Budget transfers from Central Contingency to Health and Social Services and establishment of 2 posts: Children's Change Programme

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A decision made 19 January 2017:

Decision Reference: MD-HSS-2016-0077
Decision Summary Title:	Central Contingency Funding Request – Investment in initiatives that support vulnerable children (Children’s Change Programme)		Date of Decision Summary:	9th December 2016
Decision Summary Author:	Assistant Director of Finance		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt?	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Written		Person Giving Oral Report:
Written Report Title:	Central Contingency Funding Request – Investment in initiatives that support vulnerable children (Children’s Change Programme)		Date of Written Report:	9th December 2016
Written Report Author:	Assistant Director of Finance		Written Report : Public or Exempt?	Public
Subject: One-off budget transfers of £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019 from Central Contingency to the Health and Social Services Department to support delivery of a Children’s Change Programme, and to increase the H&SS establishment by 2 FTE from 1st March 2017 until the end of 2019.
Officer recommendation: The Minister requested the Minister for Treasury and Resources to approve budget transfers of £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019 from Central Contingency to the Health and Social Services revenue head of expenditure to support delivery of a Children’s Change Programme. The Minister also requested the Minister for Treasury and Resources to allocate 2 additional FTE to the H&SS establishment from 1st March 2017 until the end of 2019.
Decision(s): The Minister accepted budget transfers of £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019 from Central Contingency to the Health and Social Services revenue head of expenditure to support delivery of a Children’s Change Programme, and 2 additional FTEs from 1st March 2017 until the end of 2019.
Reason(s) for Decision: Article 17(2) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2005 states that the Minister for Treasury and Resources is authorised to approve the transfer from contingency expenditure or the insurance fund of amounts not exceeding, in total, the amount available for contingency expenditure in a financial year. To comply with P.67/1999 which charges the Minister for Treasury and Resources to regulate the number of persons that may be employed by the States and delegation 2.3 in which authority is delegated to the Treasurer of the States for agreeing non-contentious increases to States staffing levels.
Resource Implications: The H&SS revenue head of expenditure to increase by £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019, and the Central Contingency to decrease by an identical amount. This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States for the period of the current MTFP 2016 to 2019. The H&SS establishment to increase by 2 FTE from 1st March 2017 until 31st December 2019.
Action required: Assistant Director of Finance H&SS to request the approval of the Minister for Treasury and Resources for the transfer and additional FTE.
Signature:		Position: Minister for Health and Social Services
Date Signed:		Date of Decision:

Budget transfers from Central Contingency to Health and Social Services and establishment of 2 posts: Children's Change Programme

Health and Social Services

Ministerial Decision Report

Central Contingency Funding Request – Investment in initiatives that support vulnerable children (Children’s Change Programme)

Purpose

To enable the Minister for Health and Social Services to accept budget transfers of £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019 from Central Contingency to the Health and Social Services revenue head of expenditure to support delivery of a Children’s Change Programme, and an additional 2 FTE from 1st March 2017 until the end of 2019.

Background to this Decision

The MTFP2, as adopted by the States Assembly, included the allocation of £1.65million per year from Central Contingencies for initiatives that support vulnerable children (£4,950,000 in total over the period from 2017 to 2019).

As set out in MTFP2, that allocation is to support delivery of initiatives that include outstanding recommendations from key reports (e.g. Williamson, Care Inquiry and Serious Case Reviews), where it is anticipated that those initiatives may feature in the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry recommendations (IJCI). The IJCI is due to be published in December 2016.

Further to the decision of the States Assembly, the Council of Minister agreed, on 9th November 2016, the release of a proportion of the allocated contingency monies to support the delivery of nine different initiatives. Those initiatives, as set out in Appendix 1 below, include the Children’s Change programme.

The cost of the nine initiatives agreed by the Council of Ministers does not represent the total contingency allocation. The Council of Ministers therefore also agreed to delegate to the Chief Minster the decision to request the Minister for Treasury and Resources to release the remaining contingency allocation at some point in the future. Prior to making that request, the Chief Minister will consult with CAVA Ministers about the initiatives to be funded from the remaining allocation.

The nine initiatives agreed to date are all time critical, hence the decision to agree their funding ahead of the Chief Minister requesting release of all the contingency allocation.

Vulnerable Children initiatives – allocation to the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) – Health and Social Services

MASH has been in place since 2013 to manage the identification and response to children who are in need, vulnerable or at risk. It is a multi-agency initiative that gathers, shares and analyses information to allow joint decision-making and prioritisation of a single or joint response and provision of service to children who may be at risk of serious harm. MASH is a critical component of protecting children in Jersey.

Some of the partner agencies have been unable to provide sufficient resource to ensure full-time cover to MASH and this has had an impact on the information sharing and contribution to decision making. This means that a response has, on occasion, been planned without the full information available.

The Education service has now been able to provide appropriate cover however, Health and FNHC has been unable to provide the required resource.

This additional funding will allow the appropriate level of health resource to gather information from across the various systems used in primary and secondary health care and provide an analysis of same to inform decision-making. This will improve the speed of and quality of decision-making in identifying and responding appropriately to children who may be at risk.

This issue of a lack of appropriate resource has been flagged up in reviews of the MASH and is seen as an operational priority and indeed necessity.

The requested funding is to provide additional hours to existing resource as follows:

20 hours’ Grade 5 nurse (£29,641 full year), and
25 hours Civil Servant Grade 3 (£17,737 full year).

In 2017, these posts will come into effect on 1st March 2017 (£39,482 total part year cost).

Recommendation

The Minister is recommended to accept budget transfers of £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019 from Central Contingency to the Health and Social Services revenue head of expenditure and 2 additional FTE from 1st March 2017 until the end of 2019.

Reason for Decision

Article 17(2) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2005 states that the Minister for Treasury and Resources is authorised to approve the transfer from contingency expenditure or the insurance fund of amounts not exceeding, in total, the amount available for contingency expenditure in a financial year.

To comply with P.67/1999 which charges the Minister for Treasury and Resources to regulate the number of persons that may be employed by the States and delegation 2.3 in which authority is delegated to the Treasurer of the States for agreeing non-contentious increases to States staffing levels.

Resource Implications

The H&SS revenue head of expenditure to increase by £40,000 in 2017, £47,500 in 2018 and £47,500 in 2019, and the Central Contingency to decrease by an identical amount. This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States for the period of the current MTFP 2016 to 2019.

The H&SS establishment to increase by 2 FTE from 1st March 2017 until 31st December 2019.

Report author : Finance Manager, Community and Social Services	Document date : 9th December 2016
Quality Assurance / Review : Assistant Director of Finance	File name and path: L:\Finance\Ministerial Decisions\2016\Contingency Fund Request - Vulnerable Children\WR - Central Contingency Funding for Vulnerable Children.docx

Appendix 1: Overview of agreed projects

A summary of the nine initiatives agreed by the Council of Ministers is set out below.

1. Early Help Approach (Education Department)

A holistic assessment of the children and family, focusing on strengths and needs, completed with the family. It ensures that families tell their story only once and enables practitioners from different agencies to deliver a co-ordinated multi-agency response to needs. The focus is on early intervention.
Recommendation	2017	2018	2019	Total
Bull / SIP / SCR	£85,000	£85,000	£85,000	£255,000

2. Children’s Change Programme (Community and Constitutional Affairs Department)

Ensure capacity to drive and deliver change across the children’s agenda (SoJ services + external providers). Includes developing and co-ordinating response to IJCI; strategic planning; developing of appropriate legislative base in order to protect vulnerable children and enhance their life chances.
Recommendation	2017	2018	2019	Total
IJCI / Williamson	£168,850	£185,900	£185,900	£540,650

3. Additional staffing for Public Protection Unit – PPU (Police)

Enable SoJP to recruit new child abuse investigators. Since 2010, PPU staffing has remained static at 6 investigators and demand now outstrips capacity (31cases in 2011 to 85 in 2015)
Recommendation	2017	2018	2019	Total
IJCI/Op Whistle	£120,000	£120,000	£120,000	£360,000

4: Development of Sexual Assault Referral Centre (Police)

Jersey currently lacks a SARC. SARC’s provide holistic service to victims of rape or sexual assault, irrespective of age, on the journey to recovery by providing an immediate health and care response with access to criminal justice services, safeguarding services and integrated follow up (erg: Victim Crisis Therapist; Service Co-ordinator; Medical Forensic examination & storage (non CJS); utilities & running costs).
Recommendation	2017	2018	2019	Total
SCR/IJCI	£130,000	£150,000	£150,000	£430,000

5 – 8 Development of Young Enquiry Service – YES (Education Department)

To support development of services provided to particular cohorts of vulnerable or potentially vulnerable young people. To include: 1 counsellor to support young people to deal with trauma and stress; 0.5 youth worker to support young carers; 0.5 youth worker to support young people to explore issues relating to sexuality and gender; 1 youth worker to focus on Adolescent to parent violence and abuse (APVA) and child sexual exploitation.
Recommendation	2017	2018	2019	Total
ED/ SCR	£180,000	£180,000	£180,000	£540,000

9: Enhanced MASH resourcing (Health and Social Services Department)

MASH is the mechanism via which Jersey identifies and responds to children who are in need or at risk. In order for the MASH to make timely, effective decisions it must receive good data and information from services. Additional funding is required to allow information to be gather from across the various systems used in primary and secondary health care and provide an analysis to support decision-making.
Recommendation	2017	2018	2019	Total
	£40,000	£47,500	£47,500	£135,000