Draft business plan and budget proposals for adults and health services in Cambridgeshire for 2025/26 agreed

A draft business plan that will hopefully see continued investment in vital services for adults with care and support needs is set to be rubber-stamped on Tuesday.

Yesterday Cambridgeshire County Council’s adults and health committee discussed the draft business plan and budget proposals for services for older people and younger adults with care and support needs as well as a range of public health services, with the majority of members supporting it.

Cllr Richard Howitt, committee chair, said: “We recognise the financial challenges that we are facing as a county, but like colleagues in children and families, services for adults and older people with care and support needs are under significant pressure due to the wider social and national policy challenges.

“People are living longer and the impact this is having on the council is huge – for example, between 2020 and 2024 the cost of providing services for older people and people with physical disabilities increased by 64%.

“We’re working hard to tackle the increase in demand and the increase in costs, but the national framework for adult social services has not kept pace and it’s exacerbated by the health inequalities in the population. This is why we want to think differently, intervene earlier, and engage with our residents.

“The Quality-of-Life survey highlighted mental health as a concern, and we’re proposing a significant investment to provide accommodation for people with complex needs.

“Although we will continue to press the case for additional funding from Government to meet the needs of the growing population in Cambridgeshire, we are committed to ensuring the council delivers value for money in the services it provides. That is why the majority of this committee supports the proposals today.”

The adults and health committee has a significant role in ensuring ‘health inequalities are reduced’ and ‘people enjoy healthy, safe, and independent lives through timely support that is most suited to their needs’, as part of our Strategic Framework and the council’s approach for achieving the vision of a greener, fairer and more caring Cambridgeshire.

This is why, the committee proposes to invest the following:

• A significant capital investment proposal in independent living services and specialist accommodation schemes, with over £30million to provide accommodation for people with complex needs. This will result in proposed savings by enabling people to be more independent

• An additional £3million inflation funding for local care providers

• An extra £8million inflation funding for the 5% increase in Real Living Wage

• £2.1million to help meet the demand for older people’s care at both home and in residential care

• £4.8million to support the rising levels of complexity amongst people with a learning disability

• £3.9million for working age and older people with mental health needs.

Other proposals include:

• Improvements to the council’s self-service offer – supporting people to remain living at home and as independent as possible through the reablement service

• Thinking differently about services, placing a greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention through better use of data and working with local people – identifying and addressing health inequalities

• Continue investing in the development of its own social care workforce over the coming years, growing ‘in-house’ experience through increasing social worker apprentice capacity and reducing the dependence on short-term and temporary staffing, with a proposed £149k investment

• A £523k investment to better manage the council’s contracts, including costs, through increasing capacity in the contracts management and brokerage team. This will support placement decisions by assisting families with better information about different options.

The proposals will now go to the council’s strategy, resources, and performance committee on Tuesday along with recommendations from all the council’s other policy and service committees.

Those, together with the views of residents, partners, and business representatives will be considered before the committee makes its final recommendation on the business plan and budget for 2025/26 to the full council on February 11.

The council’s 2025/26 business plan and budget will identify where to spend more than £1billion to deliver services and support for residents and communities across the county. Rising demand for these services, along with the increased costs and changes from the Government, continues to impact the council’s available funding.

For 2025/26 the council has a budget gap of £34.2 million that we need to address. That means we must also continue to make difficult choices about levels of council tax and where we can generate additional income, as well as where we invest and where we make savings.