Agenda and minutes

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 Marcus Franks introduced the item to Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board. He explained that the same report had previously been considered by Members of the Council’s Management Board due to the substantial financial risk to the Local Authority. Members of the Executive had concluded that they could not sign up to the Better Care Fund (BCF), which could leave the Local Authority facing the risk of a £3.8 million shortfall although this position would need to be formalised by the Executive itself. Councillor Franks invited Rachael Wardell to give further background to the item.

Rachael Wardell explained that Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board had considered a detailed report on the planned use for the BCF on the 6^th February 2014 and approval had been given for the draft plans to be submitted to the Department of Health (DoH). BCF Plans had been developed in collaboration with the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

The BCF took existing money and redirected it into Adult Social Care and integration, focusing it on a number of issues. The CCGs and Local Authority had worked together to develop and prepare plans for the BCF. Rachael Wardell confirmed that there was still full commitment to the seven schemes presented to the Board in February 2014 subject to the funding situation being clarified by the Department of Health.

In July 2014 a ministerial announcement significantly changed the funding and performance arrangements and the DoH had set a new template requiring further detail on planned use for the BCF in line with this. The submission deadline for the new template was 12 noon on 19^th September 2014. Rachael Wardell stated that there was no intention to step away from any of the areas of work detailed in the original BCF plans. This was still considered crucial work across the West of Berkshire.

Rachael Wardell explained that Central Government had not allocated an overall sum of money solely for the implementation of the Care Act and this was now included within BCF. The CCGs and Local Authority had negotiated a proportion of the funding, which would fund the Care Act obligations however, this amount did not come close to what was required as outlined in guidance. West Berkshire was one of just three authorities in England operating at ‘critical only’ and therefore faced significant new costs arising from the change to a new minimum eligibility criteria. The BCF did not include any additional funding to meet these costs.

Councillor Gwen Mason reported that she had only recently become a Member of the Board and therefore had not been able to vote at the meeting in February. She was concerned about agreeing to a 3.5% improvement target. Councillor Mason was in support of a 1.1% local improvement target, which would put £250k of the BCF funding into a performance pot rather than £550k.  Councillor Mason also felt that a £3.8 million shortfall was too large a risk for the Local  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.