Health and social care integration: finance guidance

6 Capital and asset management

6.0.1 The Strategic Plan considers all of the resources available to deliver the objectives approved within the Integration Scheme including non-current assets owned by the Health Board and Local Authority. One of the policy objectives of the legislation is to make more effective use of the resources, including non-current assets for the delivery of health and social care integration.

6.1 Asset management planning

How will the Integration Joint Board consider the property and assets required to deliver the Strategic Plan?

6.1.1 The Chief Officer of the Integration Joint Board is recommended to consult with the Local Authority and Health Board partners to make best use of existing resources and develop capital programmes. The Integration Joint Board should identify the asset requirements to support the Strategic Plan. This will enable the Chief Officer to identify capital investment projects, or business cases to submit to the Health Board and Local Authority for consideration as part of the capital planning processes, recognising that partnership discussion would be required at an early stage if a project was jointly funded.

6.1.2 In developing the Strategic Plan the Chief Officer is advised to consider the CIPFA guidance on place based asset management^[16]. The CIPFA guidance explains the main concepts of the approach and aims to help senior decision-makers in local public services to understand the drivers for collaboration on public property assets, evaluate benefits and implement a "one public estate" model of delivery.

What should the Integration Joint Board and partners consider before the start of the first year of operation?

6.1.3 The Integration Joint Board, Health Board and Local Authority are recommended to undertake due diligence to identify all non-current assets which will be used in the delivery of the Strategic Plan. This will allow all the partner authorities to identify non-current assets within localities and their revenue and future capital liabilities.

6.2 Capital funding, budgets and allocations

What funding for capital investments will be available to the Integration Joint Board?

6.2.1 The Integration Joint Board will not receive any capital allocations, grants or have the power to borrow to invest in capital expenditure. The Health Board and Local Authority will continue to own any property and assets used by the Integration Joint Board and have access to sources of funding for capital expenditure.

How should the Integration Joint Board access resources for the capital investment identified in the Strategic Plan?

6.2.2 The Chief Officer is recommended to consult with partner Local Authority and Health Board to identify the need for improvements to assets owned by either partner. Where capital investment is identified the Chief Officer should submit a business case to the appropriate partner. The existing procedures within the Health Board^{[17] [18] [19]} and Local Authority^[20] should be used to consider the capital bids and business cases by the Chief Officer as part of their overall capital planning arrangements.

6.2.3 Where the Chief Officer identifies as part of the Strategic Plan new capital investment a business case should be developed for the proposal for both partners to consider. Options may include one or both of the partners approving the project from its capital budget or where appropriate using the hub initiative, as the procurement route, to deliver the capital investment. This is a matter for local agreement.

Is there advice available on the hub initiative?

6.2.4 The hub initiative which is led by Scottish Futures Trust is a national approach to the delivery of new community infrastructure. Scottish Futures Trust is supporting the Scottish Government increasing value-for-money by implementing innovative financing structures and improving its Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) model. The NPD model was developed and introduced as an alternative to and has since superseded the traditional Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model in Scotland. More information about the hub initiative, the five hub territories and contract documentation can be found on the Scottish Futures Trust website (www.scottishfuturestrust.org.uk).

6.3 Repairs and maintenance

What are the property revenue expenditure and budgets incurred by the Integration Joint Board?

6.3.1 The Integrated Budget may include payments from the Local Authority and Health Board to cover the revenue costs of assets e.g. rents, repairs and maintenance, rates, cleaning, property insurance etc. This should be agreed as part of the budget negotiations.