At a Glance…
Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) commissioned Peopletoo to undertake a whole-system financial diagnostic for Children’s Services. The outcome was the identification of £3.7m net savings to the budget, which was modelled over a 3-year period, with an accompanying programme and delivery plan.
The Challenge
The Council’s 3-year MTFP had required savings of £3m from Children’s Services, but had limited planning or confidence in the ability to achieve this.
WBC also wanted to understand if there were additional opportunities to generate further cost reductions or savings to the base budget. This needed to be undertaken alongside the Council’s aspiration to improve quality of services to be at least “Good”.
Our Approach & Delivery
Peopletoo undertook a detailed, whole-system diagnostic, which reviewed service delivery across Education, Early Help, and Social Care.
As part of this, Peopletoo:
A range of options were identified, tested with the senior leadership team, and a high-level opportunity assessment was carried out.
From there, detailed modelling and financial planning were carried out relating to each of the options and these were aggregated into an MTFP for the service, including investment requirements.
An outline transformation programme was designed to deliver the financial plan, aligned with existing strategies and improvement plans.
Outcomes Achieved
Peopletoo modelled a detailed financial plan that would deliver £3.7m net savings for WBC over a 3-year period. It was identified that robust plans only existed to deliver 6% of the existing £3m target that had been set, leaving a balance of £1.4m to delivered in-year in 2023/2024, as well as the need to identify clear opportunities and plans to deliver the remaining 3-year target in 2024/2025 and 2025/2026.
It was also identified that the planned growth to the budget over the same period was excessive, with significant opportunities to revise down the assumptions underpinning the growth and, therefore, the value of funding assigned to the service – assisting the Council’s overall MTFP.
Peopletoo’s financial plan, which was agreed by the Council, include net savings as follows:
An outline programme was designed to deliver the financial plan, with the following key workstreams:
