Issue - meetings

The Committee had before it a report by Alex Stephen which: (1) summarised the current year revenue budget performance for the services within the remit of the Integrated Joint Board for the period to end March 2017; (2) advised on any areas of risk and management action relating to the revenue budget performance of the Integrated Joint Board (IJB) services; and (3) requested approval of budget virements so that budgets are more closely aligned to anticipated income and expenditure.

The report recommended:-

That the Committee –

(a)       Note this report in relation to the IJB budget and the information on areas of risk and management action that are contained herein;

(b)       Note that the Executive Team are reviewing this position in conjunction with the 2017/18 budget to determine any shortfalls or additional funds available as a result of the outturn position; and

(c)       Note the virements identified in Appendix E.

Alex Stephen advised that the Board was in a more favourable financial position than anticipated due to a receipt of additional income and a reduction in primary care and prescribing costs. Mr Stephen provided assurance on the robustness of the Partnership’s financial system and explained that the Executive Team had been challenging budget holders within the Partnership to learn lessons from the previous year to identify additional areas where efficiencies could be made. He added that the format of the financial report was currently being reviewed by the Executive Team to provide clearer links with IJB Directions and this would be presented to the Committee in due course.

Thereafter there were questions on historical issues relating to unmet budget reductions; budget lines and movements relating to Locums; the level of in-house client contributions; the anticipated overspend on prescribing due to factors such as Sterling’s exchange rate; the level of underspend due to staff vacancies; the likelihood of further budgetary clawbacks; the use of Transformation Funding to achieve efficiency savings; the expected number of recurring virements; and the Board’s accumulation of reserves and strategy to utilise these funds.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)        to note the report in relation to the IJB budget and the information on areas of risk and management action that are contained therein;

(ii)       to note that the Executive Team are reviewing this position in conjunction with the 2017/18 budget to determine any shortfalls or additional funds available as a result of the outturn position;

(iii)      to note the virements identified in Appendix E and to further note that the virements would be presented to the IJB meeting on 15 August 2017 for approval; and

(iv)      to instruct the Clerk to circulate slides to Councillors Cooke and Duncan from the IJB’s Prescribing Workshop session held on 7 March 2017.