Councillor concerned over cost of moving part of council's adult services in-house

A Royal Borough councillor voiced her worry over the lack of knowledge of some major cost elements for a project looking to bring part adult services back in-house at the Royal Borough.  

The council looking to bring the statutory part of adult services back in-house from Optalis, a care service provider jointly owned by the Royal Borough and Wokingham Borough Council (WBC).

Social work and occupational therapy are some examples of statutory services that are provided.

The move looks to make it easier for the authority to oversee services and attract and retain senior staff members and social workers through an increased offer on pension schemes and annual leave. 

As part of the move, staff members are being transferred over from Optalis to the Royal Borough, with the top-tier management having already moved back in-house in December. 

This year's revenue budget includes £260,000 to cover the pension scheme for the staff being transferred over. 

The changes will also create a £306,590 reduction in the Optalis contract, and the money will be re-deployed to council support services. 

At a People, Overview and Scrutiny meeting at the Town Hall on Monday evening, Kevin McDaniel, the Royal Borough’s adult services chief said the authority hopes the transfer of staff will take place on August 1, but explained there is a risk that may come with the project. 

Mr McDaniel explained that there is a risk is that when the service is brought over, the way the council requires it to be done may be different to the way Optalis is currently doing it and adjustments to resourcing may need to be made behind the scenes. 

Cllr Suzanne Cross (TBFI, Bray) told the meeting she was concerned about the council potentially needing to make more money available to fund the switch further down the line.

She added: “More resources will be required as it notes in this report. But the cost of these are not known.

“When will we know how many resources, what that cost will be?

“As we all know the, the council isn't in the best financial state. So, to walk into a big project like this not knowing some major cost elements is a worry to me.”

Mr McDaniel said: “The finance team has been well reported as being significantly reduced in capacity over recent years.”

He explained that one of the concerns is that when the service is brought back in-house, the finance team ‘might not be big enough’ and changes may need to be made. 

But he explained that there are opportunities through the Mosaic system to automate elements that are currently done manually in the council. 

The new Mosaic case management system will replace the the council's case management system PARIS.

“The expectation is that when Mosaic lands, that will free some resource for us to do something more important with it.

“It might be working with residents on how to make the most of their benefits. It might be that we need to put some of that resource into the finance team to deal with the more difficult cases, but again until it lands, we don’t know. 

“What we do know is that with the resource we’ve got now, we’re delivering a good service, we’re paying the bills on time.

“What we don’t know is where we need to improve – is our forecast of what’s coming down the line and that’s what the Mosaic system is about providing for us. 

“So it’s not a definite there’ll be more resource needed, but there is a risk there which has been rightly identified by our colleagues in finance.”