Stockton Council to look at savings amid budget overspend

It came with the necessity to make savings amid budget overspends, finance gaps of millions of pounds, complaints about lack of funding from central government, and “no uncertainty whatsoever” beyond 2024. Just over a year later the problems are sadly much the same, but the council says it is lining up its solutions.

Those running the authority say it is in a better position than most. Given that some councils have effectively declared themselves bankrupt this year with dreaded Section 114 notices.

Chief executive Mike Greene of Stockton Council in front of the demolition of Castlegate Shopping Centre in Stockton (Image: LDR)

“A number of authorities have tipped over into 114,” says chief executive Mike Greene.

“Demand and levels of funding available, with external factors such as inflation, are causing significant challenges for us.”

They have to find £9m worth of savings in the next two years, with an increased overspend this year which they put down to inflation, pay awards and financial pressures from demand on adult and children’s services. But they say they are in the – relatively – fortunate position of having time to draw up plans to transform services and save the money.

“The reason we’re able to do this and we’re not on a cliff edge is probably because of the tough decisions our council has made over the past few years. We’ve built in more of a sliding slope,” says Mr Greene.

“We’ve got to reduce the budget but we’ve got an ability over the next 12 months to use some reserves to give us some breathing space in order to be able to transform, as opposed to cut.”

Council leader Councillor Bob Cook agrees: “What we didn’t want to do is make wholesale cuts across all our services. We wanted to make sure we continued to deliver the services that the people want and it gives us that chance to ask what they need and what we can provide.”

Mr Greene says they are thinking ahead, telling residents about the size and scale of the problem and finding creative solutions: “We want to get the message out there to our residents.

Cllr Bob Cook at the Stockton Council election count at Thornaby Pavilion (Image: LDR)

“If your household income was to be reduced overnight you’d sit around the table as a family and have a conversation about how you’re going to meet the challenges together. That’s going to be a very difficult dialogue to have with our residents.

“We’re already out on the consultation. We’ve got our residents’ survey out. You’ll start to see that ramping up in terms of community conversations. We’re piloting some work with different community groups about more focused conversations.”

It will form Powering Our Futures, a council blueprint for tackling the financial challenges, with strands on working with communities, strengthening partnerships, recruiting and keeping staff, supporting the workforce and regeneration.

It includes council-wide reviews of “big blocks of services” from recycling and waste collection to vehicles, security services, admin, community transport, support for children and adult social care and preventing expensive residential placements.

Cllr Cook adds: “We’re looking to transform the services to make them better value for money, get better outcomes and deliver similar services to what we have been doing. But I think we need to look at them all because costs are increasing, especially in children’s services and elderly care. That was 75 per cent of our budget.”

Children’s services are a “major arm” of the programme, covering workforce, special educational needs and disability, high needs, early years, placements for children, care leavers, intervention, early help and prevention.

The council’s forecast overspend for this year, soaring from £3.7m to £6.9m, has been largely attributed to increasing demand on children’s and adults’ services, with the rising costs of caring for one child capable of shifting the budget hugely, particularly when it comes to complex needs.

According to the council’s report, it costs a total of £4.4m a year to look after seven children, with each placement costing more than £10,000 per week. Most expensive is sending children outside the area into private homes.

“We’ve failed at that point,” says Mr Greene, “because that’s a huge impact on children’s lives. The best interventions are keeping kids with their families or with connected carers like grandparents or foster carers. But it’s not easy.”

Recruitment of social workers is said to be extremely difficult, with the council’s report saying it is expected to cost about £1.6m to employ agency workers.

The council is exploring improvements and cost reductions, including a social work academy to support social worker recruitment, an “edge of care” intensive support service helping children to stay at home safely and a review of placements, and working on increasing the number of foster carers and better wraparound support in hubs and schools

Cllr Cook says: “Some of those (savings) are in children’s services by bringing more children back to the borough in care. It’s always been said that the care market in children’s is broken and it would seem that the private sector are seen to be trying to make as much money as they can out of children’s care, and it’s punishing all councils who have looked-after children.

“It’s difficult to get those placements and it’s expensive as well. That’s why we want to transform services by bringing a lot of children back into the borough to be looked after.”

Mr Greene sees jobs, investment and generating income as a major part of the solution: “We’ve got to make sure Stockton-on-Tees remains that choice of place in the Tees Valley for business.

“We can’t just sit on a melting iceberg. We know we’ve got demand pressures and one of our ways to address some of these issues is doing what Stockton’s always done and being successful at working with the business community to grow our business base and provide sustainable employment opportunities for people.”

As to what the transformation programme will actually mean for people on the ground, details are expected to come in the new year. The council’s report says: “The reviews will inevitably require difficult decisions around areas where we will need to stop or reduce as well as considering alternative approaches.”

“They’ll come through at different times because they’re at different stages,” says Mr Greene. “We’ve mobilised the council.

“We’re absolutely on track in terms of what we said we’d deliver. In January you’ll start to see the first elements of what’s going to be in there, but a lot of the work is happening and has been happening.

“In the new year you’ll start to see what the model looks like. It just takes time to do that. These are really big, fundamental issues.

“These are really big-ticket issues for local government that are not going to be resolved overnight, and innovative models of delivery. Some will come through quicker than others. The ground work is taking place now.

“We’ve got some big teams behind this now that we’ve put into key areas. We’ve built a programme management team. We’ve got a pretty clear understanding in each of the reviews.

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“We’ve actually cleared a lot of ground. We’re trying to do it in a way which continues to be ambitious for this borough but it’s still going to be very difficult.

“We’ve got some time to do this thoughtfully but we need to bring the reviews forward for our councillors to make some key decisions. The first stage will be the review and the business model, the second will be implementation, actually having to do the nuts and bolts of redesigning systems and changing the way we work.”

Cllr Cook says: “When you’ve got to save that amount of money, some things will be done differently. Some of the services we may not be able to deliver.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure that the services are there for the most vulnerable. You can’t really tell what’s going to happen until you get to the end.

“In January we’ll get scoping reports to show what’s going to happen to deliver on these transformations of services. It takes a long time to get this together. It’s not an easy job doing this.”

Can they offer any reassurance to residents or employees? “I think it is difficult to pin that down until we’ve started the transformation of the services. I’m sure that’ll come at a later date.”