HOW THE COUNCIL HAS TAKEN ACTION, ACCORDING TO CLLR ROULSTONE

We closed the 2021/22 financial year with an underspend, despite operating for a year of national pandemic measures. In fact we added to our reserve position by £1.8m.

We also set aside additional funding for Covid scarring of £2.78m and created a specific COVID reserve £2.7m, whilst also adding a £1m of support into our income generating services that were mostly impacted, leisure and parking services.

Despite the unpredictable impact of the pandemic and increased pressures the Staying Together Team has worked with more than 36 families and 53 children at risk of entering care to provide stability and support our children to remain safely and appropriately at home.

Our overspend is due to the national crisis in children’s services and this is not just in terms of the numbers of children we support but the market sufficiency and costs of places to safeguard our most vulnerable where we are seeing cost increase of over 25%.