay beds. It was important to maintain momentum for 2023/24.

-       the pay offer currently out to the workforce was in excess of the amount incorporated into the budget. From the 1st of April, the Council would be under pressure on pay inflation for the employed workforce for the local authority so the Adults and Health committee would need to find off setting savings to cover that.

RESOLVED: That the Committee

1     note the report of the Finance Sub Committee held on 8 March 2023 and the recommendations of that Committee to Service Committees to

1.1 note the financial update and forecast outturn relevant to their terms of reference.

1.2 note the delegated decisions relating to supplementary revenue estimates for specific grants coded directly to services in accordance with Financial Procedure Rules as detailed in Appendix 1, Section 2, Table 3.

2     Note Appendix 1 of the report and the following sections specific to this Committee:

·         Changes to Revenue budget 2022/23

·         Corporate Grants Register

·         Debt Management

·         Capital Strategy

·         Reserve Strategy