8. Scrutiny of the Business Plan 2014-18: comments and recommendations from the overview and scrutiny panels

9. Note of the meeting of the financial monitoring task group, 29 October 2013

The Commission agreed to take agenda items 7, 8 and 9 together.

Capital programme

The Chair suggested that the Commission’s report to Cabinet should highlight pertinent points made by the financial monitoring task group:

• The task group recommended that councillors’ needs should be taken into account in the provision of any document management solution (Document Management and Customer Contact Programme). Cabinet to note that the Director of Corporate Services had agreed to consult with councillors and Councillor Diane Neil Mills volunteered to take part
• The task group suggested that the appointment of an asbestos compliance officer be brought forward (item KSR45/CG03 in the risk register)
• The task group remarked that the capital programme overall is still quite large in comparison with actual spend in previous years

The Chair also suggested that the Commission should forward its discussion on making provision for growth in adult social care in response to demographic and legislative changes. The Director of Corporate Services, Caroline Holland, assured the Commission that the 2014/15 budget already contained net growth in that area and said that further modelling work would need to take place in relation to subsequent years for all services, for which additional information that was not currently available would be necessary.

RESOLVED: To forward to Cabinet the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panels and the financial monitoring task group’s discussion of the Business Plan 2014-18

Medium term financial strategy

A member raised concerns about the increase in the Housing Benefits budget and asked that a report be provided to give more detail on this, including the financial implications for the Council and information on tenant numbers by housing tenure. She also asked that the Commission be provided with information about the funding arrangements relating to Free Schools.

In response to a question about the service plan timetable, Caroline Holland said that the interim service plans would be submitted to Cabinet on 17 February and to Budget Council on 5 March 2014. She said that there would be no new budget savings for 2014/15 and that the new service plans would inform saving plans for 2015/16 onwards.

A number of members raised concern that the service plans would not be available as contextual information for the final round of budget scrutiny meetings in January. Members asked whether draft service plans could be made available to those meetings (on existing or revised dates to accommodate this). ACTION: Director of Corporate Services and Head of Democracy Services

RESOLVED:

1.To express concern to Cabinet about the lack of service planning information to inform the development of the budget

2. To forward the above discussion points on housing benefits and free schools to Cabinet

Note of the meeting of the financial monitoring task group, 29 October 2013

Members of the task group referred to the additional information that had been provided to them by email in response to questions raised at the meeting on 29 October 2013. The Director of Corporate Services, Caroline Holland, undertook to ensure that the information on assumed interest rates would be made available. In response to a question, Caroline Holland added that the Transfer Payments set out in the period 6 financial monitoring report related mainly to an adjustment to take account of increasing rent levels for recipients of Housing benefits. Task group members agreed to discuss further at the next task group meeting.

Task group members expressed regret that the additional information had not been published with the agenda and requested that the information be sent to all members of the Commission .  ACTION: Head of Democracy Services.

RESOLVED: That any questions raised and information requested by the financial monitoring task group that are pertinent to an agenda item of the Commission will be included in the Commission’s published agenda papers

The Chair explained that the task group had discussed a range of options for the local council tax benefit scheme, had recognised that any decision on these would be a political one and therefore a matter for the Cabinet rather than scrutiny. He praised the modelling work provided to the task group by the Head of Revenues and Benefits. Caroline Holland added that the Band D modelling information, requested by the task group, would be available shortly.