Caroline Holland, Director of Corporate Services explained that the report, written in response to a referral from Council, set out how the allocation of savings between council departments has been approached since 2007/8. The report also provides examples of how different weightings would impact on departmental budgets going forward.

Members welcomed the opportunity to review the decision making process in relation to the distribution of savings between departments. Members reflected on the role of budget scrutiny and expressed some frustration with the current process whereby on the one hand proposed savings presented to the Panels and the Commission are increasingly unpalatable and on the other hand no alternative savings are presented.

Members discussed two potential alternative approaches. The first would be to request savings that represent a greater total than that required to balance the budget so that there would be an element of choice. Members acknowledged that this could be difficult because it could raise anxiety about proposals that would then not be taken forward and may become politicised. Caroline Holland said that last year the departments did not meet the savings proposal targets set by Cabinet and so may be unable to outline proposals that would meet higher totals.

The second would be to conduct detailed scrutiny and challenge of each budget line of expenditure. Members noted that this would be time consuming but could be done by selecting a small number of service areas for a “deep dive” approach similar to that conducted by the financial monitoring task group over the past year. Task groups or workshops within panel meetings might be useful mechanism for carrying out this work. Caroline Holland said that there had been a detailed scrutiny of expenditure in the preparation of the 2012/13 budget. She reminded members that the service plans that were provided as part of the budget pack set out the budget (section E), performance information and key projects for each service area alongside the budget book pages (appendix 9).

Members agreed that the service plans could provide a useful starting point for detailed scrutiny of services and as context for prioritising items at the topic workshops to include in the 2016/17 scrutiny work programme. Members also agreed that it would be helpful for the scrutiny panels to share their learning on budget issues.

The Commission RESOLVED:

1.    to support the principle of protecting services to the most vulnerable residents;

2.    that the Commission’s financial monitoring task group should carry out detailed scrutiny of expenditure for a small number of service areas and report back to the Commission on how this has worked so that the Commission can reflect on this and identify any changes it wishes to make to the budget scrutiny process for the coming year;

3.    that in carrying out detailed scrutiny of service expenditure,  the financial monitoring task group should look for revenue opportunities, procurement and efficiency savings and should draw on learning from the scrutiny task group work on shared and outsourced services and on commercialisation;

4.    That the financial monitoring task group should ask the chairs of the scrutiny panels for suggestions as to which service areas should be prioritised for detailed scrutiny of expenditure.