The Argyll and Bute Integration Joint Board held its latest meeting today, where it discussed a number of key topics including the Health and Social Care Partnership’s Budget for 2026-27 and the feedback from the recent budget engagement programme.
Evan Beswick, Chief Officer for Argyll and Bute HSCP, said:
“I would like to thank everyone who participated in our recent budget engagement programme, both the staff who put this extensive piece of work together and everyone who engaged with the programme and fed in their thoughts on our proposed plans. This is summarised in the Budget Engagement Report which was presented to the Integration Joint Board today.
“As a consequence of this engagement exercise, and the associated Impact Assessments, we have amended a number of the savings proposals that are being presented to the IJB today which emphasises that the decision making processes of the Board are being informed by the communities that we serve.
“I am pleased that the Health and Social Care Partnership’s Budget 2026/27 Report, which was also presented to the IJB today, was able to recommend a balanced budget. This position was made possible in part as a result of the financial control measures that were put in place and also by the decision of Argyll and Bute Council, at their recent budget setting meeting, to increase the funding provided to the HSCP by an additional £4.2m for the next financial year.
“I am also pleased that this additional resourcing for the HSCP has enabled us to reduce the extent of many our savings proposals and we have tried, as much as possible, to mitigate the effects that some of the others will have on the people who use our services.
“At the same time we are still facing significant financial challenges moving forward and the balanced budget presented today still relies on substantial savings and longer term service redesign. The IJB has today therefore had to take the difficult decision to implement a number of the remaining savings proposals and these are listed in the budget papers for the meeting today.
“We will now be working closely with those individuals who use our services and may be affected by this decision, as well as with our staff, to ensure the implementation is done sensitively and with as little disruption as possible to those individuals involved so that we can continue to deliver essential health and social care services for the people of Argyll and Bute.”