Meeting documents
- Meeting of Chiltern District Council and Staff Joint Committee, Monday, 18th October, 2010 10.30 am (Item 21.)
Minutes:
The meeting of the
Joint Committee on 2 August 2010 had concluded with the Staff Side indicating a
wish to consult with staff on the proposals as put forward by the
The consultation
had resulted in over 90% of the staff rejecting the proposals to reduce the
budget for the PRP Scheme by 50% and to remove the
satisfactory banding (0-2%).
The report went on
to explain that since the consultation the Council had published its Medium
Term Financial Strategy modelling cuts in grant of 25% and 40% over the 4
years. The report also contained a proposal to reform the PRP
Scheme by not making any award in so far as the “satisfactory†category was
concerned and by deleting the 8% award. No other changes to the Scheme were
being proposed and the report concluded by referring to the financial impact of
the proposed changes.
Councillor Rose
opened up the discussion by reminding everyone that the results of the
Comprehensive Spending Review were due to be announced on 20 October 2010
setting out the coalition government’s proposals for dealing with the nation’s
deficit. It was almost inevitable that the proposals would have serious
implications for local government generally with cuts of anything between 20
-40% in central government funding being predicted. Cuts of this level would
create significant challenges for local government and although Chiltern was
attempting to anticipate and respond to these challenges, as evidenced by the
Medium Term Financial Strategy, there were many uncertainties. The picture for
Chiltern would not become clear until early December when details of the
revenue support settlement were due to be announced.
Although no guarantee could be given it was unlikely that the issue would be
re-visited until 2011.
In these
circumstances Councillor Rose, proposed that discussions on the future of the PRP scheme be deferred, pending consideration of the
implications of the spending review and the rate support grant settlement. In the meantime the current PRP Scheme would remain in operation. Other Councillors on
the Joint Committee supported this proposal which Councillor Rose explained
would need to be reported back to the
In response to a
question of what would trigger further discussion, Councillor Rose explained
that this would depend on how severe the impact of the cuts in central
government grant was on the Council’s financial position. Thanks to the efforts
of staff in identifying savings, and as set out in the MTFS,
the Council was in a better financial position than that projected in February
2010 when discussions on the PRP had first taken
place at the
In response to a suggestion from Alan Whichelow, Councillor Rose agreed that it would be useful for the Joint Committee to meet every 6 months in order to maintain a dialogue on staffing issues.
Supporting documents: