Agenda item

The Board gave consideration to a report of the Director of Finance, Oldham Council and Chief Financial Officer, Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group which set out the Oldham Cares 2018-19 financial outturn against the Section 75 pooled budget.

The Board were informed that the initial Section 75 agreement for Oldham Cares for 2018/19 encompassed pooled funds totalling £135.625m, comprised of a Pooled Aligned Budget (£124.986m), a Pooled Budget of £1.447m and Greater Manchester (GM) Health and Social Care Partnership Transformation Funding of £9.192m. This reduced to £133.462m with the movement of resources and virements between budgets in and outside of the pool. Against the revised budget there was an adverse year-end variance of £8.812m.

The Board noted that Oldham Council had a year-end adverse variance of £4.325m, all within the Pooled Aligned Budgets for which it was the lead commissioner/ provider. The major contributing factor was pressure within community care placements, linked to Learning Disability and Mental Health and also Older People and Safeguarding, and was a continuation of the position reported throughout the year. This was an increase of £2.710m from the variance of £1.615m reported at month 9, linked to:

·         Increases in the complexity of care packages for people receiving care at home,

·         Enhanced bank holiday payments over the Christmas period,

·         An increase in the number of people in short stay placements over and above the level of activity that had been forecast at month 9.

The adverse variance at the year-end was offset by favourable variances from income generation and salaries costs; these variances related to budgets which sat outside of the Section 75 agreement in 2018/19. This meant that the Health and Adults Social Care Community Services portfolio had a balanced outturn and as such presented no financial risk to Oldham Cares or the wider integrated health economy in Oldham at the end of 2018-19.

The Board also noted the CCG reported an adverse variance of £4.487m, being £4.722m within the Pooled Aligned Budget for which it is the lead commissioner (compared to £3.493m at month 9) offset by a £0.235m underspend against the 2018/19 allocation of the Transformation Fund.

The overspend within the Pooled Aligned Budget (£4.722m) was principally caused by under-delivery of CCG efficiency measures of £3.172m (£2.511m as at month 9). The over spend within CCG elements of the pooled fund has been managed through non-recurrent resources held by the CCG outside the section 75 agreement. The CCG also reported a net overspend of £0.260m in respect of mental health cases caused by increases in the number of mental health placements.

Oldham Cares reported an underspend of £0.235m against transformation schemes for 2018/19. This principally related to late confirmation of spend by partners, where budgets were not able to be re-profiled into future years. The Board were informed that Oldham CCG, as holder of the funding, would re-instate this underspend into 2019/20 so that it remained available to the local economy.

RESOLVED – That:

1.     The outturn position be noted.

2.     The contents of this report and its approval by the Joint Leadership Team be noted.