Havering approves Better Care Fund Section 75 and finance review — Havering 2026

Key Points

• Havering Cabinet approved proposals for a Section 75 partnership agreement governing the Better Care Fund, a jointly commissioned programme with the NHS worth about £41 million in 2026/27.
• Havering Council’s contribution to the Better Care Fund is approximately £8.5 million.
• The fund aims to help residents remain independent, avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and support people to continue living at home; reablement services were highlighted as a priority.
• Questions were raised about how Neighbourhood Health arrangements would interact with the programme and how preventative spending and savings across different budgets should be managed.
• Cabinet received the Revenue and Capital Outturn reports for 2025/26, outlining the Council’s financial position and progress on the approved capital programme.
• Havering faces distinct financial pressures due to its large older population alongside significant numbers of children and young people, increasing demand on statutory services.
• Councillors asked when the Council would stop relying on Exceptional Financial Support; no timetable was provided.
• Discussion covered slipped capital schemes, changing local housing priorities (including the delivery of larger family homes), the operation of Greater London Authority (GLA) grant funding, and the effect of inflation on delayed projects.
• Council Leader Keith Prince signalled support for a holistic approach to budgeting across service areas and intends to raise the issue of GLA funding criteria with Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley.
• Little contribution came from backbench members of the administration beyond the Leader and introducing Cabinet Members.

Havering (East London Times) July 10, 2026 – Havering’s Cabinet met on Wednesday evening to consider a package of reports covering adult social care, the Council’s financial outturn for 2025/26 and the delivery of its capital programme. Cabinet Member for Adults and Health, Cllr Graham Day, introduced proposals for a Section 75 partnership agreement to govern the Better Care Fund, a pooled commissioning arrangement with the NHS valued at roughly £41 million for 2026/27, to which the borough will contribute around £8.5 million.

As reported by Cllr Graham Day during the meeting, the Better Care Fund is intended to support preventative and reablement services that help residents remain independent for longer, reduce avoidable hospital admissions and enable people to live at home rather than entering institutional care. In presenting the report, Cllr Day said reablement services would remain a key priority within the new agreement.

How will Neighbourhood Health arrangements interact with the Better Care Fund?

As reported by Cllr Chris Wilkins (Upminster, HRA), who asked how proposed Neighbourhood Health arrangements would interact with the Better Care Fund, the Cabinet Member acknowledged the complexity of the wider health and care landscape.

Cllr Day responded that, while neighbourhood-level models were developing, existing reablement and prevention services delivered through the Better Care Fund would continue to play a central role in keeping demand for higher-cost services down.

Will Havering’s council contribution translate into future savings?

Martin Goode of the Harold Wood Residents Association asked whether the Council’s financial contribution to the Better Care Fund would ultimately be reflected in savings in other budgets.

The meeting’s discussion, led by Cabinet Members, focused on the difficulty of drawing direct accounting lines between preventative spending and avoided future costs, but argued that preventing people from reaching crisis point typically reduces demand for more intensive and expensive interventions.

Can organisational flexibility help where benefits and costs fall across different budgets?

Labour councillor Matthew Stanton (Beam Park) raised concerns about organisational rigidity: where the benefits of preventative work accrue in one budget but the costs are borne by another, he argued, overly strict siloed decision-making can harm both residents and the Council’s finances.

Council Leader Keith Prince acknowledged this point and indicated his support for a more holistic approach to decision-making across services, suggesting that better cross-budget co-operation is necessary to capture the full value of preventative interventions.

What did the Revenue and Capital Outturn reports say about Havering’s financial position?

Cabinet then received the Revenue and Capital Outturn reports, presented by Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Sue Benjamins, which set out the Council’s financial position at the end of the 2025/26 financial year and reviewed progress against the approved capital programme.

Cllr Benjamins highlighted the particular pressures Havering faces as a borough with both a large older population and significant numbers of children and young people, which together place substantial demand on statutory services and social care budgets.

When will Havering cease relying on Exceptional Financial Support?

Cllr Wilkins asked when the Council expected to end its reliance on Exceptional Financial Support. The Cabinet did not provide a specific timetable in response to that question. No concrete milestones or dates for exiting Exceptional Financial Support were set out during the meeting.

The absence of a clear exit timetable underscores ongoing financial fragility and the need for close oversight of the borough’s medium-term financial strategy.

How are slipped capital schemes and changing local priorities being addressed?

Cllr Stanton questioned how capital schemes that had slipped into future years could be adapted to reflect changing local priorities, giving the delivery of larger family homes as an example where community need may not align neatly with previous viability assumptions.

A discussion followed about the operation of Greater London Authority grant funding. Council Leader Keith Prince said he intended to raise with Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley whether future funding models should place greater emphasis on the number of bedrooms delivered rather than simply counting the number of units, a change that could incentivise the provision of larger family-sized homes.

What is Havering doing to manage inflationary pressure on delayed projects?

Cllr Stanton also asked how the Council intended to manage the impact of inflation on projects whose budgets had been agreed but whose delivery had been delayed.

The Leader acknowledged the challenge, noting that inflationary pressures can erode the real value of previously agreed project budgets and that the Council would need to find innovative ways of responding.

He added that some of these solutions would take time to develop and implement, recognising the practical and contractual difficulties where schemes have already been procured under earlier price assumptions.

Were there contributions from other cabinet members or backbenchers?

Aside from the Leader and the Cabinet Members introducing their respective reports, the meeting recorded little discussion from other members of the administration.

Questions and challenges came principally from councillors Wilkins and Stanton and from a representative of the Harold Wood Residents Association.

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What are the immediate next steps and implications for service delivery?

Cabinet’s approval of the Section 75 for the Better Care Fund formalises the governance arrangement with health partners for 2026/27 and enables the pooled commissioning approach to continue.

This should allow existing reablement and prevention services to proceed under the shared framework, while enabling the Council and NHS partners to jointly monitor outcomes and spend.

Meanwhile, the outturn reports provide a formal record of the Council’s 2025/26 finances and identify slippages and pressures in the capital programme that will require careful prioritisation and potential rephasing of schemes.

Background of the particular development

The Better Care Fund is a national policy mechanism created to integrate health and social care budgets at a local level, encouraging local authorities and NHS commissioners to use pooled funds to deliver joined-up services. Section 75 of the National Health Service Act allows local partners to create legally binding pooled budgets and joint arrangements for commissioning.

In Havering, the Better Care Fund has historically targeted reablement, homecare, community-based prevention and early intervention services with the stated objectives of reducing avoidable hospital admissions, shortening stays in hospital through better discharge support and preventing or delaying entry to long-term residential care.

Havering’s demographic profile — a relatively large older population combined with pockets of deprivation and substantial numbers of children and young people — exerts cross-cutting pressure on both adult social care and children’s statutory services.

Over recent years, many London boroughs including Havering have faced rising demand for social care and constrained local government funding, which has in some cases led to the need for Exceptional Financial Support from central government or oversight arrangements.

Capital programmes across local authorities have also experienced slippage because of planning delays, procurement issues and cost inflation, while GLA and other strategic grants remain an important lever for housing and regeneration investment.

Prediction: how this development can affect Havering residents, partners and services

• Residents reliant on reablement and home-based support: The continuation of a pooled Better Care Fund arrangement should help stabilise reablement and prevention services into 2026/27, which may reduce delays in responding to care needs and support more people to remain living independently at home. Residents who currently receive short-term reablement after hospital discharge can expect the service framework to remain in place, though service improvements or expansions will depend on budgetary decisions and performance monitoring.
• Health and social care partners: Joint commissioning under the Section 75 agreement enables NHS and Council partners to align priorities and share risk, making it easier to plan discharge pathways and community support. However, the complex health and care landscape and evolving Neighbourhood Health models mean partners will need to coordinate carefully to avoid duplication and ensure clear accountability for outcomes.
• Council finances and service planning: The outturn reports and ongoing reliance on Exceptional Financial Support indicate continued fiscal constraints. Without a clear timeline for exiting Exceptional Financial Support, Havering’s capacity to invest in new services or accelerate capital schemes may be limited. Capital programme slippage combined with inflationary pressures could necessitate re-prioritisation of projects, potentially delaying infrastructure and housing schemes that local communities expect.
• Housing and development stakeholders: If the Council urges the GLA to focus grant criteria on the number of bedrooms rather than units, future funding rounds may change incentives for developers and housing providers, potentially promoting larger family homes where local demand exists. Any shift in GLA criteria would, however, require negotiation and may take time to influence actual schemes.
• Community groups and residents’ associations: Groups like the Harold Wood Residents Association will likely continue to press for transparency on how council contributions translate into frontline services. Clearer cross-budget collaboration could enable such organisations to make stronger cases for prevention-focused investment that benefits local people.
• Political and governance implications: The recognition by the Leader of the need for a holistic budgeting approach signals a potential shift toward more integrated decision-making across service silos. Successful implementation of that approach could improve value for money and outcomes; failure to achieve it may perpetuate tensions where costs and benefits fall into different parts of the council’s books.