By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
More than half a million pounds will be spent on a consultancy firm to help transform Nottingham’s adult social care services.
Nottingham City Council is seeking help from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms, at a cost of £515,000 plus expenses.
The money will come from a grant from the Government’s Department for Health and Social Care, meaning there will be no cost to the council’s budget.
It comes as the authority anticipates a £26m gap in its finances over the next year due to soaring demand and costs in adult social care.
The council’s People Services, which includes adult social care and children’s social care, are forecasting significant pressures of £14.5m in 2023/24.
Of this £7.1m relates to adult social care, largely driven by increasing external placement costs and demand.
As part of the council’s work to improve and stabilise its finances, as instructed by a Government-appointed improvement board put in place upon the collapse of Robin Hood Energy, a number of transformation programmes are taking place.
One of these programmes will ensure adult social care services become more efficient and cost-effective.
Council delegated decision documents say: “Adult Social Care has an ambitious transformation programme in place with numerous projects, all of which require both project management and business analysis resource to support these and ensure that the programme continues to deliver against savings targets.
“There is insufficient resource within the Transformation Office to fully support all of these projects and so since last September, PwC colleagues have been engaged to provide support for some of the projects.”
The council spends much of its budget, around 60 per cent, on adult social care and children’s services.
In 2022 it delivered adult social care services to roughly 5,000 elderly people as well as around 1,500 people with mental health and learning disabilities.
The total number of people the council supports has grown by more than 1,000 over the last five years.
PwC has been working with the council to transform the way these services operate since the end of last year.
The latest cash injection, from the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund, can be used to increase fee rates paid to adult social care providers, as well as help employ and pay for more staff and reduce social care waiting times.
“PwC colleagues have been working on this project since October 2022 and have acquired subject knowledge and expertise around the proposed systems,” documents add.
“Therefore to continue with their support is the most efficient way of ensuring that these systems are implemented as soon as possible.
“There have already been significant delays to this project caused by internal support services not being able to deliver in a timely manner and consequently it is a priority to mitigate against any further delays.”
