Issue - meetings

Public Health Innovation Fund

Meeting: 13/07/2015 - Cabinet (Item 27)

27 Public Health Innovation Fund pdf icon PDF 84 KB

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Minutes:

Councillor C Jones introduced a report by the Director of Public Health that informed that in June 2013, a non-recurrent underspend had been identified within the public health grant for 2013-15.  With the support of the Cabinet Portfolio Holder the Director proposed that consideration be given to seeing how the underspend could be used to benefit the local population through investing in other areas across the Council, thereby enabling them to contribute further to the delivery of public health outcomes as defined by the national Public Health Outcomes Framework.

 

As a result, all strategic directorates had been invited to submit proposals for non-recurrent spend which would then be assessed for their public health impact and prioritised for investment.

 

The Cabinet noted that in total 39 proposals with a total value of £3.57m across 2013-14 and 2014-15 financial years had been assessed as having relevant public health outcomes.  These projects had been reviewed and updated in July 2014 when it had been reported to the Cabinet that some projects would have reduced commitments through the realisation of efficiencies and rephasing.  The revised budget for revenue projects was £2.5m.

 

It had been agreed that all the projects would provide evaluations at the end of the project period and the report included links to those evaluations.

 

The Cabinet had approved a budget reserve of £500,000 which would be allocated against public health innovation, once the evaluation of Public Health Outcomes Framework projects had been concluded.  The Director’s report made recommendations in relation to this funding. They were made in the context of a recent announcement of a significant cut in the public health grant during this financial year.  Whilst the detail of the cut had not yet been finalised, application of the national proportion of the cut (7.4% of the total national public health grant) meant a loss to Wirral of around £2.3 million. However, the Cabinet noted that there was a risk that the cut could be greater than this.

 

RESOLVED

 

That an investment of £240,000 of the Public Health Innovation reserve be approved for the following projects:

 

Project CYP3: The G.I.R.L.S Project

Project CYP7: Connect for Wellbeing

Project DASS3: The Breeze Long Term Conditions Programme

Project R&E4: Forest Schools

Project S&R1: Cycle Wirral