Caroline Holland, Director of Corporate Services
Minutes:
Caroline Holland, Director of Corporate Services, introduced the report. She drew the task group’s attention to:
• recommendation A, which sets out the issues reported to Cabinet
• a marginal decrease in the net service expenditure overspend
• the movement in reserves, set out on page 59, that would be subsequently updated for Cabinet and Council
• customer and clients receipts (page 60) are in a relatively healthy position
• latest arrears position (page 61), council is expecting an increase in the amount of housing benefit debt outstanding due to turnover in clientele plus difficulties in clawing back large amounts in one payment
Caroline Holland and Paul Dale, Interim Assistant Director of Resources, made a number of points in response to questions about the revenue budget:
• in 2012/13 total redundancy costs were £2.7m, of which £930,000 were payments made to staff. The remainder were statutory payments to the pension fund in relation to those staff.
• There is a shortage of social workers in London. The council is actively recruiting new staff but at least 8 key posts are currently vacant. ACTION: Director of Corporate Services to confirm exact numbers.
• The 2013/14 budget for employee expenditure (page 10) includes the pay award plus transfer of legal staff from Kingston and Sutton
• The forecast underspend outlined in recommendation A is 0.65% of the net council budget and not the gross budget. ACTION: Director of Corporate Services to correct the report text
• Decisions on the allocation of the underspend in the Dedicated Schools Grants (page 17) will be made by the Schools Forum
• Negotiations have begun with the schools PFI contractor with a view to reducing cost and improving quality
• Caroline Holland undertook to check and confirm the position on client contributions for supported living (page 19). ACTION: Director of Corporate Services to confirm current position and date decisions likely to be taken
• NHS social care income (page 19) still fluid, likely to be more funding but also more responsibilities for the council
• Agreed that the wording in relation to building and development control (page 25) is unclear and will be clarified in future reports ACTION: Director of Corporate Services
• The employee overspend in waste services (page 26) is mainly for overtime plus agency cover when staff are sick
• Still waiting for report on the pension fund revaluation. It will be cheaper in the long run to pay as much of the deficit as soon as possible. If there was a move to a Londonwide scheme, deficits would not be pooled.
• Caroline Holland provided assurances that a close eye was kept on the shared service pension contract to ensure costs are minimised
Task group members noted the reduction in the Lee Valley levy and asked why this had not been ringfenced to the Wandle Valley project. Paul Dale said any such move would have to be a Member decision.
Members noted that only 56% of forecasted capital spend has actually been spent to date. Caroline Holland said that budget managers were encouraged to make sure that invoices come through are paid promptly so they will be included in this year’s capital budget. In response to a question, Paul Dale said that he suspected that budget managers’ predictions on spend are optimistic and that the capital programme underspend will be higher than predicted.
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