Agenda item

Any county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am on the working day before the meeting, ask a question on any matter in respect of the Cabinet’s delegated powers.

The number of questions which may be asked by any councillor at any one meeting is limited to two (or one question with notice and a supplementary question at the meeting) and the time for questions will be limited to 30 minutes in total. As with questions at Council, any questions which remain unanswered at the end of this item will receive a written response.

Questions submitted prior to the agenda being despatched are shown below and will be the subject of a response from the appropriate Cabinet Member or such other councillor or officer as is determined by the Cabinet Member, and shall not be the subject of further debate at this meeting. Questions received after the despatch of the agenda, but before the deadline, will be shown on the Schedule of Addenda circulated at the meeting, together with any written response which is available at that time.

Councillor Roy Darke had given notice of the following question to the Cabinet Member for Finance & Property:

"On item 7, Financial Monitoring I notice that under Pooled Budgets (para 26)

that the overspend is currently running at nearly £5m. and that this current

overspend includes £2m carried forward from last year. Even when the PCT

element is taken into account the Council is heading for nearly £2m

overspend. What measures will the Cabinet Member be taking to take control

of this failure to meet the budget?"

Councillor Couchman replied:

"As Councillor Darke acknowledges the overspending which is the responsibility of the County Council is £1.827m. In the next Monthly Monitoring report, he will see that this overspending has fallen still further to £1.298m. All of this overspending relates to social care for adults with physical disabilities (the much larger element of the budget which relates to older people is currently showing that spend is in line with budget). This overspending on social care for adults with physical disabilities is not a reflection of a failure to control the budget but reflects an increase in the number of people who require care.

This includes students with physical disabilities who have come to study in

Oxford and a number of cases which have transferred across for social care

funding from the Primary Care Trust. An action plan has been developed

which is looking to find savings in the cost of care such as through the use of

supported living arrangements and challenging high cost placements. However, this will not eliminate the overspending which will need to be carried

forward into next year. The budget agreed yesterday allocates extra

resources to adults with physical disabilities to help manage the pressures

next year."

Councillor Jean Fooks had given notice of the following question to the Cabinet Member for Growth & Infrastructure:

"The proposals to build a Waste Recycling Centre at Kidlington, to cater for

the residual household waste from the whole county, and to close facilities at

Ardley, Dean, Stanford and Redbridge have generated much concern. Can

the Cabinet member reassure us that the district councils, Kidlington Parish

Council and the public will be properly consulted before any decision is taken

on these sites? Will a full environmental assessment be done on the possible

extra traffic generation they will cause?"

Councillor Hudspeth replied: “Yes.”

Supplementary: Councillor Fooks asked for information on the timetable.

Councillor Hudspeth replied that it would be over the Summer period and that full information on the consultation would be available.

Councillor Richard Stevens had given notice of the following two questions to the Cabinet Member for Adult Services:

Since the last Cabinet meeting on 25 January 2011, has the Cabinet

member been able to find any evidence of Oxfordshire benefiting from the £1

billion extra nationally in the Personal Social Services Grant, as announced in

the Coalition's Spending Review in October 2010?

Councillor Fatemian replied:

“It was stated at the last Cabinet, that the £1bn had been included in the total

revenue support grant, but it was not possible to determine what share was

available to Oxfordshire. However, if it had not been included it would have

meant that the total level of funding to the authority would have been further

reduced. This position still remains the case.

“In the event that the answer to the preceding question above is "no", has the Cabinet Member written, or will he write, to the minister responsible to ask where the money is?”

Councillor Fatemian indicated that Local Government had been given the money as part of the total revenue support and was expected to act in a responsible manner. He looked forward to using the money for adult Services in the best way possible.