At a meeting of the Doncaster Council cabinet, members discussed the Dedicated Schools Grant deficit, the 2025-26 Quarter 1 Finance and Performance Improvement Report, and the St. Leger Homes of Doncaster Limited Key Performance Indicators. The cabinet approved a payment of £0.68m to St Leger Homes of Doncaster, and noted the progress of St Leger Homes of Doncaster's performance and contribution to the council's strategic priorities.

Dedicated Schools Grant Deficit

Councillor Karl Hughes asked Mayor Ros Jones about the council's Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficit, which he stated was £39.2m as of 31 March 2025, with a further in-year DSG overspend of £17.1m forecast for 2025/26, alongside a general overspend of £6.6m. He asked what measures were being taken to prevent these deficits from overwhelming the council's finances.

Mayor Ros Jones responded that Doncaster, like most councils, was dealing with significant challenges around high needs funding, which she said was a result of increased demand and complexity. She stated that the national deficit would be around £5 billion by the end of the financial year, with 65% of councils at risk of not setting a balanced budget when the override ends in 2028. She also stated that Councillor Hughes' figures were incorrect, and that Doncaster's outturn at the end of 2024/2025 was £37.6m, not £39.2m.

Mayor Ros Jones said that the national crisis was the outcome of significant flaws in national government policy, and referred to the 2015 legislation, which she said allowed an Education, Health and Care Plan¹ (EHCP) to be awarded where a child or young person 'may' have a special need.

She quoted recent national reports, including the National Audit Office's 2024 report, which stated that 'The Department did not fully assess the likely financial consequences of the 2014 reforms'.

She said that the council had worked hard to limit the impacts, opening new specialist provision, and focusing more effort on supporting schools to meet needs at an earlier point, alongside developing strong scrutiny and monitoring processes.

She said that the government would publish a Schools White Paper in Autumn 2025, outlining its plans for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and how to tackle the issues that councils are facing.

Councillor Karl Hughes asked a supplementary question, saying that there was no indication that the upcoming Schools White Paper would deal with the DSG deficits directly. He stated that Rotherham and Barnsley Councils were forecasting their DSG deficits to be zero by the end of March 2028, while Doncaster Council was forecasting a DSG Deficit of around £95 million by March 2028. He asked how Mayor Ros Jones would lawfully balance the books at the 2028 financial year end to avoid the issue of a Section 114 notice² once the statutory override is lifted.

Mayor Ros Jones responded that there were two mechanisms put in place by the previous Government to address the DSG Deficit, one of these being a 'Safety Valve'. She said that both Rotherham and Barnsley Councils' DSG Deficit was in a far more serious position than that of Doncaster, and the Safety Valve would therefore be applied, meaning their deficit would be written off altogether. She said that a fuller answer would be provided to Councillor Hughes in writing following the meeting.

2025-26 Quarter 1 Finance and Performance Improvement Report

Mayor Ros Jones presented the 2025-26 Quarter 1 Finance and Performance Improvement Report to the cabinet. The report provided information on how the council had delivered against its key priorities in the first quarter of the new Mayoral term.

The cabinet noted that the council was continuing to operate within the framework of its Budget and Corporate Plan, with focus remaining on delivering against the agreed priorities. The cabinet noted that work had been done over the summer on engaging with partners and communities to work on a refreshed Borough Strategy that would look to refine shared ambitions for Doncaster through to 2030.

The report stated that the economic outlook remained mixed, with inflation sitting at 3.6%, which was higher than the UK Target, and rising national debt costs continued to present challenges. Additionally, households were still experiencing effects of past inflationary pressures, and the cost of living remained a key area of concern for residents. However, it was noted that locally, there were signs of optimism and Doncaster's economy was performing close to regional benchmarks.

Mayor Ros Jones reported that the projected outturn at the end of Quarter 1, was a £6.6m overspend which included ongoing overspends including projected shortfalls against income targets. The key variances were outlined in detail within the report but included the following areas of concern:

• Adults Social Care had a £6m overspend due to larger number of people being supported
• Culture & Commercialisation was overspending by £1.1m
• Place³ overspend stood at £1m
• The Pay Award for 2025-26 was estimated at an additional cost of £2.6m.

As this projected Overspend was significant, this would be addressed with focused meetings, concentrating on Adult Social Care and Cultural Services. Members noted that one-off funding set aside within earmarked reserves would be considered and additionally, moving forward only critical posts would be filled in terms of staff vacancies across the council.

In addition to the projected overspend, the Dedicated Schools Grant position (DSG) was projected to deteriorate further and whilst this was consistent with the position nationally, further work was required on this to identify any mitigating actions.

The report highlighted key areas of performance where the council was performing well which included the following:

• The delivery of over 240 energy efficiency measures
• Nearly 400,000 trees planted
• 60 people who were active participants of the Pathways to Work initiative, with a further 86 people engaged
• Planning performance remains robust
• Improvements were evident in social care assessments, housing adaptations and substance misuse recovery
• Cultural services, childcare sufficiency and volunteering were all on track
• Seven parks retained their Green Flag Status.

The report also outlined areas of concern where improvements needed to be made:

• Fly Tipping response times had been affected by staff shortages
• Challenges in Education, with rising elective home education rates rising
• An increasing number of children with an ECHP and associated costs
• Rough sleeping had increased with placements remaining difficult to source
• Slippages in housing and school capital programme schemes.

Mayor Ros Jones commented that all challenges faced by the council were being confronted head on and mitigated to address the issues.

Mayor Ros Jones concluded by mentioning the achievement of the Gainshare funding approved by South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority. She said that this was a huge success and whilst there was still a huge amount of work to do, the City was one step closer to reopening the Airport.

The cabinet welcomed the report and were pleased to see evidence of some of the excellent work being carried out across the City. Cabinet agreed that the reopening of the airport was a huge achievement and would stimulate further economic growth across the region.

The cabinet:

• Noted the virements⁴ per the Financial Procedure Rules, detailed in Appendix A – Finance Profile.
• Noted the allocations of block budgets in the Capital Programme, detailed in Appendix A – Finance Profile, in accordance with the Financial Procedure Rules.
• Approved payment to St Leger Homes of £0.68m, as part of the contract management arrangements, primarily for the additional costs of pay award, Awaab's Law⁵ and St Georges Court Security, with a reconciliation at year-end to ensure any surplus is returned to the Council as in prior years.
• Noted the changes to fees and charges referred to in paragraphs 133 to 138 of the report.

St. Leger Homes of Doncaster Limited Key Performance Indicators and Tenant Satisfaction Measures update for Quarter 1

Councillor Glyn Jones, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Environment, Housing and Safer Communities, presented the St Leger Homes of Doncaster (SLHD) Quarterly Performance Report to the cabinet.

Councillor Glyn Jones said that there was a requirement within the SLHD Management Agreement for the provision of a quarterly performance report to cabinet which allows the City of Doncaster to note and monitor the performance and contribution of SLHD and how they were supporting the City of Doncaster Council's (CDC) own priorities. It also required appropriate VfM (Value for Money) reporting which included a quarterly report of Key Performance Indicators and an annual VFM Statement.

The report contained two appendices with the 2025/26 Key Performance Indicators and the latest 2025/26 House mark monthly benchmarking for May and June 2025.

It was noted that 41 KPIs, including 22 Regulatory Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) had been agreed at the start of the 2025/26 financial year, 13 of which were measured annually.

Councillor Glyn Jones drew the cabinet's attention to the fact that 15 of the 28 KPIs measured quarterly had been met, or were within agreed tolerances of their target.

Councillor Glyn Jones drew members' attention to specific areas where performance had been positive, highlighting the following points:

• KPI1 exceptional performance on rent arrears where the target was exceeded.
• KPI5 Settled Accommodation at Prevention Stage has exceeded target due to improvements in case management, resulting in 51% which is above target and also better than the same period last year.
• KPI 7 responding to complaints, all targets are being met for these 3 KPIs.

Whilst there was strong performance in some areas, Councillor Glyn Jones also drew the cabinet's attention to areas of concern where performance was not as positive and highlighted the following areas:

• KPIs 2 and 3 related to rent loss on void properties and the time taken to let properties. Although not meeting target, when benchmarked, St Leger compare favourably with other housing providers, Councils and ALMOs⁶
• KPIS 4 and 5 relate to homelessness. Whilst KPI 4 is still below target the number of households in hotels at month end was 65 down from 76 in the previous month and 36% lower than the same period last year.
• KPI 10 Members noted that month on month performance remains disappointing but stable. St Leger are experiencing a continued and sustained high demand for the repairs service.

The cabinet welcomed the report, and commented that it was pleasing to see so many Key Performance Indicators in green, and it was acknowledged that whilst some were not achieving their targets, there were mitigating reasons behind many of these. The Team was extremely dedicated and worked hard to achieve what was needed.

Mayor Ros Jones also commented that she was delighted with SLHD's continuing commitment to supporting local businesses by using local contractors and companies wherever possible, therefore making the Doncaster pound go further.

The cabinet noted the progress of St Leger Homes of Doncaster's (SLHD) performance and the contribution SLHD makes to supporting City of Doncaster Council's (CDC) strategic priorities.