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There is no summary of this meeting yet. Summaries are written once the council publishes the minutes, which are its official record of what a meeting decided. They usually appear a few weeks after the meeting.
No disclosures of interest were received.
No declarations were made.
No questions were received.
Councillors Hayley Gwilliams and Alyson Anthony along with relevant officers attended and went through the budget proposals in relation to Adult Services and Child and Family Services, highlighting the main issues and answering questions. The Panel agreed the following views and recommendations on the budget proposals in relation to Social Services it would like to make to Cabinet: • Sustainability of savings - Panel is pleased to see an increase in the proposed Social Services budget for 2026-27 of net £11m and the move towards prevention and intervention. However, it has concerns around the savings proposals and the ability to deliver them, in particular the increasing scale of required savings over future years and the challenge of delivering further efficiencies while maintaining service quality. This will require careful monitoring going forward. • Risks of moving services in-house – The risks of moving many services in-house are of concern to the Panel, including internal workforce sustainability, higher sickness levels of staff in Social Services, and the impact on external providers, for example, the potential for redundancies if their contracts are reduced. • Client charges and cost of living – With the proposed 14% uplift for residential care fees, the Panel is concerned about the affordability of client charges, especially in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, and the potential knock-on effects for commissioned services and employment. • Grant dependency and future risks - Panel feels there is a need to reduce dependency on grant funding. Although the situation looks better for 2026-27 there is concern about future years and the ability of the Service to plan ahead. • Support for carers – Panel emphasises the essential role of unpaid carers and the need to ensure that reductions in service hours do not place additional pressure on them and also emphasises the importance of unpaid carers being well supported. • Local Provision for young people – Panel emphasises the importance of keeping young people, especially those with mental health needs, in local or in-Wales provision to maintain family connections and reduce costs and it supports the move towards internal provision of these services. The Panel is particularly concerned about external mental health services commissioning being reduced without the capacity of in-house services being in place. The Convener of the Service Improvement, Regeneration and Finance Panel will attend Cabinet on 19 February to feed in the collective views of the scrutiny performance panels and write a letter to the Cabinet Member.
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