Transcript

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the meeting of the Cabinet of Surrey County Council at Woodhatch on the 25th of June 2024. We have a member of the public here so I will read out the full text if that's okay. So first of all I can welcome both members and officers. There are no fire drills expected so in the event of a fire alarm sounding everyone present is asked to leave by the nearest exit and assemble at the top car park reporting to a member of the building management team. In line with our guidance on the use of social media, happy for anybody attending today to use social media provided it doesn't interfere with the smooth running of the meeting. The meeting is as you know being webcast and although it is open to the public I do actually have the right to suspend filming if the need arises which I'm sure it won't be, it hasn't happened so far so hopefully not. Just remind cabinet please to use the microphone please when you're speaking. We are as most people I'm sure aware a week or so away from a general election so we are in the pre-election period and the general election takes place on Thursday the 4th of July. Guidance has been issued to members and officers and I would like to remind members when presenting reports or asking questions to please refrain from endorsing or referencing any candidate or political party standing in the elections or indeed to avoid any controversial political campaigns or policies related to the election. I'm sure that most members are fully aware of the rules so I would ask please that nobody tries to sidestep those in any way. Okay so I'll do the round of attendances and apologies for absence. There's one apology for absence and that's from Paul Deitch deputy cabinet member and as usual please if you can just identify your portfolio when you say you're here. Thank you. Starting with Claire Curran. Hello leader good afternoon I'm Claire Curran I'm the cabinet member for children families and lifelong learning. Thank you David Lewis. Yes good afternoon I'm David Lewis cabinet member for finance and resources. Thank you Denise Turner-Stewart. Good afternoon Denise Turner-Stewart cabinet member for customer and communities and deputy leader. Thank you Jonathan Hawley. Thank you good afternoon Jonathan Hawley deputy cabinet member of strategic highways. Thank you. Thank you Kevin Dines. Yes good afternoon Kevin Dines cabinet member for sorry fire and rescue and resilience. Mark Newty. Thank you leader and welcome on global Beatles day today did you know that? I am the cabinet member for health well-being and public health. Thank you Mark. Marissa Heath cabinet member for environment. Thank you Matt Furness. Thank you leader Matt Furness cabinet member for highways transport and economic growth. Sorry Maury Natterwell. Thank you leader Maury Natterwell deputy cabinet member children families and lifelong learning. Thank you very much Natalie Bamhall. Good afternoon Natalie Bramhall cabinet member for property waste and infrastructure. Thank you Sinead Mooney. Good afternoon Sinead Mooney cabinet member for adult social care. Thank you very much and lastly Steve Bax. Thank you leader Steve Bax deputy cabinet member for highways contract delivery. Okay thank you very much we have got quite a full agenda today and it's it's this this council continues with its business as usual and there are some important decisions here that we need to take to make sure that things have progressed. So can I move straight into the agenda itself starting with item two which are minutes of the previous meeting which was held on the 23rd of April 2024. Are those minutes agreed? Thank you very much. Does any member have any interest to declare in relation to the items on today's agenda? No thank you very much. Members questions there were 10 questions there have been 10 questions that have been submitted from members including Catherine Powell Catherine Bart, Fiona Davidson and Stephen McCormick and answers have been given to those questions as we are in the pre-election periods the advice is that we don't take any further supplementary questions at this meeting but if any of those members have submitted questions have further matters they'd like to clarify then I would ask them please to contact the cabinet member directly and they will get a written response. Sorry apologies just on question eight I just want to say on the second bullet point the in the response the 15,000 pounds for circa a thousand staff in the training actually 15,000 pounds of annual contribution from corporate was received yesterday so we just need to update that response but I'll send that out formally as well but just so it's noted at the meeting. Okay yeah no thank you very much Matt. Okay 4B there are no public questions there are no petitions no representations received on reports to be considered in private which then takes us to the select committees there are in fact two reports from the children's families lifelong learning select committee we were expecting actually the chair of that committee Fiona Davidson to be joining us so in any event I was going to take one now and one at the end of the agenda so I will I will take item 5a at the end as the last item before we move into part two and I've also moved the substantive item in relation to the send capital program to the end of the agenda as well and also the select committee's comments on that. So if that's okay and hopefully Fiona Davidson will be joining us either online or in person before we we finish this part of the meeting. So in that case item six our decisions that have been taken by cabinet members since the last meeting and the fact there have been 10 10 decisions all of those are recorded there for for noting unless any member wishes to raise or any issue on any of those. No I can't see any hands up so those those for noting thank you very much. And then moving on to item seven which is a paper on the delivering delivering services for Surrey through strategic partnerships. The and this is really an agenda item simply to sort of just collate really some of the activity that this council has been engaged in over the past few months and so on. So and I think it's just worth reminding ourselves that now five or six years ago we can we led a sort of consultation across the county in terms of a community vision and that community vision has then translated into our into our focus on improving the quality of lives for for our residents and addressing inequality of access and an inequality life expectancy and that no one in this county will be left behind. And there were four main priority objectives that the built in were built into that vision. That's that is building a sustainable economy so that everyone can benefit enabling a greener future addressing health inequalities and creating an encouraging sort of thriving communities. So those were the four sort of key areas and then really kind of the work that sits below them. I think the reason for bringing this paper is to highlight three significant developments that have happened over the past well a couple of years in fact but particularly over the last 12 months. The first of those is securing a level two county deal from the previous government and I am hopeful that the next government will honor those evolution deals that have already been approved by by by the ministers and there's no reason to suppose that won't happen. That part of that deal although it happened independently from that was also then just recently the transfer of responsibilities from the local enterprise partnership to this council. Members will know at least if the public say that there were two local enterprise partnerships across the county one enterprise and three which we shared with Hampshire County Council and the second coast capital that we shared with Brighton and Hove and Sussex. And there have been various preparations over the last 12 months. I think we're now certainly in the case of enterprise M3 there's been a seamless transfer of those responsibilities and I'm hoping that we're nearly there with with coast capital. Those though that has been significant in that it pulls together brings together the significant amount of work that has been done already by this council in terms of economic development and growth. The county the county has a shortage of skills individuals the right skills and that is one of the one of the things that is perhaps holding back growth in this county and so that is a very real focus. We have a growth board that oversees all of the economic development aspects and within that a skills forum and a business leadership forum that help coordinate that activity. But certainly a very real focus on encouraging perhaps younger people to look at the apprenticeship route instead of perhaps going to university and then for the older generation for some of us looking to up skill us or reskill us into other occupations and so on. So but that that's been a good piece of work and most recently we launched business sorry which is a website which is accessible to all to everybody but but is particularly focused on businesses and it's and there's a lot of signposting within that website to other areas of support and so on. And then the third area was the creation of integrated care systems two years or so ago and within that the integrated care partnership in particular which is which is which is chaired within this organization and is very much focused on delivering the rollout of health services local government services and and community services including community safety around the towns and villages footprint. There are 27 main towns in Surrey and two collections of villages and that is a sort of a neutral footprint that we share particularly with the health system. If we're going to improve people's lives and livelihoods we need to do that we need to address those issues at a very local granular level and that is exactly what what we're doing through that through that towns and villages footprint. So I think where we've made some good progress I think getting the structures together getting the Surrey County Council is one part of that wider ecosystem as I often describe it but we we I think there's a great deal of great deal more clarity in terms of who is doing what how the how the governance operates and how we're actually going to measure the improvement on the lives of our residents and so on. And then finally kind of in the in the context of the greener future there's a wide mix of partner organizations we have a very good relationship with the universities in particular the University of Surrey and their sustainability Institute sustainability and you know we are delivering looking to deliver a complete integration between society and nature including social inclusion healthy food and so on. So you know I hope that through this organization and with our partners we are genuinely addressing the the the needs and the support that our residents deserve in the way in which we're delivering those services collectively. And then the last thing is thriving community support and that's now that that board itself has been wrapped into the integrated care partnership because that's that seems to be the best way to progress that integrated approach. So that's just a very brief overview there's more detail there in the report itself but it was really just an update to highlight some of the work that continues and in particular the fact that you know that this is a big county so it's a complicated county it has deprivation here and we need to make sure that all of our resources are targeted on those individuals that need it the most. There are three or four three recommendations here I don't know if anybody wanted to comment on that or not I think it's all well known to you but it's just to say useful to kind of remind ourselves the work that we are doing here. There are the recommendations are to note the convening and facilitating role of Surrey County Council that we played in developing coordinated and aligned Surrey wide collaborative leadership to deliver the community vision for Surrey 2030. Secondly to note the implications for strategic note the implications for strategic partnerships of the devolution of certain government functions to the county council through the county deal framework and I should have said that we hope to build on that that that devolution deal as well in conversations with the next government and but in particular in relation to the economy skills and the environment and then thirdly it approves the proposed changes to the strategic partnerships governance arrangements set out and the ongoing role of the county council in them and I should have just raised one further point which is that there's a current review of the role of the health and well-being board the integrated care board and the integrated care partnership with the intention of bringing those three boards closer together to have the health system and local government so that we have in effect one day a month where all of those key individuals and members of those boards come together so that we can make sure there's sort of a seamless governance process around decisions that affect both the health system and and in local government so those are the three recommendations can I take it that those are agreed thank you very much and related to that which I'll just move straight on to was the previous government required councils to produce a productivity plan I think it was partly a result of the additional money that was secured from the chancellor in February that it was felt that it would be helpful just to understand a bit more around some of the financial pressures that councils were experiencing and that plan has to be lodged with government and still has to be by the 19th of July 2024 there were four themes that the government set out that we should address the first were transformation programs this council started a significant program of transformation in see some six years ago and and that those continue not the same programs but that the transformation of our services still continues that is not only to look at financial efficiencies but but more particularly to look at ways in which we can improve outcomes by doing things differently we are living in a very different environment now even from six years ago so it is important that we continue to look at every aspect of the way in which the services here are delivered and find ways in which we can we can improve those the second theme was or is the use of technology and data and again we have a significant project underway particularly looking at the way in which our residents engage with this council so the sort of the front end if you like access point into into the council services and and that will include and does include the greater use of AI and and all those sort of tools that I think most of us are used to in other aspects of our life so there's this it is hoped that the residents the residents experience when engaging with us will be will be both quicker and more satisfying by the use of technology and of course technology the use of technology extends into all of our other services whether that's into adult social care and and into children services and so on and data data is really important you know it's unless you know what is happening unless you've got that it's very difficult to know what you're doing right and what you can improve on and again we have a piece of work I see chaired by the chief fire officer through the Surrey officers data analytics so that's looking at data held by the police held by the health system and helped by us and navigating the way around hopefully navigating the way around the GDPR and all of those other seeming barriers into just sharing the right information to make things operate a bit more smoothly that the third area is to address or to look to reduce wasteful expenditure I don't think there is any council in this country that doesn't look every day at its cost base you know we are we continue to be challenged and you know and it is really important therefore that we do look at every item of expense and make sure that we are using public money in the best possible way and then the fourth theme is any barriers I mean I think we have a good story to tell here at the County Council in terms of where we have moved from over these past few years into a much more stable financial position we know there is more to do in a number of our service areas but we are improving and I'm sure that that will continue to be the case the barriers are less about internal barriers and perhaps more to do with those from central government and I think an important part now going forward with a newly elected government next week is to make out the case for local government all tiers of local government but in particular ours as an upper tier local authority with significant responsibilities for people's lives and health and social care and so on and I know that from a cross party perspective we believe there are reforms that perhaps a future government could introduce that would be beneficial for our residents so the barriers will be more to do with what government can do to help us rather than any say internal ones having said all that we have a clear plan and it is about continuing to drive improvement and you will see at appendix 2 to the paper a draft outline of the productivity plan that we intend to submit it's you know we're told it only has to be no more than four small pages I think and hopefully people will look at these things and you know and I suspect there will be quite a lot of commonality in terms of the responses from local government but there's the outline of the report it will be finalized over the next week or so and one of the recommendations is that cabinet both endorses the approach the proposed approach to developing our productivity plan and also agrees to delegate authority to the interim head of paid service Michael Coughlin here in conjunction with the leader of the council to sign off the final productivity plan can I take it that that's those are agreed unless anybody wants to make a comment Denise thank you leader I just wanted to say how important it is to see the list of barriers because actually we're being asked to demonstrate our productivity but this is an opportunity for government to recognize the shackles that hamper us from being productive not just as an authority but as a as a county you know some of the examples that are given are things that you've personally and collective we collectively have been lobbying on for some considerable time so I would really hope that this is paid due attention to to enable us to be as productive and as efficient as we can be in the future thank you and I might just put in a small plug if I'm allowed for the county council's network which which which this council's a member and is a cross-party organization which has produced a very detailed manifesto of asks of the next government so we will we will use that document to build on as well in terms of you know those those longer-term ambitions that we certainly have okay good thank you very much so there's the two recommendations I referred to there those agreed excellent thank you very much right then so item nine over to you Matt thank you leader so in this item the made smarter adoption business support program which is overseen by the Department for business and trade seeks to support manufacturing a small and medium-sized enterprises through provision of impartial advice guidance from digital technology specialists leadership development programs and much much funded grants up to 25,000 for the adoption of new technologies and sorry County Council we are seeking to serve as the accountable body for the southeast region by taking this leading role for the made smarter adoption program it will help not only ourselves as sorry County Council meet our priority objective of growing a sustainable economy by supporting local innovation improvements in productivity and growth in manufacturing SMEs but it also will help with the the regional area of facilitating coordinating delivery across the whole of the southeast region the program has actually already been in pro in progress across northern region since 2019 and the depart from business trade and now seeking to expand it into the southeast from April 2025 and require a local authority lead which we we've nominated being put forward for to take on the role of the council body and it's backed by 1.3 million to target point five percent of manufacturing small medium-sized enterprises in the region that's equivalent to 94 businesses the program is well aligned to our economic growth priorities as I've set out it will practically support sorry based manufacturing businesses to adopt new technologies and transform their operations and in our own evidence bases we are we have about 20% of the southeast regions 18,000 manufacturing businesses and we rank about eighth in terms of number of manufacturing businesses in England so it is an important part of the local economy here not just for Surrey but for the southeast in particular and by taking on this role we will be able to help not only just coordinate but support SMEs across the region in able to develop and transform their businesses using technology and impartial advice you know in order to grow thank you. Thank you very much Matt does anybody want to and and and presumably we'll need to wait now to find out whether this is going to continue but hopefully so okay so there are five recommendations which I won't read out because I think they're all pretty straightforward are those agreed okay thank you and then still with you Matt on the universal support thank you leader so Surrey County Council has been awarded funding from the Department to worker pensions to deliver a new employment support program called universal support the program will provide employment support to adults with long-term conditions or disabilities or more complex barriers to work to help them access and maintain work in the longer term this in turn will directly contribute to nurturing talent supporting businesses with employment upskilling staff retention challenges and it supports our again our organization of growing a sustainable economy from which everyone can benefit to ensure no one is left behind and everyone is able to fulfill their potential so the indicative grant allocated to Surrey County Council totals 3.1 million and it will be used to deliver a number of services to support skills development and employment across Surrey we do know that skills development and accessing and maintaining employment are key widest determinants of health employment is made to be positive for good mental and physical health with the NHS long-term plan recognizing mental health and conditions remain the main reason for sickness absence which is increasing so high quality work will provide clear benefits not only income but social interaction a sense of purpose and so forth and with this we really from employers perspective we have about just under 35,000 unique job postings in Surrey in April 2024 this is in line with the national picture there has been a slowing down of vacancies but it is clear there is a still significant demand for employers but there isn't a clear coordinated approach to access latent talent pools so establishing the scale of how many people could potentially require employment in Surrey is slightly challenging on one hand we have low out-of-work benefit rates and low economic activity due to long-term sickness but we also do have two boroughs which have lower disability employment rates than the national average and one has a disability employment gap of nearly twice that of the national average so we'll be looking to see how we can target these areas with this funding in order to close both those gaps it will also help following conversations that we had earlier it will sort of help with the various programs that we do have going now across Surrey to help with not only the local economy but getting people back into work recently established work wise which is being supported by the department for health and social care is a free employment service to any person with a mental or physical health condition which has been delivered through Surrey choices and this will complement that program which is being delivered separately so I think we can all agree the number of programs this extra support to get people back into work is welcomed and we look forward to not only helping as previous one the small medium-sized enterprise businesses but also those who find it more challenging to get back into work from a period of illness. Thank you Matt it says in the paper that the expectation is the program will start in late autumn 2024 but possibly spring 2025 have we got any greater clarity on that? I think we will get the greater clarity again after the general election later but both these papers are making sure that we are prepared and have the necessary delegations in place so that if everything is agreed by the two departments we can hit the ground running. And as you say there is a direct correlation between people's health and employment so it will be good to have and I know that you have been doing some work in terms of looking at all of the different pots of money that sits around the sort of skills piece hopefully to have a sort of centralised coordinated approach to how that money is deployed. Does anybody wish to ask Matt any difficult questions? Marisa. I'll try right okay let's think about it. I mean we know since Covid I think it's two-thirds of people on benefit zone to disability and things has gone up it's been a massive spike and a lot of that has been around mental health. We're already doing some stuff around mental health so I presume this is able to sort of click into that work working with our health teams predominantly and also ensuring that we take a preventative approach to things as well so younger people particularly those going through transitions from 18 out into adulthood and things like that that we can use the money to potentially target that area as well to stop them happening. I mean they haven't given you if you've just mentioned they haven't given you the full scope to how it can be done but I presume you're thinking in that way about what we've already got the preventative angle and what we're doing around mental health because we've been a council that's tried to do a lot of work on that. Yes so I mean with multiple programs we can offer either individual or employer support through these programs. I mean Department for Work and Pensions has particularly targeted 16 to 24 year olds and we are working with I Choose Local which is a not-for-profit to get 16 to 24 year olds back into work and they're working through our libraries currently at this moment. The interesting point is whilst it might have been targeted there we are getting a number of 50 pluses now coming in and saying how do we upskill how do we get back into work as well so we're looking at how we can sort of broaden that offer but we've got these very specific ones for more challenging cases making sure that people who have been out of work for long term whether it's through physical mental or other means have that ability to go back into the workforce because they want to it's just giving that support and also the employers that support to be able to employ them back into the workforce. The leader if I may, is the money able to be used on capital things such as equipment that allows people who are disabled who want to work struggle because things aren't set up for them or is it more about programs that have support? Programs predominantly but I think if the employer requires some capital particularly if it's an SME for example then we can look at ways of supporting that, that's not a problem. If we can do it, we will do it, is I think what I'm saying. Okay thank you and there are the four recommendations which is noting the benefits and approval to procure and to give the delegated decision to the executive director and the cabinet member. Happy to agree those recommendations? Good, thank you very much. Thank you Matt. Item 11 then, the youth justice plan. Mrs Curran. Thank you leader, yes this paper is setting out the proposed 24/25 youth justice plan for approval of cabinet and it's recommendation to council. We have a statutory duty every year to set out our annual youth justice plan to describe how youth justice services in our area are provided, funded, how they operate and the functions that are carried out. I'm going to hand over to Maureen who's the deputy cabinet member to speak in a little more detail about this year's plan if that's all right with you leader, thank you. Thank you Maureen. Thank you Claire. I'd just like to pick out some of the highlights really, although I'm sure everybody's read the report, it does detail our plan for the coming year, for the following year, but I'd like to pick out some of the real performance issues. I mean the planning and production of the youth justice plan is beneficial to partnership working and service delivery to ensure the best outcomes for children. Over the last four years there's been a reduction in children becoming first-time entrants to the criminal justice system across Surrey. This demonstrates the successful pre-court interventions by deferred prosecution which are agreed and devised in partnership between our youth justice service and the police. A testament to the strong partnership approach that has been developed in recent years and impacting positively on outcomes for our children and local communities. Some of the headlines, reoffending rates remain lower than statistical neighbours and at national averages, custody rates remain low and comparable with the general trend across south-east of England. Data analysis highlights the most common period for reoffending is the first month amplifying the importance of swift intervention and support following early identification of need post arrest. Timeliness of matters being dealt with through the criminal justice system from offence to outcome have been improving in relation to children for three consecutive years. The youth justice, the National Youth Justice Board oversight framework involves regular scrutiny of youth justice services and towards the end of 2023 they advised our service that they had been moved into the top tier of the new performance grading system. Surrey's grading is a result of strong KPI data, the well established culture of the Surrey Youth Justice Management Board and leadership across the service. I recently attended a practice discovery visit from the Youth Justice Board CEO and the head of secretariat and regional oversight manager where they referred to the work being undertaken with our children as outstanding and phenomenal on more than one occasion. With Surrey being invited as a result to feed into regional practice development sessions. So I think we can all be very proud of our youth justice service and the work and I could carry on because I'm very passionate about this service but I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Maureen. And justifiably so, I think it's an excellent service and being recognised as being safe. Anybody wish to make any comments or questions? No? Okay. Well, I think, you know, if you can pass back our thanks to the team for the great work they're doing and the recommendation is to approve the 24/25 youth justice plan for consideration by full council at its meeting on the 9th of July, 2024, is that agreed? Good. Thank you. Item 12, then, Claire, school organisation plan for 2024. Thank you, yes, leader. As you said, this is the Surrey school organisation plan and cabinet is being asked to consider the Surrey school organisation plan covering the academic years from September 2024 to 2034 and recommend it to council for publication. Sufficiency of high quality school places is a key statutory duty and it underpins a great education for all and it supports our guiding mission that no one is left behind. The school organisation plan highlights the likely demand for school places projected over a ten year period and provides context as to how the educational landscape has changed and is likely to change in the future. And this council has created over 10,000 additional places over the last five years, both in mainstream and specialist provision, and we know we need to provide still more while the current levels of government funding fall short of the amount we need to create those places. So recommended that cabinet endorses the school organisation plan 2024 to 34 to meet our statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient high quality places for pupils in Surrey and to refer it to council to approve publication. Thank you, leader. Thank you, Claire. I mean, this is an annual piece of work and it's quite technical and, you know, it's a living document in a sense, isn't it? But this is the plan at the moment for as best it can be drawn up so -- and will it -- I don't know, will it go to council -- is it going to the July council meeting? It is. Yeah. Okay. Claire has read out the recommendation that it be referred to full council with the recommendation to approve. Is that agreed? Agreed. Okay, then we are going to go to item 14 now. We're coming back to 13 after this. So item 14 is the Winston Churchill school replacement classrooms and Natalie Bramall. Thank you, leader. At Winston Churchill school, four permanent classrooms are required to replace four temporary modular classrooms which are beyond economic repair. The school have maintained and upgraded these over the last 30 years. We cannot replace these units due to their location amongst mature oak trees. There is insufficient space over the rest of the site to locate these units, therefore we are proposing a permanent first floor building on existing staff car park on supports to maintain the car parking spaces which are desperately needed. The school will be self-delivering this replacement building. They have successfully done this in the past and it is the fastest delivery route. This future proofs the needs of the school for 50 plus years, providing capacity for local children. Thank you. Thank you very much. And there's some financial information around that in part two, but this is straightforward. It's to approve the capital expenditure. So the recommendation is to approve capital funding allocated within the school capital maintenance budget for the capital maintenance program 2024 to build a permanent longer life classroom block in order to replace end of life modular classrooms at the Winston Churchill school, proves the self-delivery of the project by the school, strategic partner, acting as mentoring agent with a signed self-delivery agreement in place and authorises legal services to seal the self-delivery agreement if required. Are those three recommendations agreed? Thank you very much. The next item was the Surrey safeguarding adults annual report. We are waiting for the chair of the safeguarding board, Theresa Bell, who hopefully will join us online, but we'll take the other items first before -- whilst we're waiting for her to join. So if we can get to item 16 then, please, the out-turn financial report for 23/24. David. Yes, thank you, leader. So this report is the -- reports the financial performance for the financial year 23/24 for both the revenue and capital budgets, and you will have seen in the report that it includes the year-end treasury management position and the debt out-turn position. As I'm sure we all realize, the year, the last year, the financial year that we've experienced really featured some of the most severe pressures on our budget that local authorities have had to cope with for many years. And they really fall -- fell into three sort of categories. That was the ongoing funding uncertainty. Secondly, we saw and continue to see increasing demand for our services, and then of course we've had to cope with very high levels of inflation, which fortunately are now receding. If we look at the actual budget, the final budget for the year, revenue budget for the year that was agreed was 1.102 million pounds. And at the end of the year, we ended up with a position of a 2.8 million overspend. So just to put that into some form of context, that 2.8 million reflects less than 0.3 percent of our net revenue budget, but it is the position after we had allocated and used the contingency budget that we included of 20 million. Reasons for the overspend, and again, I don't think there's any real surprises here, particularly due to pressures that were experienced within adult social care, children's social care placements, and in the home-to-school transport budget. We do have an ambitious program of achieving efficiencies, which are built into the budget each year, and for the last financial year, we achieved about 78 percent of the efficiencies that we had highlighted, and that represented just under 54 million pounds worth of efficiencies. And there was a slight improvement at the end of the year in the final month, where we are out improved by about half a million pounds when compared to the position at the end of February. So we have 2.8 million overspend, which I should be recommending as part of this report is covered by a drawdown from the budget equalization reserve, and I think it's, again, worth saying to put it into context and thinking about the pressures that we experienced during the year that this is the first time we've had to use reserves to balance the year-end position since 2017-18, and I think that sort of gives you some idea of the sort of context in which we've been operating. If we look at the capital budget, at the start of the year, we agreed a budget of 308 million pounds, but it became obvious during the year that we were going to struggle to deliver all of that capital program, and we reset it at the end of month 5 to 266.7 million. There were then some further year-end adjustments, and we ended up with a final budget of 278 million for the year. Our capital spend actually ended up slightly more than that budget, that revised reset budget, spending 293 million at the end of the year, and I think it's worth saying that part of the reason for that overspend against the reset budget was because towards the end of the year we purchased the new Victoria Gate office at Woking. In addition to that capital spend -- I'd say in addition to that, we also spent 4.5 million pounds on the your fund sorry scheme, and there was just over a million pounds spent on commercial property. We will be proposing as part of the recommendations that there's a carry-forward of capital, and that will be partly into 24/25 and partly into 25/26. As you know, we have over the last few years been working to ensure that we have a robust and resilient set of reserves with which to balance the budget. As I've said, we will be looking to seek your approval to fund the 2.8 million from the budget equalization fund, but during the year we did also draw down from the reserves, and these were cabinet decisions that we took in order -- money from the transformation reserve, and we also had some specific projects, particularly around the improvements with the EHCP plans and so on, further 13.4 million which came out to the budget equalization reserve. But at the end of the year, our reserves stood at about 12% of the net revenue budget. So as I say, we are in a relatively strong position with our reserves, and it's something that we do constantly monitor and keep an eye on. So I think overall, given the challenges that we faced, I think the outcome was pretty satisfactory, and I'd like to thank everyone for the efforts that were made during the year to stay within the budget envelopes that have been set. So we have three recommendations which are part of this paper. One is simply to note the upturned position for the year. The second recommendation is to approve the 2.8 million drawdown on the budget equalization reserve, and the final one is to approve the capital carry forward of 39.2 million, and that's 15.9 into 24, 25, and 23.3 million into 25, 26. Thank you, David. And you'll also give us an update in a minute on month one. But as you say, I think although overspends on the budget is not the usual out turn, 2.8 million, over 1.1 billion is probably acceptable, bearing in mind the significant pressures, particularly around inflation and so on. So those are the three recommendations. Are those green? Thank you very much. So I see happily that Theresa has joined us now. So we'll go back to item 15, then the Surrey safeguarding adults annual report. Sinead, would you like to just introduce it? Thank you very much, leaders. I'm really pleased that Theresa, our independent chair, has been able to join us today. I think, you know, Theresa joined us over a year ago now, and I think she has come into an environment that was very challenging. Safeguarding referrals had increased significantly, and we were coming into a situation where just general demand on adult social care was extremely high and continues still to be that way. So I think Theresa came into the service during a very difficult time, and I'd like to thank her, actually, if I may, leader, for picking up the role that she has with Real aplomb and dexterity. And she's making progress, and I think we see this in this report today. So I'm going to hand over to the expert now, and over to you, Theresa. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Mooney. I very much appreciate those kind words as well. And I suppose I should begin by saying that I can't claim much about the year that you're seeing presented in this annual report, because it was the year before I joined, but I did join the board at a point where I believe that there was -- it was quite a pivotal moment in the -- there needed to be, and there was recognized the need for a shift in some of the ways that we were approaching adult safeguarding. And I've been really pleased to be working with what I believe is a strong partnership, both in terms of our statutory partners, but increasingly the numbers of partners that we have in the board now from both the voluntary and the community and independent sectors, to really make sure that we work in a multi-agency way and in a multi-agency way to manage risk and manage safeguarding closer to the person. So we've been really putting a lot of effort over the last year into looking at ways that we may be able to work with people at an earlier stage of risk being apparent, and working with partners to really clarify when something is an adult safeguarding matter, and therefore needs to go through that more formal approach. Or when something is being presented as a risk, there's an alert there, but how can we as a group of partners work to prevent that risk escalating further? So I think I joined at the point where there was a recognition of that mood for change, and I've been really pleased to be working with partners over this last year to progress our priorities under the four strategic headings that you'll see in the annual report in front of you. That's prevention and awareness, communication and engagement, quality and improvement, and reflection and learning. And I think, I mean, it's difficult to pick out one of those as being more important than any of the others, but we've had a real focus over the last year on reflection and learning and quality and improvement. So we are looking very closely at the way that we undertake, for example, safeguarding adult reviews to make sure that we can work through those in a way that gets the learning and the understanding about where there is a requirement for improvement in our partnership as quickly and as effectively as possible. And that's not always by embarking on a very lengthy report. Sometimes there are other ways of doing this, and we've been taking a much more creative approach over the last six months in particular to how we really take forward our quality improvements and reflection and learning from safeguarding adult reviews. So I think that's all I want to say. It's really good to have the opportunity to meet those of you that I haven't met before this afternoon, even virtually, and very happy to take any questions. Thank you. Theresa, thank you very much indeed, and good to see you, and thank you very much for all that you're doing now, all those who say this report reflects your time largely before you arrived. I know just how much impact you've had since you've been with us, so we're very grateful to you for that. I think if you don't mind, there might be one or two questions. I think who is going to start? Yes, Denise. Thank you. Thank you very much. Given that Surrey, like everywhere, is seeing more people needing safeguarding support, as the chair, how do you feel the statutory partnership is working collectively together, and also how has engagement with the voluntary sector helped to strengthen practice and understanding who's most at risk, please? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that question, and you may have picked up when I was talking earlier that I'm really pleased with the way that we've been able to increase our reach to the independent voluntary and community sector. Partly that's been due to us having a very effective partnerships officer now working with us in the safeguarding adults board, and he has really helped us improve the reach of the understanding of safeguarding adults to sectors across Surrey that we may not have been in close touch with before. I'm a really strong advocate for the voluntary and community sector, and at our last board, for example, we ensured that there was a good platform for representatives from that sector to talk about the voices, talk from the perspective of the voice of lived experience, whether they be people who are needing care and support, or whether they're carers. So we're really pushing that involvement very strongly in the board now, because I believe that when you're trying to ensure good quality in safeguarding, yes, data's helpful, yes, audits are helpful, but what's more important than anything else is listening and really learning from the impact on people who are requiring that support and their carers. So that's in terms of the voluntary and community sector. Statutory sector, I have been delighted, I must say, in terms of the response that I've had over the last 12 months to picking up this more kind of preventative approach. And I've got a very good working executive now. We reinforced and revised the terms of reference for our executive function within the Safeguarding Adults Board, so that we've got much clearer understanding about the role of those senior managers and senior leaders within each of the statutory organisations to really oversee and help us to motor on those areas that become stuck, for example. So yeah, I've been really pleased with the way that the partnership relationships have been working over the last year. That's not to say it's always sweetness and light, of course it isn't, but it's my role as chair to ensure that where there are areas of difficulty and challenge, that we can approach that in an open, transparent and constructive way within the board. So I try to foster that environment and so far, so good, I would say. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Maureen as well. Thank you, Alida. My question's around reassuring members of the public, if that's okay, and so if a member of the public is concerned about the wellbeing of a family member, friend or member, or another member of the public, what should they do? And importantly, what sort of response can they expect to receive? Right. So thank you. So, I mean, clearly the Safeguarding Adults Board has got a huge interest in ensuring that services to support people who are concerned about the safety and wellbeing of a friend, neighbour or family member is easily accessible. So one of the areas that we've been looking at, as I say, is our outreach work to ensure that there is a much broader understanding through community, public events and being in touch with different organisations across Surrey, just to spread awareness of how people go about seeking help when they need help, either for themselves or on behalf of a friend, neighbour or relative. In terms of seeking advice as well, we've got our own website, which gives people a clear direction to where they go and seek support should they need that. And we also work with partners clearly to improve that understanding and information across Surrey. So recognising that not everyone will be using websites and there's a lot of work as well that goes on to look at how we can produce more accessible information through leaflets and other formats. But I think word of mouth and improving our reach across communities in Surrey is one way that we can really get the messages out about how people can seek help. I hope that has picked up the questions that you were asking. Thank you. It does, Theresa. Just one clarification is what sort of response can the member of the public expect to receive, given the confidentiality we have and everything? What can they expect to hear back from making an inquiry? Right. So if people are seeking support, they would be approaching one of the statutory partners. So they'd be coming to the council to seek support. They might be going to their health service or, you know, in some cases they might be alerting the police or they might be coming through the voluntary sector. So there's all sorts of ways that people will be seeking help in terms of getting a consistent message about what constitutes a safeguarding concern. That's the work that we do as a partnership to make sure that the message is really clear about what people can expect in terms of when they contact one of those agencies and what kind of response they will get and what would happen next. The safeguarding adults board, we're not offering direct support, but what we do is if we pick up a concern from a member of the public, we will make sure that that goes back to the relevant agency that needs to pick that up as a matter to understand more about and to understand what the response should be. And I suppose the safeguarding adult board overall, we are there to ensure that that message is as clear as it can be. We've just heard as well, we looked at the government standards for accessibility for our website, because we are trying to make improvements to that. And we are actually doing very well in terms of the standards that we're reaching in terms of a good accessible website. There's more to be done, but at the moment it's looking as though we're taking that in the right direction. And Kevin Deanis, thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thanks for scribbling my question. It almost feels like it's an interview question, so my apologies in advance. So what do you think your biggest learning of the chair of the safeguarding board from a Surrey safeguarding adult review perspective has been? Do you think we work well together and where would you like to prioritize your focus, your board's focus over the next year? I think what I'm trying to get is where do we think we share learning well across the board, but also the wider partnerships. So my apologies, it's in lots of little sections, so. OK. Yeah. So if I and I will try to pick up the different elements of that question, but if I miss any, then by all means, come back and prompt me. It's that the questions that you've asked were absolutely my focus over the last year. So when I came into Surrey, it was very apparent that there were two things that were different in Surrey to many other places. One is the number of statutory safeguarding inquiries that we were seeing, the section 42s, as they're known, where there is a particular process that is followed through by the local authority and its partners to understand what's happened in a particular safeguarding concern. We were seeing very high numbers of those. Now, some people might say that's a good thing and it is a good thing in terms of awareness. My question coming in, and this is the learning over the last year, my question was those numbers are high. It could mean that we've got awareness, but where's the evidence that that's actually resulting in better outcomes? And I think that's that's been the sort of pivotal question over the last year. So yes, it's good that people know how to raise an alert. Yes, it's good that we're aware of safeguarding in a number of areas across Surrey. But how do we know that process is then following through to improved outcomes? So the work over the last year has been to look at the safeguarding adult reviews as well. Again, very high numbers of safeguarding adult reviews compared to some other areas. So again, I had the question of we're doing all these safeguarding adult reviews. How are we learning from them? So the last year and particularly the last six months has been trying to turn that around. So in terms of the section 42 inquiries, that sort of alert about safeguarding, what do we do next? Instead of partners have been working with the board, across the board, they are the board really, to really turn around and look at how that risk that's been expressed as a concern might be managed and dealt with as quickly as possible without it going through the formal section 42 route. That's not to say that everything will, but where we can manage risk closer to the person, that's got to be better. That's one piece of work that's been in progress. And I know that adult social care within Surrey County Council are now working on what they're calling a risk enablement approach. And that's not just about allowing risky behaviour. That is about looking at where there's a risk. How do we manage that with that person and respond to that and make sure that they are safe without it going into a lengthy process so that, you know, it's a much more reactive, preventative approach. In terms of safeguarding adult reviews, I'm not a great fan of always leaping into a lengthy review document for safeguarding adult reviews. What I'm much keener on is really gathering partners together at an early stage to understand what happened, where there may have been improvements and how to get that learning out there and improvements out there as quickly as possible. And that's not always neat. You don't always need a lengthy report to tell you that. Sometimes it's pretty apparent fairly early on. So how can we get the learning out more quickly and how can we take different approaches to our reviews, again, has been a really huge piece of work and learning for all of us in the partnership, I think, over the last six months. So I hope that's picked up on what you were asking me, but very happy to pursue that further if it hasn't. Thank you very much for that. I think those are the questions. Thank you very much for your very full answers. I think we feel very confident now with you in the chair role that you're making good progress in building the relationships across the whole system and indeed with an absolute sort of laser-like focus on the key issues and how you can get to what are the genuinely kind of serious issues that need to be identified and dealt with. So thank you very much for all of that. Thank you. There's one recommendation, which is that cabinet considers and notes the attached Surrey safeguarding adults annual report for 2022-23. Is that agreed? Agreed. Excellent. Thank you very much. Okay. We will now move to what was -- well, first of all, I'm pleased that Fiona Davis is able to join us. We're going to take all your stuff in one go, if that's okay. So just to remind people, we've got -- the first item is the cabinet response in relation to additional monies allocated from the -- basically from the additional money we receive from government I think is the best way to look at it. So that was your first report, first recommendation, so perhaps if we could just -- if you could just introduce that and make any comments you wish. Sure. Thank you very much and good afternoon, everyone. The first topic I'd like to talk about is the subject of what's called play and leisure short breaks for children with additional needs and disabilities. So you may be aware of the strength of feeling of the select committee that play and leisure short breaks for children with additional needs and disabilities are an important area of early intervention and prevention work. There's clear evidence that play breaks ensure these children have an opportunity to socialize and build up some independence while enabling their siblings who can be short changed when it comes to parental time to have that time. We've heard from numerous sources that these breaks play an important role in preventing family breakdown and keeping extremely stressed families together. It was for all of these reasons that the select committee unanimously agreed that we should request cabinet to allocate funding in FY2425 to restore the like for like provision of open access play available which had been available in 22/23 because the level of provision was cut in 23/24. Unfortunately although an additional 370,000 was agreed by cabinet, this was an estimate and unfortunately it was an underestimate and the estimate has not been sufficient to restore like for like provision. So while we welcome the additional one off Department of Education funding which has provided an increased level of one to one play for children with the most complex needs, this doesn't restore the like for like open access schemes to the 22/23 levels that we believed had been agreed and we expected would be implemented. We therefore ask cabinet to allocate an additional 260,000 required to restore the provision from the 500,000 allocated to the short breaks coproduction study in line with our recommendations or there may be funding elsewhere. Our real concern is to ensure that for this year we're able to go back to the level of provision in 22/23. I mean, we understand it's impossible to predict what the next financial year will bring. A new government, the outcome of the coproduction study, however, the select committee is unanimous in believing that providing 22/23 levels of open access play this year, which was our request, will help Surrey children with additional needs and disabilities and their families now. We believe in prevention and we believe that this is important early intervention and prevention funding. Thank you. Thank you very much, Fiona. I should have -- I had introduced before you arrived as chair of the Children and Family Lifelong Learning Select Committee, Claire, would you want to respond to that? Thank you, Lida. Yes, I'd like to thank the chairman of the select committee for her comments in relation to short breaks and to say that I absolutely recognize the importance that they present to families who -- and carers of children with additional needs. And I know when I think back to the SEND CQC inspection report from last September, there is some really quite distressing commentary there about how children with additional needs often do not feel included in their own communities, and I think that is very much part of why there is such a demand for these kind of focus short breaks for those families, because these are families who feel they just cannot access for their children with additional needs what other children can do in terms of holiday clubs, in terms of finding babysitters, in terms of after school clubs, or sports clubs, or drama, or whatever. And I know that this is something we really need to look into. I know the chairman is well aware that the service is leading a review group in partnership with Family Voice to look into not only the provision of short breaks across the county, but also access to those short breaks, how they are booked, who is eligible, how people are assessed to be eligible for those, how waiting lists are managed for them, and how information is circulated about them, but critically, how inclusive a wider range of children's activities in the county can be. I know that the week before last, Mark Nutty and I and yourself, leader, we went to the Surrey Youth Games at the Surrey Sports Park, and we just saw for ourselves how sporting activities, particularly there, can be widened to be as inclusive as possible to a really broad spectrum of children with a very wide range of needs, and that's the kind of standard that we need to set for very many providers in the county. I'm happy to go back to the commissioning team to pick up the specific points around finance that the committee has raised. I know that the committee is well aware that for play and leisure short breaks, as distinct from overnight short breaks, this is discretionary spend, and we may not always or in future be in a position even to spend what we do on this area of service, but I absolutely take her point of the value that it gives to very many families. Personally, I would love for it to be extended across a wider range of people, and we have to get the basics of eligibility and access and weighting this right so that absolutely those who are in the greatest need can be able to make the most of what we can offer. I hope that's helpful, leader. Kate, thank you. Thank you, Claire. Did you want to say something, Claire? Yeah, I was just going to say thank you for your response, Claire. I mean, I do hope that additional $260,000 can be found because it will make a real difference now, and I think now is all that we can probably work with given the uncertainties of the next few months. So thank you. Yeah, we will take that back and see what we can do. The second report, then, from your committee, Fiona, was to do with the SEND capital program. If you would like to introduce that, thank you. Certainly. Thank you again. There is one thing that I should say first of all. The SEND capital program has come to Cabinet for a decision today, and what I want to say first of all is that the Select Committee's priority and concern in respect of these proposals is to ensure that in an era of tight budgets, the right decisions are being made on this important program and the right decisions based on evidence. That's the purpose of scrutiny. The consequences of not getting it right are significant in terms of Surrey County Council's ongoing revenue spend on independent school places and home to school transport, which as Councillor Lewis spoke to earlier, continues to rise significantly, but actually the consequences are also crucially are significant to the development, the life chances and the well-being of children with additional needs and disabilities in our county. We're disappointed that we did not have the opportunity to scrutinize the SEND capital program proposals in the normal manner. The purpose of scrutiny is undermined if the Select Committee is not afforded the ability to undertake the full scrutiny process. Proper scrutiny by the Select Committee should have been factored into the decision-making timetable. It wasn't, and all the more regrettable because the provision of services for children with SEND is a subject with which the Select Committee has taken a strong and sustained interest. We appreciate the time-critical nature of some of the proposals, but we're really not persuaded by some of the arguments provided as to why every aspect of these proposals is time-critical. We have not been able to compare current and projected need with existing and planned provision despite the blizzard of data and tables provided in response to our recommendations and very late in the day. Fundamentally we've not been able to assure ourselves that what is proposed is the best solution taking account of children and young people's needs, the Council's capital budget, which is necessarily constrained, and the Council's ongoing revenue budget. We haven't been able to interrogate the evidence. We assume there are assumptions associated with the data that we're unaware of. So for instance, we're unclear whether the required level of specialist provision will be available in future to meet increasingly complex needs. Councillors around this table every day will hear from parents at the end of their tether because of the sheer difficulty of finding the right school place for their child or young person. Currently it can take months. There are even examples of it taking years. We're unable to assess whether there will be sufficient places in the right time scale where there is currently scarcity in both the maintained and the independent sector, including for girls with autistic spectrum disorder and children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs. There is no cost benefit analysis of the options in the paper that's been provided. It appears that the proposals -- I mean, in terms of a cost benefit analysis it would be good to understand what the impact going forward on the revenue budget would be and whether invest to save would be a good strategy in terms of going forward in addition to the existing investment that is being made. It appears that the proposals represent pragmatism from a property perspective and from the perspective of government policy which is to integrate children with additional needs and disabilities into mainstream environments, sometimes in special units, except in exceptional cases. This is the so-called national best practice model and of course it's eminently desirable to integrate children in education environments, but only where it's the right solution for the child or young person and sometimes mainstream, even in a special unit, is not the right environment. So will these perspectives deliver the best outcomes for children and young people? Will they meet need? Or are these proposals the best compromise given conflict between the needs of children and the funding available? We can't say. There is conflict, that's for sure, but we don't know whether this is the best solution because we haven't been able to scrutinise the proposals in a way that will enable us to have a clear view. This is a complex subject. Maybe had we gone through formal scrutiny we would have been able to assure ourselves. We're told the proposals were developed on the basis of a quality assured process. We have no idea what this quality assured process is. We've not had it explained, we really don't know what it is. So in conclusion, we've not been able to do our job in respect of the SENT capital programme. We believe that given the significance of the programme to families and children with additional needs and disabilities in Surrey, we believe that further investigation is necessary. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Fiona. I hear what the chairman of the select committee has said, and in particular about the limited time that the select committee feel that they have had to peruse these proposals, but I would say if it is any defence that my view is very much that the select committee was on notice of today's meeting when I circulated a briefing to all members back on the 18th of April, and this item has been appropriately on the forward plan for today's decision making. So I think that perhaps there ought to have been time for proposals to have been duly scrutinised in a variety of different ways, even if not in a timetabled meeting of the select committee. I hope, I would have thought that in the cabinet response I'd set out quite a lot of the information that I think the select committee was looking for, and certainly I know that when we come to look at the part 2 report there's an additional financial detail set out there, including on the investor save programme. Thank you, leader. I suppose I would add that, of course, as chair of the select committee it is always open to you to review any cabinet decision, either formally or informally. I think that there is the mechanism in this instance perhaps to set up a working group, a subgroup of the select committee, to carry out that more detailed analysis, if you think that's appropriate. So I think you raised some very valid points. I think I would say that this has been a challenging journey to get to this point, and I think the -- my concern is that actually it is a, you know, maybe not fast moving, but it is a moving picture, and trying to anticipate what our needs are going to be for our children over the next five or ten years is really difficult, and for me the primary focus has to be on the next two years, the two years that we can see, and to make sure that we are delivering those programmes in the broader context of the safety valve agreement, but that we're delivering what we have said we will deliver. So I think there is -- I would be very surprised if this was the final position of this council. So I think there is time still for you to do that additional piece of work if you so choose to do. Thank you. What I will do is take your feedback back to the select committee, and it may be that we will choose to potentially set up a task and finish group on this particular topic, because it is so fundamental to so many different aspects of children and young people with SEND. Thank you. And I think there isn't one single person in this room that isn't absolutely trying to do their best for our young people. We have -- over the last year, 18 months in particular, I hope that people have recognised the very real focus that this cabinet has had and this council has had on children with additional needs, and indeed reflected in the additional funding that we have been able to put into that area. So it is absolutely a crucial area for us to get rights. I think, you know, in that context, I think, you know, we are all saying the same thing. We want to -- we must get this right. Whatever time that takes is -- okay. So what we'll do now -- thank you very much, Fredo -- well, I'll just ask Claire fairly briefly to introduce the paper itself, because I think we're fairly familiar with it. Yes, thank you, Lida. And this report, which I know that colleagues are familiar with from the many briefings and discussions you've had about it, this report is setting out some changes that do need to be made to the scope of the current SEND capital programme. So in 2019, cabinet agreed a plan on the associated cabinet capital investment of 260 million pounds for delivery of an ambitious SEND and alternative provision capital programme to create around 5,700 state-maintained specialist places through around 80 construction projects. These places are in existing and new SCN centres attached to state-maintained mainstream schools and further education colleges. They're in existing state-maintained specialist schools. They are in new special free schools, and we have Betterwood Vale Academy, Frimley Oak Academy, and a new special free school in Banstead, being three of five free schools that were awarded to Surrey since 2018. And also, for alternative provision, expansion, extension and replacement of existing state-maintained alternative provision schools. The aim of this programme, the SEND and AP capital programmes, is to create a fit-for-purpose state-maintained estate with more places for Surrey resident children with special educational needs, which will reduce reliance on out-of-county and non-maintained NMI placements. The main goals are to increase the availability of centres in mainstream schools, to create additional places in specialist school provision within Surrey, to provide local children with the most complex profiles of need the best opportunities for improved outcomes. This will help our children feel more included, to transition successfully into adulthood, and to provide high-quality education closer to home. The SEND programme has gone really well, and to date, 43 projects have been delivered in full and handed over to schools, at a cost of that budget of £71 million so far. There are a further 11 school construction projects presently in contract, which are due to complete between now and September 2025. And as of today, there remain just 15 of the 80 or so SEND projects and five AP projects, for which contracts are still to be awarded and projects mobilised. And at our budget-setting meeting in February, Council reaffirmed the remaining total budget of £189 million for the SEND and the AP capital budgets. We have to recognise that the UK economy has been through a period of high inflation, which has particularly hit the construction industry, where costs have increased significantly. This has impacted our original programme's delivery and affected the delivery within the approved budget. Global economic turbulence has disrupted supply chains, new legislative changes and safety standard updates, and conservation liabilities have also affected the construction sector and driven up delivery costs. The SEND AP capital programmes, in common with all transformation programmes, is subject to annual health checks. This gauges performance to date against the key strategies, the budget allocation, the organisational priorities, and our future plans, and reviews those in detail against the benefits to be realised. The SEND AP review this year conducted a detailed analysis of delivery viability and costs with the Council's lead technical consultant, Atkins Realis. It took place between November last year and April this year and concluded that all remaining construction projects cannot be delivered within that £189 million budget allocation. So this report is setting out the changes that need to be made to the scope of the SEND capital programme and the profile of funding for the AP capital programme following that review in order to be able to contain expenditure within the £189 million budget. It's proposed that six of the original 84 planned SEND projects are now not progressed. But alongside this, five new competitive application opportunities are extended to schools and to trusts. These are set out in detail in the accompanying Part 2 report. The proposed changes to the approved budget and to the scope allow the overall specialist education estate to be expanded by 74% from around 3,320 back in 2019 to 5,700 places by 2031/32. And this is set out in Appendix E. Continuing to increase capacity in our state-maintained specialist education estate is essential for us to deliver a sustainable designated schools grant high needs block to fulfil the annual sufficiency targets in our safety valve agreement with the Department for Education. The proposals are also in line with the Council's partnership inclusion and additional needs strategy and with the Local Area SEND Improvement Plan agreed with the Department for Education after the Ofsted CQC Area SEND inspection last September. The proposals will also ensure that the forecast revenue savings continue to accrue for the Council. Provision of each additional state-maintained specialist school place generates an approximate saving of £30,000 per pupil place per year. Delivery of the remaining projects is forecast to realise around £48 million per annum in cost containment to the high needs block once all additional places are filled and the new provision is at full capacity. There are six recommendations set out on page 246 and I ask colleagues to agree to them. Cabinet's agreement today to progress the delivery of all Plan 38 SEND AP projects by 2028 is essential to enable contracts to be entered into in time, to ensure delivery of these projects and to achieve our annual place availability and long-term sufficiency of specialist places by 2032-33. Thank you, Lida. Thank you very much, Claire. I think are there any questions to Claire or any comments? So I think those are the recommendations. I suspect there will be further discussion around those but I think it is important that at least today we continue to move forward on those projects that are already in train because, you know, we must get those places completed for September 25 at least and then we can look at the rest. Okay. Are those recommendations agreed? Thank you very much. We need to just go back to one last item then which from David Lewis, just a quick update on our month one financial report. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Lida. So on the 6th of February this year, the full council approved the budget, capital and revenue budget for the year 24-25. Since then we've received the final details of the local government finance settlement and as we've mentioned already in this meeting there was an additional amount of money which came to 11.3 million which we didn't originally budget for. So that brings our total budget for the year to £1,208 million. So part of the recommendations for this report will be asking for your approval to approve that additional money and that revised final budget. That additional funding, and we've touched on it partly this afternoon already, we're using 400,000 which is in public health grants and that's going to adults, well-being and health partnerships. There's a further £2.6 million which is being used to fully fund the recommendations that came out of the highways task and finish group work last year, taking that up to 7.8 million and there's a further 6.5 million which is being used to provide funding towards preventative activities in the children's families and lifelong learning directorate. I have to say, you know, meeting the requests and needs of that directorate and as I think agreed by the select committee. So that's how the additional 11.3 million will be spent. At month one we tend to do just a very high-level review of the budgetary position. So this is the position at the end of April and at that stage the only forecast overspend related yet again to home to school transport where there's a forecast overspend of 7.4 million for the year. We are taking action to address that situation and there's various activities underway to try and contain and mitigate against that increased cost. We have reconstituted the oversight board on home to school transport which will be focusing primarily on ways in which we can, as I say, contain and hopefully reduce that budgetary overspend and three cabinet members, myself, Councillor Furness and Councillor Curran are all members of that new group. I think it's probably right to say that we're not alone in terms of local authorities and experiencing the pressures in this area and across the south east of England. I think most local authorities are struggling with similar cost pressures in the home to school transport area. Moving on to capital, at the budget meeting on the 6th of February we approved an original capital budget of 404.9 million pounds. Since then, of course, that budget, you know, was largely in that program that the budget represents was being worked on in the months leading up to that council meeting. So we are now doing further work to validate, in effect, the deliverability of that program. And I do anticipate coming back to cabinet probably next month with a revised and reset capital budget. The third area of this paper relates to seeking your approval to fund the transformation and improvement program that's taking place within the adults directorate. There are three main work streams, the customer journey, market shaping and commissioning, and the bit around sort of thriving communities and prevention. And the total budget for this transformation program is estimated at 8 million pounds. And that is the third recommendation that forms the three recommendations in this report. In terms of looking forward, you know, it is still a difficult backdrop that we're working against. And if we look at the MTFS position, there are a number of challenges ahead of us. And looking specifically within adult social care, this relates to the transformation work. You know, we -- the MTFS, for example, includes something like 47 million pounds of efficiencies over that five-year period. And we need a successful transformation program in order to deliver a large part of those efficiencies. And as you know, other transformation programs are underway across all aspects of this council in terms of helping us to be more efficient and drive our improvement in our performance. So I think that's all there is probably to say at this very early stage in the new financial year. As I said, there's three recommendations in front of the cabinet this afternoon. The first one is to note the risks and opportunities identified in relation to the council's budget position for the year. I didn't actually specifically mention the risks, and I should have done, I apologize, but the risks so far at month one have been identified at something like 22.1 million of net risks to the forecast position. And again, you know, a lot of that is within adults and children. So it's to note the risks, to improve that increase in the revenue -- net revenue budget, and to allocate the eight million pounds of council reserves to fund the transformation program. Those agreed? Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of part one of the agenda. So under section 100A of the local government act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information under the relevant paragraphs of part one of schedule 12A of the act. So on that note, if I close the meeting, thank you very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]