Borders services cut as £2.1m cash deficit uncovered

A SHOCK report will reveal a huge surge in the number of Borders children deemed “at risk” and requiring safe placements provided by the social work department of Scottish Borders Council.

TheSouthern has learned that the extra cost of dealing with the number of youngsters being taken into care or requiring specialist residential care outside the region amounts to £1.4million.

And that expenditure has not been factored into the social work budget for the current financial year.

Along with a further £700,000 in unforeseen staffing costs emanating from the new Integrated Children’s Services (ICS) programme – with social work taking over responsibility for nearly 5,000 school children with additional support needs – the department is facing a massive £2.1million overspend in its 2010/11 budget.

Councillors will today receive a monitoring report on the funding crisis, while details of emergency measures to balance the books by March 31 next year will be presented to a meeting of SBC’s executive next Thursday.

And a range of services affecting social care and health services to adults and the elderly will be hit.

“The situation requires us to take immediate action to reduce spending in all budget areas,” said social work director Andrew Lowe in a letter to senior staff.

“I have therefore decided to elevate decision-making for the allocation of homecare packages, community support, housing support, children and young peoples placements, bed and breakfast placements and care home places with immediate effect.”

All homecare packages currently carried out by SBC staff will be reviewed and there will be an increase in home-care services provided by private operators. Indeed one private provider, Galashiels based ILS, has this week launched a recruitment drive.

The number of care home beds funded by SBC will be reduced with an impact on community care services and the likelihood of more delayed discharges (bed blocking) from NHS Borders hospitals.

Budgets covering short breaks for respite carers and care packages for people with learning disabilities will also be trimmed.

There will be an unspecified reduction in the 300 temporary posts within the department, while there will be tight controls on recruitment.

Councillors will next week hear that the education department’s current budget will also take a hit to the tune of £470,000 as a result of the projected social work overspend, although council leader David Parker was keen to point out this would not affect devolved school management budgets.

“Assessing how much money is required to meet our child protection obligations is notoriously difficult to predict and this year we have seen a huge surge in numbers,” said Mr Parker.

“Ironically this is partly because of the success of ICS which sees much closer co-operation with schools and the Children’s Panel in identifying children at risk.

“Mr Lowe and his department are, like myself, acutely aware of the lessons learned from high-profile abuse cases such as Brandon Muir [the 21-month-old Dundee infant murdered by his mother’s boyfriend in 2008] and, of course, Baby P, and the protection of our children is paramount.

“I also do not accept that the other elements of the projected overspend are the result of lack of financial control – the ICS project, which will save the council money in the long-term, was a huge piece of work.

“The fact is that this unprecedented budgetary situation was highlighted by rigorous routine budget monitoring and we have from now until the end of the financial year to put things right.”

Mr Lowe told us: “I appreciate we are having to take exceptional measure to address our potential overspend, but these are ad hoc measures and not cast in stone in coming years.

“In the meantime, I want to assure our service users that they will be fully informed over any changes to the services they receive and that these will be kept to an absolute minimum.”