Red flag raised over care body’s £2m overspend
Service cuts‘possibility’
The body responsible for most aspects of adult social care provision in Stirling and Clackmannanshire already has an overspend this financial year of £2 million.
And this week there was a warning that service reductions were a “very real possibility” in the Stirling area and across the country if improvements in funding pressures fail to materialise.
Stirling and Clackmannanshire Health and Social Care Partnership took on the care delivery role in October last year.
It is part of the new Integration Joint Board for the area and joint-funded by Stirling and Clackmannanshire Councils and NHS Forth Valley.
However, the partnership’s overspend for 2018-19 so far is more than £2million, around two-thirds of which is for Stirling.
Stirling Council was told more integrated service provision between health and local government, early intervention measures to reduce demand for services, and implementing other service change, redesign and cost efficiency measures would be needed if the pace of change was to increase.
In a report approved by HSCP chief officer Annemargaret Black, officials said: “This has proven to be a difficult task for health and social care partnerships around the country but if this cannot be achieved at a sufficient rate to keep pace with cost and demand increases then service reductions are a very real possibility, unless a case can be made to national government for significant additional funding to come into the health and care sector.”
The slippage in the budget has led to the issue being flagged as red on the council’s financial risk register.
Addressing councillors, Ms Black said a strategic plan had now been approved and there was also some cohesion in leadership management capacity.
Green councillor Alasdair Tollemache and Tory Martin Earl were among those, however, who raised concerns over how some new posts and other measures could be sustained.
The IJB had previously approved £250,000 from reserves towards the senior management structure, including two head of service posts, however the partnership said these posts would be sustained through “delivery of a medium-term financial plan”.
Councillor Earl questioned whether this was achievable and asked “what else might have to go” to make it happen.
Ms Black said: “We are in a chicken and egg situation I have been in post five months and my assessment was that we didn’t have leadership and management side there to allow us to take forward a strategy to save money and deliver services people require. We need that management and leadership capacity to take these big pieces of work forward.”
Tory group leader Councillor Neil Benny said: “This wasn’t just a red risk but the highest I have ever seen on a council risk register in financial terms
Fundamentally we need to stop people going into hospital Annemargaret Black
to the council.”
Ms Black said: “Fundamentally we need to stop people going into hospital in the first place. Looking at a snapshot of people going into hospital and what package they go with and what they come out with. We need a model of early intervention and looking at supporting people with practical help, advice, technology etc, but we are on that journey just now. It’s about building on success so far.
“We have got a three-year plan that went to the IJB and that has set targets as to where we expect to be in the next two to three years.”
The council’s chief finance officer Jim Boyle said: “There’s clearly a question about resources nationally and we don’t have the financial budget at Westminster, Holyrood or the local government settlement yet so we will continue to update these plans.
“In terms of sharing across the partners, discussions are taking place annually. In terms of the financial pressures for the partners there’s obviously pressures across the whole system, demographic pressures and talks about moving finance across the system. We are doing our best to try to address the issues at the moment and some of the transformational programme will take some of the pressure off, but going forward there will still be some pressure.”