Annual Report 2023 to 2024

2023/24 has been one of the most challenging years ever for councils up and down the country, and this has been no different in Buckinghamshire.

Many of the challenges we have faced have been present for some time now, such as the impact of the war in Ukraine, recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, global energy cost pressures, and the impact of rising inflation. However, demand on council services has reached unprecedented levels, particularly in adult social care, children’s services, home to school transport, and housing and homelessness. We are taking steps to address the drivers of this increased demand; however structural change is needed in some areas to truly tackle the underlying causes.

These challenges have included:

There is an increased demand for adult social care services and Buckinghamshire’s growth in demand continues to be higher than the South East average. Approximately 3,200 contacts are received by adult social care each month, compared with just over 2,000 per month in 2020/21. Increased demand is partly due to demographic growth, an ageing population, the legacy of the pandemic and more people living longer with chronic conditions and disabilities.

Poorer health of residents in the community, particularly prevalent in Opportunity Bucks Wards, also means more complex needs resulting in higher cost of provision, such as 1:1 support and round-the-clock assistance which can cost £5,500 per week per person, in addition to placement costs.

There has been an increase in self-funders who are now unable to pay for their care, with increases of self-funders by 3% in residential care and 6% in nursing homes in this financial year. Cost of living pressures mean that clients are struggling to pay their charges and adult social care debt is increasing.

The impact of Covid-19 and inflationary pressures have increased the risk of business failure in the care provider market. Where this happens, the council has a duty of care to service users.

Challenges in the NHS translate into social care demand as a person’s condition will usually deteriorate whilst waiting for health services and discharge from hospital.

The work of Children’s Services has always been diverse and demand led; however, we are seeing more families experience challenges such as financial hardship, mental health issues, or substance abuse, all of which can impact the quality of parenting and the home environment. This often leads to an increase in the number of families that require our support. There has also been an increase in complexity and the number of children with multiple risk factors, such as domestic abuse combined with other concerns, and risks both inside and outside the home.

For our children in care, placement sufficiency on a national basis is in crisis. Demand significantly outstrips supply leading to providers profiteering and unit costs for individual placements rising. Thus, despite maintaining a stable proportion of children in care, the council’s spend on placements has increased significantly over the last 3 years. This reflects growing demand for residential placements due to a loss of foster carers and unit cost increases of 25-30% across all external placement types during this period. An inability to source appropriate placements can lead to high-cost care packages in the community (e.g £30k per week, £1.5m per year for one child) in order to manage risk and keep young people safe.

In addition, the mandated National Transfer Scheme for Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children means that the council is now required to continue to receive referrals until it reaches 0.10% of the child (0-17) population (128 individuals for Buckinghamshire). At the end of January 2024, the service supports 71 UASC, an increase from 30 in April 2022.

This in turn creates further pressure on the placement market and the council’s budget. In addition, significant delays by the Home Office in processing asylum claims for unaccompanied asylum care leavers (18+) is also increasing the length of time that the local authority must continue providing accommodation and support to young people as the young people are unable to work or claim benefits. Currently, the service supports 100 unaccompanied asylum care leavers.

The increasing complexity of children and young people’s needs and increased demand also results in increasing requests for Education, Health and Care needs assessments and plans. In 2023, Buckinghamshire received 1577 requests for assessment, an increase of 132% compared to 2016. Data from January each year shows a 100% increase in EHCPs maintained by Buckinghamshire between 2016 and 2024. As of January 2024, there were 6711 compared to 3353 in January 2016.

There is a rapidly rising number of young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and Special Educational Needs (SEND) in the county, with over 2,000 students attending special educational needs and disabilities educational settings. Provision of transport for these students makes up 67% of the council’s spend on home to school transport.

Demand on home to school transport is also increasing due to overall population increase and the rising number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children who have arrived in Buckinghamshire.

Unit costs for home to school transport provision have increased significantly due to inflation, a fragile provider market and difficulties retaining drivers. Insufficient special school capacity also means that children have to travel further to their nearest school, which increases costs. There is also an increasing need to use single occupancy taxis to address the complexity of need that some young people require.

The number of households in temporary accommodation has increased 70% since January 2020. Many of these are in hotel accommodation which is expensive and costs have increased above inflation. This is due to a shortage of less expensive council or housing association run temporary accommodation.

There are increasing numbers of households presenting as homeless due to financial difficulty. Households are also staying longer in temporary accommodation due to the lack of affordable housing to move on to.

National infrastructure projects such as HS2 and East West Rail continue to have an impact in Buckinghamshire though increased traffic, damage to the highways network and environmental impacts.

Heavy rainfall and storms meant many areas of Buckinghamshire were struck by flooding during 2023 with more wet weather anticipated in early 2024. This has resulted in delays to planned highways works, and an increase in reported defects, which created additional pressures on our highways teams.

There are national shortages of skills in a number of professions which have led to difficulties recruiting and retaining staff for some services and this is particularly acute in Children’s and Adult Social Care,

teachers and teaching assistants and HGV drivers for waste collection.

For example, the vacancy rate in Adult Social Care is typically over 23% and in Children’s Social Care 26%. Staff shortages within the wider care sector also places significant constraints on the supply and stability of both home and residential care.

There is also a national shortage of Educational Psychologists to work with children on early intervention and advisory work leading to a resulting escalation in those seeking EHCPs.

On average, an agency member of staff costs 30% more than a permanent employee. The resulting over reliance on agency staff such as social workers and Educational Psychologists to fill vacancies adds a significant financial burden to the council.

High levels of inflation and borrowing costs have created pressures which have impacted many residents and businesses across the country.

As a council, we have faced significant inflationary pressures to maintain services at existing levels. Inflation is variable across different services dependent on the main cost drivers in each service. For example, there has been inflation of 20% across the construction industry which has affected our capital programme.

These inflationary pressures have been compounded by the increased demand on our services which has resulted from the cost of living pressures our residents have faced, and continued high demand from residents experiencing significant hardships in the Opportunity Bucks wards.