Agenda item

The Chair introduced the report, which presented the interim findings from Newton Europe on a research project to better understand what drove variation in spend on Children’s Services between local authorities. Newton had completed the first on-site diagnostic with Cornwall Council, and were in attendance to present to the Board on the analysis of the nationally available data, the preliminary outputs from the Cornwall diagnostic, and the plan for the remainder of the project.

Luke Tregidgo, Programme Lead, and Rich Lum, Associate Director, from Newton Europe attended the meeting to present on their work to date. It was explained that initial analysis had shown that there was a variation of around 100% across authorities to achieve the same outcomes. Research so far had focussed on national data sets, but the next step was to work on the ground in local authorities. The first piece of work with Cornwall Council had been completed, which would be followed by work with Hillingdon and Wakefield, and then a further 5 councils. Authorities with similar outcomes had been identified, with objective measures of good performance.

Work in councils comprised of interviews and discussions with elected Members and officers, an analysis of the strategy employed in running services and the data in a national and local context. The impact of deprivation on children had been plotted against the gross spend reported by the council, which was highlighted as a main factor in variation of spend. Members noted that there was much greater variation in spend in smaller authorities, which was as yet unexplained.

Members received a detailed confidential briefing on the analysis of Cornwall Council’s children’s services spending, and how this would be used as a comparison against other authorities.

In the discussion which followed, the following points were raised by Members:

• In response to a question on the impact of neighbouring authorities, it was explained that this could impact on the cost of co-commissioning (if this was an option), but this was not being considered directly as a factor.
• The impact of local authority education provision would be considered, as some authorities had a large number of academies whereas others did not.
• Consideration should be given to how factors such as the cost of placing children (including out of area placements), the social worker market, and the number of children in care (and how they are accommodated). It would be useful to determine what each authority spent per child, and break down figures by placement and what influenced decision making. 
• Regarding the percentage of controllable spend on children’s services, it was highlighted that spend on care leavers could be looked at as a percentage of the council’s overall budget, as the budget for care leavers was part of the looked-after children budget.
• It was noted that the project was at the midway point, but there was clear evidence so far that deprivation had a strong correlation with spend. Geographical size would require further study, but there were definite opportunities to reduce spend. A further report would be considered at the next Board meeting in March.

Decision

The Board noted the work undertaken by Newton Europe to date.

Action

Newton Europe to attend the next Board on 13 March to provide further update on work.