The West Sussex County Council has held three meetings in the last week: the Governance Committee, the Cabinet, and the Sussex Police and Crime Panel. The West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service Local Pension Board also met to discuss the administration of the fire service pension scheme.

The most significant development this week was the Cabinet's approval of the council’s overspend for the 2023-24 financial year. The council had budgeted for a balanced budget at the start of the financial year, but overspending in the Children and Young People Learning and Skills and Adult Social Care portfolios has led to an overall overspend of £6.3 million.

The largest overspend was in the Children and Young People Learning and Skills portfolio, which overspent by £25.7 million. This was caused by a number of factors, including a significant increase in demand for services, especially for residential placements for children with disabilities. Speaking at the meeting, Councillor Jacquie Russell, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, said that the most significant pressure on the budget was the increase in demand for, and cost of, placements for children with complex needs. She said that these were primarily agency placements and that the council had set a target of reducing the proportion of looked after children in agency placements from 16.1% to 13.5% by March 2025.

The provision of placements for children with the most complex of needs remains a constant challenge and is the primary reason for the significant pressure on the budget.

There were also significant pressures on the Adult Social Care budget, which overspent by £10 million, a rise of £4 million since the end of quarter three. Councillor Amanda Jupp, Cabinet Member for Adults Services, said that the overspend had been driven by “demand growth and higher costs” and that the situation in West Sussex was replicating national trends, with demand for social care growing among older people.

... in common with the rest of the southeast, workforce and market-related factors continue to put pressure on local authorities.

In order to balance the books, the Cabinet voted to approve the overspend and balance the budget by drawing down on the council’s reserves. This will reduce the council's reserves to £28.7 million. This is only the second time that the council has had to use its reserves to balance the budget in the last 10 years. The last time was in 2015-16 when the council used £10 million of its reserves to balance the budget.

The Cabinet also approved plans to create a new West Sussex Economy Board to replace the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership, which was wound up by the government earlier this year. The new board will be made up of representatives from local businesses, education providers, and local authorities. It will be responsible for developing a new 10-year economic strategy for West Sussex.

The Governance Committee discussed a number of issues relating to the council's constitution and governance arrangements. The committee discussed a report on proposals to begin publishing recordings of council meetings on the council’s YouTube channel. The report argued that making the recordings available on YouTube would incur very minimal additional costs and would increase the number of people watching recordings of council meetings. This follows the low viewing figures reported for the council’s existing webcasting service, which has been a legal requirement since August 2022.

I think we should be where people are. In the same way that if we were producing content for younger people we would be thinking about using TikTok, we need to accept that YouTube is a place that people expect to find videos of this nature these days.

The committee voted unanimously to approve the proposal.

The Sussex Police and Crime Panel met to discuss the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Annual Report and to scrutinise Sussex Police's performance. The Panel raised concerns about the impact of the cost of living crisis on crime levels, and the effectiveness of the force's response to rural crime. The Panel also discussed the issue of antisocial behaviour and its impact on local communities, following a question from a member of the public.

The West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service Local Pension Board met on Thursday to consider a range of issues relating to the administration of the fire service pension scheme. Of particular note was the discussion of the McCloud Remedy, a legal judgment affecting all public sector pension schemes in the UK. The judgment requires all schemes to make changes to the way they calculate pension benefits for some members. This has placed a significant administrative burden on pension schemes, and the board heard that the West Sussex scheme had made good progress in implementing the necessary changes.