This report, submitted to the Committee in its capacity as the sole member of Brighter Futures for Children Limited (BFfC), sets out for approval the BFfC Business Plan and Contract Sum.

The Committee, acting in its capacity as sole member of Brighter Futures for Children Limited (BFfC), considered a report seeking approval for the BFfC 2024/25 Business Plan and contract sum.  The Business Plan was attached to the report at Appendix 1.

The Business Plan set out the national and local context, the immediate challenge and focus for BFfC and the company’s strategic objectives for 2023 – 2026, key priorities and enablers for 2024-25. In 2024-25 the priority would be the delivery of a transformation programme to better manage demand at the front door, the increasing number of children in care and the lack of local care placements for children.  The programme would include:

·            Development of family hubs: Working with the partnership to develop and define a combined early help offer, delivered through family hubs.  Targeting the areas of greatest need, family hubs would meet need at the right time in the right place and prevent escalation and the need for statutory services, including children’s social care.

·            Creation of an edge of care offer: Preventing children entering care; ensuring that when children did enter care it was for the shortest possible time; stepping children down to family-based care; preventing placement breakdowns and returning children home where it was right for the child. This would reduce the number of children in care and the number of children in residential care.

·            Increasing the number of internal foster carers: Implementing the DfE-funded regional fostering recruitment hub in partnership with other LAs across the South East to increase applications and approvals of foster carers; developing a Mockingbird carer support hub to improve retention of foster carers and commissioning local foster placements. This would increase the number of children who could remain living in family-based care in their local communities and reduce reliance on residential and out of borough care.

·            Development of an in-house residential offer: Exploring the development of an assessment home and a children’s home in Reading. Closely aligned with the developing edge of care offer and in-house foster carers, this would support the ambition to ensure that when children entered care it was for the shortest possible time and that children remained living in Reading wherever possible.

The Business Plan set out the company’s financial plan for 2024/25 and Medium-Term Financial Strategy.  It noted that there was a forecast overspend of £8.3m in 2023/24 on activities funded by the contract sum provided by the Council.  This overspend was wholly attributable to demand and cost pressures in placement costs for children looked after and school travel costs which reflected national issues. The costs were forecast to continue in the medium term and so the company had submitted business cases for a significant growth in the contract sum for 2024-25.  Alongside the request for growth, BFfC had submitted plans to mitigate some of the costs and to deliver efficiency savings across the next three years.  The proposed contract sum for 2024/25, including SLAs and Property, was £58.839m.

Resolved –

            That the Committee, in its capacity as sole member for BFfC, approve the proposed contract sum for 2024/25 of £58.839m and the company’s business plan as set out in Appendix 1 of the report.