Meeting documents

Members will consider the written response to their letter of recommendation to the Cabinet Member following the committee’s investigative work in relation to the Council’s approach to external funding opportunities.

Peter Hardy, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources

Peter Hardy, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources was welcomed to the meeting.

The Cabinet Member thanked members of the committee for allowing an update to be given on external funding opportunities and to be able to respond to the letter of recommendation sent following the committee’s investigative work in relation to the Council’s approach to external funding opportunities prior to a written response being provided.

The Cabinet Member said that the Committee’s anxiety that the Authority may be missing out on external funding streams is shared. Is this a real anxiety or a theoretical problem? Is it just transport where the Committee feels the Authority is missing out on external funding opportunities or is does this also apply to other areas of the Council such as social care. Evidence is needed of the areas where the Authority is missing out as well as numbers to support this investment in the additional resources and processes being put forward by the committee, is to be justified.

The Cabinet Member said that he is personally against the creation of corporate roles second guessing the new business units in future shape. The rationale behind future shape is to have a slim but very effective Head Quarters organisation with maximum responsibility devolved to business units.

Part of the mandate of the business units is to generate additional income and we would expect them to do so.  It is up to the business units to find funding wherever available.  The business units should allocate appropriate resources to enable this to be done.

The HQ role is to hold the business units to account against outcomes, not to do the work for the business units. Each business unit will be required to submit an annual business plan which goes via the One Council Board to Cabinet. The idea that the report should include a section in the plans reporting on possible external funding opportunities and how these are being taken advantage of is supported.

The Council is pursuing an active programme of devolving responsibility to delivery units such as Trusts and business units, with better access to external funding. A key element is for the options appraisal is a structure which has the ability to support external funding. Examples of this are the Museum pursuing lottery funding, Community groups running libraries and the decision in Transport to take up shovel ready schemes.

The local government is restricted in its ability to find external funding and has to work in different ways to achieve maximum advantage.

A way of taking this forward would be to include in the mandate for the new innovative units, the role of generating further proposals for delivery units that can attract external funding.

During discussions, the following questions were asked.

The Committee is saying that it thinks there are opportunities for external funding but how is this being harnessing and how can a clear corporate approach to this be developed. The innovation unit should look at new structures that can attract additional funding. We want to incentivise the business units to find funding but also income to achieve their outcomes.

During evidence gathering sessions, verbal evidence from various sources identified a lack of capacity within the organisation to put together robust bids for known funding sources.  If there is a reliance on an ad-hoc approach, the danger is potentially missing out on funding streams as well as the potential of sharing throughout the organisation about successful bids as well as the failures and bids which are unsuccessful.

There is also the issue of where we do not know where the funding is, the opportunities and capacity within the organisation to search some of the more obscure pots of money. This requires a set of skills not every officer would have.  If the knowledge and skills base is not shared, the authority could potentially lose out on some bids. Is the committee looking for evidence about the amount of monies the authority is losing out on to justify the investments in corporate capacity and processes that the committee is recommending?  We want the HQ function to be as slim and as efficient as possible. It is difficult to put additional roles in without evidential justification.

In terms of going out to market for sponsorship and advertising opportunities, there as risks of a clash between business units where there isn’t an overarching policy or details of how this type of external funding might be approached.

What training would the business units have to enable them to try and source external funding opportunities? If there is the obligation to try to find external funding, staff would need to know how to do this.

Sourcing external funding is a new role for business units to take on. The committee needs to be assured that there is the capability of this being achieved as it is a complete new way of thinking for officers. Some progress is being made. Our HR team is already competing for contracts with other local authorities.

Things are changing.  The authority needs to adapt and move with the process.  The feeling is that a specialist is needed to look into external funding.  Could this person be employed on a commission basis in order to reduce the revenue strain on the Council?

It would be helpful to have a structure to explain how the business units work and the benefits of having this structure. There will be four business units; adults, children, transport, economy, environment and support services.  They will work with a number of delivery units on a contractual basis. The main driver is the outcomes required by the HQ organisation as guided and informed by members, in terms of being member led. They will produce business plans detailing how the outcomes can be achieved with the resources available.  This information will be cascaded down to the Managing Directors of the business units. The membership of the Business Units Boards will include a Managing Director as well as a number of Cabinet Members. We need to make sure that the business units are motivised, incentivised and accountable in delivering the outcomes they are contracted to do. The business unit plans have to address where external funding opportunities can be found. Innovation unit should look for new structures to enable the attraction of additional funding for the Council as a whole.

During the initial discussions by the Future Shape Programme Board, there was the tendency to re-invent the strategic function and put this all in the HQ. The idea is to devolve responsibility to business units because they are then accountable for delivery, the County Council must be an outcomes based organisation and for obtaining the funding to do this.

The recommendations sent to the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources from the ETL Select Committee were as follows;

Recommendation 1: We recommend that BCC develop a clear corporate approach towards identifying and securing external funding, including use of data, how approaches are to be written into terms of reference for Business Units and contracts, and how any joint funding arrangements with partners are to be developed.

Recommendation 2: We recommend that corporate capacity for overseeing, coordinating and sharing intelligence for external funding bids be developed across Business Units in order to maximise opportunities to secure and use external funding, and minimise duplication and/or isolation of bidding activity.

Recommendation 3: We recommend that, to eradicate an ad hoc approach to external funding, a clear position (across Business Units) on officer time and coordination in relation to external funding be developed, and that appropriate training of officers on how to secure external funding be delivered in accordance with Future Shape commercial activity proposals. (It may be more efficient to employ an officer with targets etc. A simple business case would need to be developed to aid the decision).

Recommendation 4: We recommend, in order to ensure transparency and accountability, that external funding applications be captured in a central register and/or in published documents such as Cabinet Member annual reports, Commercial Plans, or financial quarter reports. This would allow the authority to develop a ‘corporate memory’ of lessons to learn from funding bids, share best practice/intelligence, and to raise the profile of external funding impacts.

Recommendation 5: We recommend that BCC uses the opportunity presented by Future Shape to enhance its approach to external funding with Business Units taking the lead for development guided by coordination from the corporate HQ and member input.

Recommendation 6: We support the ambition for an enhanced customer insight function within Future Shape proposals and recommend that intelligence from this function be applied to external funding bids and proposals along with cross-referencing against an external funding ‘wish list’ and prioritisation schemes.

The Committee agreed the following.

Recommendation 1

Clarification is needed on what the business units will be tasked to do.

Recommendation 2

Assurance is needed on how the successes and failures of bids for external funding are shared to enable the organisation to learn from this.

Recommendation 3

If the business units are given the full responsibility, how can it be ensured that an ad-hoc approach to external funding will be avoided?

Recommendation 4

Continuing with the theme of learning and the sharing of knowledge within the organisation, there is the fear that the business units will recreate silo working and that the bids made by each business unit could impact on each other. It needs to be ensured that cross organisation working is not lost sight of.

Recommendation 6

This recommendation is based on the some of the feedback received from Bucks Business First (BBF) and the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).  There is concern about can it be ensured the organisation does not miss the opportunities it doesn’t know about.

The Cabinet Member explained that there are relatively few funding opportunities available to local government.  The creation of the delivery units will allow additional opportunities to be found for the County Council as a whole. The idea of using the enhanced customer insight function is supported as this is a HQ role.

The Cabinet Member said the paper, points raised during discussion and his initial thoughts will be taken to the Future Shape Programme Board for discussion, following which a formal written response will be sent to the ETL Committee.

Action: Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources

The Chairman advised that the formal response would be shared with the Finance and Resource Select Committee.  As the areas by the ETL Select Committee are being addressed, any further updates should be given to the Finance and Resources Select Committee.