Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Cllr Christopher Devine.

To approve as a correct record and sign the minutes of the last meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management and Resources Select Committee held on 14 July 2011.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 14 July 2011 were approved and signed as a correct record.

There were no declarations of interest received.

There were no Chairman’s announcements.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

Statements

If you would like to make a statement at this meeting on any item on this agenda, please register to do so at least 10 minutes prior to the meeting. Up to 3 speakers are permitted to speak for up to 3 minutes each on any agenda item.  Please contact the officer named above for any further clarification.

Questions

To receive any questions from members of the public or members of the Council received in accordance with the constitution. Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions in writing to the officer named above (acting on behalf of the Director of Resources) no later than 5pm on Thursday 8 September 2011.  Please contact the officer named on the first page of this agenda for further advice.  Questions may be asked without notice if the Chairman decides that the matter is urgent.

Details of any questions received will be circulated to Committee members prior to the meeting and made available at the meeting and on the Council’s website.

There was no public participation.

The Corporate Director for Transformation and Resources will present to the Committee the detail of the transformation programme designed to implement the priorities of the Council’s 4 year Business Plan.

The Committee had previously requested to hear about the progress with system thinking reviews and this will be referred to in the wider presentation.  Future monitoring of progress of the transformation (and investment) programme will be reported quarterly via the Business Plan Performance Scorecard Report.  The Committee is asked to note that the Liaison Board is currently considering how best to scrutinise the Programme content in the future as part of a wider review of overview and scrutiny arrangements in the Council.

The Corporate Director for Transformation and Resources was in attendance to present a report on the transformation programme which would implement the priorities of the Council’s four year Business Plan.

Appendices to the report included the programme status summary which provided details of the 11 programmes of the Business Plan (now fixed) and progress made reflected in a ‘traffic light’ update.  A further fishbone breakdown on the individual programmes, again reflected via a ‘traffic light’ progress update, was also provided.

Members were asked to note that further investigatory work continued to ensure the classifications of green (on time, to quality and budget), amber (major issue, mitigation plan in place) and red (major issue for escalation) were indeed a true reflection on progress of the individual programmes. 

The Chairman thanked the Corporate Director for his attendance and the report provided and opened up discussion to the floor where the following points were made.  The overarching top level Economy & Unemployment Programme classification of green was felt to be contradictory once broken down further within its respective fishbone where several lower level programmes were classified as amber. 

The Corporate Director reiterated that the report provided an initial overview of the current situation but that further work was being undertaken to ensure that the classifications were correct and Executive members suggested that the size of the various programmes and projects varied significantly.

In relation to the fishbone diagrams provided for the Economy & Unemployment programme details on ‘small business rate relief’ would be included within subsequent reports.  The categories for both ‘traveller site allocation’ and ‘service water management planning’ within the fishbone for the Local Development Framework Programme would also be reviewed,

It was noted that Benefits Realisation had an overall status of ‘red’ within the lower level fishbone arising from the Service Reviews and System Thinking Programme.  It is estimated that there was currently an estimated £8m shortfall in the Benefits Realisation saving figures for next year.  All departmental budgets were being reviewed to ascertain where funding can be sought over the next six months in order to achieve savings ahead of budget setting for 2012/13.

Clarification was provided that much work had been undertaken since the budget had been set and that all teams within Finance and the Adult Social Care prevention teams were working together on systems thinking to address cost pressures. 

The method of reviewing and reporting on the 11 Programmes and subsequent fishbones will be achieved through the operation of Sharepoint.  The ICT Task Group had recently received a demonstration on how the system would operate with the Chairman of the Group confirming that, once it was fully functional, Sharepoint would be a useful tool to allow continued monitoring of specific projects.

Update reports on the Transformation Programme would be presented to Cabinet on a quarterly basis although the Corporate Director would receive details on a monthly basis.  As future reports would be produced via Sharepoint, which was closely linked to the Project Manager process of Prince  ...  view the full minutes text for item 191.

The latest budget monitoring information presented to Cabinet on 13 September 2011 is attached for consideration.

The report updates members of progress in delivering savings identified in the 2011-2015 Financial Plan in relation to the 2011/2012 base budgets, and of any significant new cost pressures or changes since the last report on 26 July.  A monitoring report on the full revenue budget will be reported in October.

A report which provided details on progress made in delivering savings identified in the 2011-15 Financial Plan in relation to the 2011/12 base budget, together with details of significant new cost pressures or changes since the publication of the previous report in July 2011 was presented.

Cllr John Brady, Cabinet Member for Finance, Performance and Risk, was in attendance to answer any questions arising.

Clarification was provided that the decision to look specifically at the savings needed to achieve a balanced budget ensured that the latest financial position was clearly understood. 

To ensure there remained a focus on priority areas the budget monitoring format to senior officers and members had been revised to use a ‘traffic light’ risk assessment process consisting of 4 categories – Red, Red/Amber, Amber/Green and Green.

With this in mind 89% of the savings required had been achieved within the Green/Amber and Green categories.  For those areas identified as either Red/Amber or Red, work was being undertaken to achieve the required savings within these areas and elsewhere if required.

Upon discussion members requested that further information in relation to the difference between statutory and discretionary spending would be a useful tool.  The Chairman requested a high end list of which the Cabinet Member agreed would be provided.

It was also noted that the report identified significant cost pressures since budget setting including £3.3m forecast in Community Services.  This was partially due to the potential requirement for a further 129 placements across the remainder of the year of which the Council could not currently accommodate and which was likely to result in private care facilities needed.  This was being closely monitored.  The Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee would be asked to scrutinise this in more detail to ensure the issues were fully understood.

Resolved:

1)            To thank the officers for the report provided.

2)            That the Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee would be requested to undertake further scrutiny in relation to the cost pressures for Community Services.

The Capital Budget Monitoring report, which reflects the position of the 2011/2012 Capital Budget as at 31 July 2011, is attached for consideration.

Members are asked to note that the report details budget changes to be noted by Cabinet, together with a change to the Transformation programme which will require approval by Council following recommendation to Cabinet.

A report reflecting the position of the 2011/12 Capital Budget as at 31 July, which included details of budget changes and changes to the Transformation Programme as presented to Cabinet on 14 September, was provided.

Although there were no significant slippages at present the Committee was asked to note the additional figure of £8m against Depots facilities management within the Transformation Programme.

Clarification was also provided that the delay in considering the Campus Proposals relating to the community areas of Melksham, Corsham and Salisbury by Cabinet in November (initially expected for consideration in September) was not expected to affect the capital budget. 

Resolved:

To thank officers for the report.

The current Business Plan Performance Scorecard report, as presented to Cabinet on 13 September, is attached for consideration.  Appendix 2 has been omitted from the report as this has been included as an attachment in Item 6 – Transformation Programme above.

The Committee are also advised that the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Scrutiny Manager have met informally with the Director, Performance, Policy and Partnerships to discuss the approach to performance reporting on progress with implementing the Council’s priorities from the Business Plan.

Performance issues currently are the responsibility of the individual select committees as appropriate.

A report providing a summary of progress against Wiltshire Council’s Business Plan which included Community Results and Council Performance Scorecards to the end of June 2011, status of the Council’s main programmes (details of which were provided within item 6 of the Agenda) and workforce information from Human Resources was presented.

The Committee were reminded that performance issues were currently the responsibility of the individual select committees to consider as appropriate.

The Service Director for Performance and Service Director for HR and Organisation Development were in attendance to present the report and answer any questions arising.

Clarification was provided that the indicators detailed on pages 72-74 of the report referred to the previous KP indicators, some of which had been included to provide information on expected indicator requirements set by central government at a later date. 

All areas within the Council’s performance scorecard were currently on target with the exception of customer telephone call connection rates which were currently not achieving the 95% set.  However, work continued to address this, details of which were provided on page 74 of the report.

In relation to the measures to be added at a later date, it was noted that some health issues, such as the reduction of health inequalities with males and females and alcohol related hospital admissions, were showing signs of worsening.

Concern was also raised in relation to Housing and the ability of the Council to remain on target in terms of delivery.  The Environment Select Committee would be asked to monitor this.

The KPIs provided were currently a mixture of central government and local authority KPIs.  Although the previous KPIs were no longer required, the Council was still required to provide a dataset although would consider changing the information provided should it be considered necessary.

Upon discussion of the workforce measures, the Service Director confirmed that the sickness levels had decreased to 7.9 days per FTE over the last quarter which was reassuring taking into consideration the significant changes taking place within the Council.  In contrast there had been an increase in the figures for long-term illness which was being addressed to establish the reasoning behind it.

Although the Committee noted the overall positive results provided there would be continued monitoring of the workforce measures as part of the performance scorecard report to ensure this remained on track, taking into consideration the continued budget reductions required by the Council and the potential impact this could have on staff.

Resolved:

1)         To thank officers for the report provided.

2)         That the Environment Select Committee would be requested to monitor housing targets.

The Committee is asked to note the update on Task Group activity attached.

An update report on Task Group activity was provided with further information provided as follows:

ICT Task Group

Assurance had been provided at the last meeting that the ICT team remained stable with further information provided on the Share Point system.  The next meeting would be considering the SAP system.

Campus and Operational Development Programme Task Group

The Campus Proposals for Corsham, Melksham and Salisbury will be presented to Cabinet in November 2011.  The Programme Director has been asked to advise on an appropriate time for scrutiny of the proposals ahead of consideration by Cabinet.

S106 Task Group

The next meeting will be held in October.  This follows a site visit in August where members were shown the S106 database.

Partnerships Task Group

The focus of the Group will be the Housing Partnership following which discussion would take place in relation to the continuation of the Task Group.

Procurement & Commissioning Task Group

The next meeting will take place on 3 October where it is hoped further clarity on potential changes to the procurement programme and structure will be provided.

Member Support in the Locality Task Group

The Councillor Development Group will be reviewing the Members Handbook once available.  Following this the Task Group will give consideration to its content.

The Committee has scrutiny representation on several Project Boards.  This item has been included to allow members to provide updates where appropriate.

Project Boards with scrutiny representation include:

Staffing Management Executive Board – Cllr Ricky Rogers

Revenue and Benefits Project Board – Cllr Pip Ridout

Staffing Management Executive Board

The scrutiny representative, Cllr Ricky Rogers, confirmed that a ballot had taken place with staff through professional bodies and trade unions in relation to the revised terms and conditions proposed.  The outcome of which was to accept the revised terms.

The impact of this was positive for the Council who were expected to achieve £12m savings in management and staffing over the next 4 years.

Revenue & Benefits Project Board

The Committee will recall that the scrutiny representative was to provide an update on the implementation of the new Revenue and Benefits System following the Board’s meeting in August 2011 where Northgate were requested to delay the ‘go live’ date to 12 December.

Northgate were unable to facilitate this delay due to existing customer ‘go live’ dates already scheduled.

A decision to lock-in the date is now expected to be made at the next meeting of the Board to be held this morning where it is likely that the ‘go live’ date will be moved to January 2011.

A further update will be presented at the Committee’s next meeting in November.

17 November 2011.