Agenda, decisions and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 10 September 2015.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 10 September 2015 were approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Leader.

Councillor Alan Macro referred to the final paragraph of item 27 – Home to School Transport Policies and queried whether an ‘easy payment’ option would be available to parents to enable them to spread the cost of home to school transport over a year. Councillor Dominic Boeck explained that a response had been e-mailed by Officers to Councillor Mollie Lock, Shadow Portfolio Holder for Education, on this point and he believed that this cost could be spread over a year.

To remind Members of the need to record the existence and nature of any Personal, Disclosable Pecuniary or other interests in items on the agenda, in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct.

There were no declarations of interest received.

Councillor Roger Croft, newly elected Leader of the Council, announced the new Executive which consisted of the following nine Members with the following Portfolios:

Councillor Roger Croft                    Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holder for Strategy and Performance, and Finance

Councillor Graham Jones              Deputy Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holder for Health and Wellbeing, and Devolution

Councillor Dominic Boeck             Portfolio Holder for Education, Property and Broadband

Councillor Hilary Cole                    Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care, Housing, Countryside, Community Culture and Leisure Services

Councillor Lynne Doherty              Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services

Councillor James Fredrickson      Portfolio Holder for Communications, Democratic and Electoral Services, Finance Assurance, Legal, Human Resources and ICT

Councillor Marcus Franks              Portfolio Holder for Partnerships, Equality, Community Safety, Environmental Health, Trading Standards, Waste and Customer Services

Councillor Alan Law                       Portfolio Holder for Planning, Economic Development, Regeneration and Pensions

Councillor Garth Simpson             Portfolio Holder for Highways, Transport and Emergency Planning

Councillor Alan Macro offered his congratulations to Councillor Fredrickson on becoming an Executive Member and to those Members with an extended Portfolio.

There were no public questions submitted.

There were no petitions presented to the Executive.

(CSP: BEC, BEC1, BEC2)

Purpose:  The Council is required to decide the formula factors to use to distribute funding to all primary and secondary schools for the 2016/17 financial year.

Resolved that:

·         The formula factors for 2016/17 were to remain the same as those used in 2015/16.

·         If there was a funding shortfall, this would be addressed through an adjustment to the basic entitlement rate.

·         If there was additional funding available, the Schools’ Forum at its January 2016 meeting would decide whether this was all allocated through the basic entitlement rate or through other factors including deprivation.

This decision is eligible to be ‘called-in’.  However, if the decision has not been ‘called-in’ by 5.00pm on 27 November 2015, then it will be implemented.

The Executive considered a report (Agenda Item 6) concerning the requirement of the Council to decide the formula factors to use to distribute funding to all primary and secondary schools for the 2016/17 financial year.

Councillor Dominic Boeck explained that since the change to School Finance Regulations in 2013/14, the Council had been required annually to approve the school funding formula. This was in consultation with the Schools Forum and also included consultation with all maintained and academy schools. The Department for Education (DfE) had announced the arrangements for the 2016/17 funding formula for primary and secondary schools on 16 July 2015. There were no amendments to the regulations, and therefore the options available for the formula to be used to distribute funding to schools remained the same as for 2015/16.

School funding allocations were paid for from the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and did not impact on the Council’s budget. It was likely that the funding rate (per pupil) that the DSG was based upon would also remain the same, although this would be subject to the Government’s spending review. The Council would be notified of its actual DSG funding for 2016/17 in mid December 2015.

At the Schools Forum meeting held on 13 July 2015, it was agreed that if there was no change to the regulations that would be of benefit to West Berkshire schools, their preferred option would be no change to the formula for 2016/17. A briefing/consultation document setting out this proposal (see Appendix C) had been sent to all primary and secondary schools on 1 September 2015. There had only been a few responses to the consultation and all except one had agreed with all the proposals. The one exception asked for consideration to be given to allocating more money through the deprivation factor, due to the fact that West Berkshire did have some pockets of serious deprivation.

At the meeting of the Schools Forum held on 28 September 2015, the members of the Forum confirmed that their preferred option would be to keep the funding formula the same for 2016/17 as that used in 2015/16 and this was recommended in the report.

If there was a funding shortfall, this would be addressed through an adjustment to the basic entitlement rate. If additional funding was available, the Schools Forum, at its January 2016 meeting, would decide whether this was all allocated through the basic entitlement rate or through other factors including deprivation.

Councillor Alan Macro referred to Appendix C (3) to the report and queried the justification for the fact that the budget for the two federated schools was 50% higher per pupil than a primary school with a similar number of pupils. Councillor Boeck agreed to provide a written answer on that point.

RESOLVED that:

(1)          The formula factors for 2016/17 remain the same as those used in 2015/16.

(2)          If there was a funding shortfall, this would be addressed through an adjustment to the basic entitlement rate.

(3)          If there was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

(CSP: P&S, P&S1)

Purpose:  To update the Executive on the Brilliant West Berkshire (BWB): Building Community Together emotional health re-design proposals for children and young people’s emotional health services.

Resolved that the Executive approve the design proposals for the Emotional Health Academy; including the creation of the additional posts.

This decision is eligible to be ‘called-in’.  However, if the decision has not been ‘called-in’ by 5.00pm on 27 November 2015, then it will be implemented.

Councillor Lynne Doherty introduced the report (Agenda Item 7) which provided an update on the Brilliant West Berkshire Building Community Together emotional health re-design proposals for children and young people’s emotional health services and which sought Executive approval of the design proposals for the Emotional Health Academy which included the creation of additional posts.

Emotional health need was one of the most common early indications of additional need; left unsupported, early emotional health difficulties could rapidly develop into a diagnosed mental health condition. Over 5,000 West Berkshire children had been referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) last year alone for emotional health services.

80% of children and young people asking CAMHS for support/help in West Berkshire did not receive a service. The vast majority of children subject to Child Protection Plans and those open to the Youth Offending Team had emotional health needs and many had mental health disorders. Most children were waiting over a year to be seen by a mental health professional and some were waiting over two years; for most children and young people, their condition would deteriorate significantly in that time.

Currently children and young people requiring extra mental health support were referred to a CAMHS single common point of entry (CPE). If they met the criteria and threshold they would be referred to Primary CAMHS workers who worked at Tier 2, or for more intense and specialist Tier 3 and 4 interventions. The Council currently gave £80k a year in funding which funded two 0.5 FTE (full time equivalent) workers. Just under 6,000 contacts for help and support had been made in West Berkshire in the last year which meant that having a resource of 1.0 FTE was insufficient to cope with demand.

As part of the Brilliant West Berkshire work it was proposed to create an Emotional Health Academy which was an innovative idea unique to West Berkshire and would use the funding provided by the Council more wisely. Schools and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) had also been asked to provide funding and the service would grow proportionately to reflect the level of funding from other agencies. The Department of Health and the Department for Education had looked at the proposals and had provided feedback that they were innovative. Feedback received from partners had also been positive.

The creation of an Emotional Health Academy would ensure that:

·           Children would be seen in a week, rather than waiting a year. Newly qualified psychology graduates and other emotional health qualified staff would be trained to work with children and families in the communities in which they lived.

·           The Council would work in partnershipto ensure that these staff worked closely with schools, GP surgeries, Children’s Centres, the Police and crucially with the voluntary sector.

·           The needs of the whole family would be looked at, not just the child by testing a new way of working with adult services to see how the Council could work more effectively with whole families; where both  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

(CSP: MEC1)

Purpose: The report outlines the results of the OSMC scrutiny of the Insurance Fund.

Resolved that  the Executive accept the recommendation of the OSMC for an annual review of the insurance fund by the Head of Finance and Finance Portfolio Holder, with a view to maintaining a fund of between £950,000 and £1,500,000.

This decision is not subject to call in as:

·      the item has been considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Commission, or has been the subject of a review undertaken by another body within the preceding six months.

therefore it will be implemented immediately.

Councillor Roger Croft presented the report (Agenda Item 8) which outlined the results of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission’s (OSMC’s) scrutiny of the insurance fund.

By way of background, Councillor Croft explained that Councillor Alan Law, at the time Portfolio Holder for Finance, asked the OSMC to review the operation and level of funding of the insurance fund. The results of the review were outlined in the OSMC report and in summary the review recommended that:

·                the Council maintain a fund of between £950,000 and £1,500,000;

·                the Head of Finance and the Finance Portfolio Holder conduct an annual review of the fund, making necessary adjustments to maintain the fund within the above limits; and the results of the review be reported to the Governance and Ethics Committee.

At the time the OSMC conducted the review, the level of the fund was £1,295,000. However at year end, 31 March 2015, this had dropped to £802,000.

The Head of Finance and Finance Portfolio Holder had since carried out a review of the insurance fund in line with the OSMC recommendation. This resulted in the transfer of balance sheet funds of £273k from the Berkshire Receipts Reserve (set up in 1998 to cover claims relating to Berkshire County Council) to the insurance fund reserve to bring the insurance fund back within the agreed limit of £950,000 to £1,500,000.

Councillor Law stated that he was willing to support the proposal to accept the OSMC’s recommendations. In previous years, the fund had remained at between £1.2m and £1.4m which he felt was overly high. He was therefore a little disappointed at the proposed range for the fund. Councillor Law also questioned the reasons why the fund had dropped to £802,000. Councillor Croft confirmed that this was due to the Council needing to use this fund to meet the cost of claims which were at a relatively high level, which was why the fund was set up, as the Council had a large excess. Councillor Croft agreed to provide a more detailed written answer to Councillor Law and Councillor Alan Macro on this point.

Councillor Macro then queried whether claims could still be made against the Berkshire Receipts Reserve or whether this had been removed. Councillor Croft explained that the Section 151 Officer was comfortable with the cost of potential claims being met from the insurance fund reserve.

RESOLVED that the recommendation of the OSMC for an annual review of the insurance fund by the Head of Finance and Finance Portfolio Holder be accepted, with a view to maintaining a fund of between £950,000 and £1,500,000.

Reasons for the decision:

(1)  To consider the response to the OSMC’s scrutiny review of the insurance fund.

(2)  To outline the result of the annual review of the insurance fund.

(3)  To highlight pressures on the insurance budget.

Other options considered: None.

A full transcription of the public and Member question and answer sessions are available from the following link: Transcription of Q&As.

“Has the Executive considered co-operating with other, neighbouring, authorities on all major procurements in order to reduce costs?”

A question standing in the name of Councillor Lee Dillon on the subject of whether consideration had been given to the Council co-operating with neighbouring authorities on all major procurements in order to reduce costs was answered by the Leader of the Council.

“The Executive agreed to recruit a “Social Media Executive” at its meeting on 8 May 2014 to help reduce external foster care placements. How successful has this been?”

A question standing in the name of Councillor Alan Macro on the subject of how successful the recruitment of a Social Media Executive had been in helping to reduce external foster care placements was answered by the Portfolio Member for Children’s Services.

“What progress has there been in selling the depot site in Pound Lane, Thatcham?”

A question standing in the name of Councillor Alan Macro on the subject of the progress made in selling the depot site in Pound Lane, Thatcham was answered by the Portfolio Member for Property.