Risks rise as more services are cut in latest county council care budget - councillor warns

"This is a really tight budget and it's getting harder to find savings. This is the hardest one so far."

Those were the words of Jennie Stephens, Devon County Council's chief officer for adult care and health, at last week's Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee meeting.

This next financial year (20/21) is the first without core government funding. Instead, the new Conservative government has offered a series of one off grants, totalling around a 10 per cent increase.

They were by all accounts better than anticipated but a decade of austerity has taken its toll.

The challenge so far

Over £100m has been wiped off Devon County Council's finances during that time. First by the Conservative led coalition and then by the Tory government.

The council has (as have other public sector organisations) been forced to raise council tax considerably, in a miserable scenario whereby local people end up paying more money for fewer services and the income generated is only a fraction of what has been lost.

A consistent and problematic shortage of paid care workers

At the same time the cost of care is rising, so is demand. And there is a huge and problematic shortage of paid care workers, around 100 across the county.

The staffing picture is toughest in and around Exeter and East Devon, which can be seen in the numbers of people waiting every day to be discharged from the RD&E, but can't be due to the lack of paid carers.

The closure of hundreds of community hospital beds in recent years has made a challenging situation much harder.

Still no sign of the adult social care green paper – years late

The Conservative government's inability to grasp the nettle and provide a solution on funding for adult social care, so that people don't cripple themselves financially trying to care for relatives, is a disgrace.

The adult social care green paper has been promised for years and despite huge assistance and extremely well evidenced proposals from the Local Government Association, the new government shows every sign of batting this problem back to councils. We will see.

As a member of Devon County Council's Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee we scrutinised the adult care and public health budget last Thursday and made recommendations, which will be considered by cabinet.

No confirmation from government what the final funding settlements actually are

Unfortunately, despite the legal requirements for councils to set their budgets by the end of February, ministers haven't got around to letting them know the funding allocations, so much of the financial planning is guesswork, especially in relation to public health.

The headlines for Devon are as follows:

-£5m cuts are proposed to the adult social care budget

-Council tax is proposed to rise by two per cent (all local public sector are organisations are set to raise theirs for the same reasons)

-The public health budget is not yet confirmed by central government so a precautionary approach is being taken

This means a range of issues for adult social care services, including:

-The number of older disabled people set to receive in house day opportunities will be reduced by around 70 to 100

-The number of older people set to receive paid for personal care is set to reduce by over 100 to 2,483

-Around £400,000 is being saved from the contracts budget

This means a range of issues for public health services, including:

-Around 140 fewer people with alcohol addictions will be supported

-The sexual health service is set to move to an appointments only service, although this is not expected to affect the numbers of people who can be seen

-Insufficient resource for public health nursing, which means the service will be stretched

What are the risks?

There's a long list of risks in the budget assessment, relating to the shortage of staffing and the increasing cost of and demand for, services.

No deal Brexit and immigration points system is a risk factor

The possibility of a Brexit no deal is a "major risk" to workforce, as is a points based immigration system, as the uncertainty could deter jobs from EU nationals, according to the budget risk assessment.

The council's official risk register also records the council's ability to meet its statutory market sufficiency requirement for nursing care, personal care and demand for working aged adults, as "high" or "very high"

Director of public health, Dr Virginia Pearson confirmed that almost none of the public health budget now goes on prevention. Almost all of it now must be spent on treatment.

This directly contradicts the Secretary of State's claims, who consistently asserts that prevention is a key government priority.

What were the committee's recommendations?

I asked that the county treasurer's points relating to requiring a significant increase in government funding, as well as four year settlements were set out as recommendations, as well as highlighting to ministers the dangers of their proposed new immigration policy and a no deal Brexit.

I also proposed that we record our concerns about the cuts in the provision of services for people with alcohol addictions and the late settlement for public health.

Sara Randall Johnson, chair, did not like my recommendation on Brexit and tried to caveat it with there being new employment opportunities for local people. I replied that this was not what our officers had been advising us for many years (staff are not able to be recruited locally) and we should not seek to water down the risks outlined by officers in the budget papers.

She backed down.

The recommendations to cabinet (some to be taken forward at central government level) on the budget paper, can be seen by clicking the red button below.

The proposed budget will be finalised and voted on, at the full council meeting on Thursday, February 20.