Purpose

To provide an overview of the Our Families
Programme and to seek approval and authorisation to allocate
funding to enable continued activity to deliver improvements and
financial savings during 23/24.

Content

That Cabinet provided the following collective
approval across the four transformation programmes: Property
Programme, Temporary Accommodation and Homelessness Programme,
Children’s & Education Transformation Programme and Adult
Social Care Transformation Programme to:

1.     
Approved spend of up to £21.4m (for the four corporate
transformation programmes), of which £14.0m will be
designated from within corporate held resources as outlined in the
finance commentary.

2.     
Authorised the Chief Executive in consultation with the Director of
Finance and Deputy Mayor for Finance, Governance and Performance to
take all steps required to procure and award a contract for a
transformation consulting partner (which may be above the key
decision threshold and subject to an urgent decision with a
retrospective report to Cabinet) to provide oversight and assurance
and support delivery across the portfolio of four transformation
programmes.
Cabinet recommendations specific to the Our
Families Programme:
That Cabinet:

3.     
Endorsed Our Families programme approach, objectives, investment
and saving priorities as set out in this report;

4.     
Approved of spend up to £4.78m to support the delivery of the
Our Families Programme of which £1.74m will be initial
drawdown from the £14m and £3.04m will be fund from
other resources.

5.     
Authorised the Executive Director for Children and Education in
consultation with the Cabinet Member Children, Education and
Equalities to take all steps required to procure and award the
contracts (which may be above the key decision threshold) to
support the programme within the agreed scope, allocated budget and
approved schemes of delegation as outlined in this report;

6.     
Authorised the Executive Director of Children and Education to
invoke any subsequent extensions/variations specifically defined
any contract(s) being awarded, up to the maximum budget
envelope;

7.     
Authorised the Head of Strategic Procurement & Supplier
Relations to approve appropriate procurement routes to market where
these are not yet fully defined in this report, or if changes to
procurement routes are subsequently required;

8.     
Noted the total revenue costs of the Children’s &
Education (Our Families) programme for 23/24 of £4.781m of
which £3.037m is already funded through grants and change
reserve for Family Hubs, ControOCC,
Home to School Travel;

9.     
Noted the total costs of DSG deficit mitigations of £2.6M to
date, grant fund of £3.5m;

10. 
Noted the ambition of Our Families programme to deliver DSG deficit
mitigations, MTFP savings and stretch savings to mitigate against
budget pressures;

11. 
Noted that we will be consulting in September 2023 for 6-weeks on
the options generated from the procured partner within DSG
workstream 2 of the Delivering Better Value project;

12. 
Noted that a further report will be brought to Cabinet (for
information) in July 2023 on the High Needs Block Recovery
Plan;

13. 
Noted that further report will be brought to Cabinet in December
2023 regards to the Review of SEND Statutory and Non-Statutory
Element 3 Funding;

14. 
Noted that further report will be brought to Cabinet in December
2023 to seek approval for proposed changes in post-16 policy for
24/25 and the introduction of Independent Travel Training (ITT) for
all applicable children from age 11+ following public consultation
between August and September 2023.