Agenda, decisions and minutes

Apologies were received from Cllr Angela Macpherson. Zahir Mohammed attended as the Deputy Cabinet Member for Public Health.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 9 May 2023.

RESOLVED – That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 9 May 2023 were agreed as a correct record, subject to an amendment to the six monthly adult social care update (first bullet point) to say that “The Service area was currently getting 3,500 contacts per quarter with an increased ageing population and people with learning disabilities”.

There were no declarations of interest.

The following hot topics were discussed:

Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment

Buckinghamshire Council was one of the first Council’s to upcycle one of their refuge trucks (7 year old diesel) and convert it to an electric vehicle which would help the air quality, carbon emissions and support local businesses. This was undertaken by Silverstone Enterprise Zone.

Cabinet Member for Transport

Following heavy storms in the County, particularly affecting the North, the out of hours team had been working hard dealing with flash floods and fallen trees; 11 in the north of the County and two in the South. The Cabinet Member also provided an update on the ongoing maintenance programme with 3,750 defects being addressed since the start of April; there were 15 crews out undertaking works on a seven day a week basis. The Council had put in additional funding to help longer term treatment schemes; 29 schemes out of 200 had been completed this year and these schemes would make improvements across the whole County. 812 street lights had also been fixed. He also referred to the good weather and verge growth and the need for residents to report any concerns about visibility; cuts were being undertaken. The Leader also referred to the new piece of machinery being used, the Pothole Pro was a time-saving, three-in-one vehicle designed to make pothole repairs faster and jet patchers particularly helped with rural roads. 

Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services

The Council would be hosting the first Buckinghamshire School Awards celebrating teachers and school staff across the county. There would be 12 award categories with one award open to public nominations. The winning entry in each category would be announced at a celebration event, kindly hosted by Pinewood Studios, on Wednesday 21 June 2023.

Cabinet Member for Planning and Enforcement

Buckinghamshire Council’s Planning and Environment Team has been voted Local Authority Planning Team of the Year at the national Planning Awards. The awards recognised excellence and best practice in all aspects of planning and environment, including being a high performing authority for planning enforcement. One of the many reasons for the win was how Buckinghamshire had reshaped the service from the previous separate legacy councils planning functions to deliver a fully integrated and customer-focussed planning service. They were currently working on a new single local plan and were at the forefront of digital innovation in planning, also taking part in a national pilot for the local nature recovery strategy. Cabinet Members passed on their personal congratulations.

Cabinet Member for Communities

On Monday 12 June, Buckinghamshire Council’s Armed Forces Conference was held between 2pm and 6pm. There were a number of stalls and the event was also attended by businesses some of whom had signed up to the Armed Forces Covenant.

Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure

The Cabinet Member announced that the installation of a new play area in Higginson Park, Marlow, had been built in early June. The new play area would feature:

·    a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Question from Councillor Robin Stuchbury to Councillor Angela Macpherson, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing  

“I have been made aware of a case of a Buckingham resident’s experience in a Milton Keynes Hospital who has not been discharged for five months as his care home said they could no longer cater for his needs.  For Buckingham residents this seems to be the norm rather than the exception. There was also confusion about who was responsible for funding and for submitting necessary forms.  Could the Cabinet Member please explain who is responsible for co-ordinating hospital discharges to facilitate a move from Milton Keynes to Buckinghamshire health and social care and for delivering good outcomes for these residents including communicating with relatives about their pathway. In particular how is Buckinghamshire Council collaborating with partners to resolve discharge issues with neighbouring Trusts to improve things for the future? “

Question from Councillor Robin Stuchbury to Councillor Angela Macpherson, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing

“I have been made aware of a case of a Buckingham resident’s experience in a Milton Keynes Hospital who has not been discharged for five months as his care home said they could no longer cater for his needs.  For Buckingham residents this seems to be the norm rather than the exception. There was also confusion about who was responsible for funding and for submitting necessary forms.  Could the Cabinet Member please explain who is responsible for co-ordinating hospital discharges to facilitate  a move from Milton Keynes to Buckinghamshire health and social care and for delivering good outcomes for these residents including communicating with relatives about their pathway. In particular how is Buckinghamshire Council collaborating with partners to resolve discharge issues with neighbouring Trusts to improve things for the future? “

RESPONSE from Councillor Z Mohammed (on behalf of A Macpherson)

I am sorry to hear of the reported experience of the Buckingham resident and thank you for drawing this case to my attention. Adult social care aims to ensure each and every person receives clear information about discharge and timely support through joint working with our partners. Whilst this individual’s experience is not the norm, I apologise for the service received and the learning from this case is feeding into our Health and Social Care Integration Programme.

For Buckinghamshire residents who need social care support when they are discharged from Milton Keynes University Hospital, the Council’s Adult Social Care service works closely with the Hospital to support and organise care, either in the resident’s own home or other long term care setting, such as a care home.

We have a social worker based at Milton Keynes University Hospital and daily communication with the hospital to support such discharges and to ensure there is effective liaison with the individual and their relatives. In addition to this Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust and Milton Keynes University Hospital work closely together to identify Buckinghamshire residents who may require rehabilitation and transfer to a community hospital (such as Buckingham Community Hospital).

Improving hospital discharge for our residents is the key focus of the health and care integration programme. With respect to social care, social workers will start speaking with patients and their families earlier in their hospital stay (working with ward-based multidisciplinary teams) to start planning the patient’s discharge. The key benefit of this will be reduced delays and a much better hospital discharge experience for our residents who will require social care. In Buckinghamshire, we are setting up a new “Transfer of Care Hub” to be operational by October. This new team is being designed to co-ordinate discharges efficiently, with case-managers for more complex cases, and a dedicated role co-ordinating out of county cases. This marks a significant change from current processes. We are also working with neighbouring areas, including Milton Keynes, on the development of their transfer of care services. Neighbouring systems are represented within  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Leader introduced the Forward Plan and commended it to all Members of the Council and the public, as a document that gave forewarning of what reports would be discussing at forthcoming meetings.

RESOLVED – That the Cabinet Forward Plan be noted.

The report set out the Revenue and Capital outturn position for Buckinghamshire Council for the financial year 2022/23.

The Council was continuing to experience significant financial pressures due to high levels of inflation and continued increase in demand and complexity in key services, such as Adults Social Care and Children’s Social Care. Portfolio budgets had seen unavoidable pressures in areas such as energy inflation, in the cost of placements for looked after children, in Adult Social Care, Temporary Accommodation and provision of Home to School Transport, with an adverse variance of £9.8m across portfolio budgets at financial year end. Despite these pressures, the Council had managed to achieve a balanced revenue position overall, due to the effective processes in place for managing financial risk; pressures in portfolio budgets had been managed overall and mitigated by a favourable variance in corporate budgets.

One of the recommendations proposed the following transfer to reserves:-(paragraph 2.4 (b)(vii))

·        a transfer of £0.5m to the Collection Fund reserve from additional grant income from Business Rates levy surplus;

·        a transfer to the Highways Reserve of £0.5m to fund Highways lining;

·        a transfer of £4.7m to the Mitigating Future Financial Risks reserve.

The final year end position on capital was spend of £107.5m against a budget of £151.9m, and against total released budget of £129.9m, equating to 17% variance against released budgets. Capital projects which were successfully completed this year included Kingsbrook Secondary School, Brunel Shed in Wycombe (which had now been leased out), the £1.8m DEFRA-funded Rural Broadband installation programme, the Berryfields and Haydon Hill Cycleways, upgrades to the Southern Waste Depot, a roof replacement on Bedgrove Community Centre, 7 School toilet projects, and SEN placement projects in Shortenhills, Holmer Green Senior School, Westfield and Princes Risborough Upper School.

Many capital projects had been impacted by the current challenging economic situation, with high levels of construction inflation, pressures in the labour market, supply shortages and delays to acquisitions causing slippage in the programme. This was reflected in the relatively high levels of slippage, but low level of overspends. Where necessary, projects were being reviewed and re-scoped and funding implications were being considered.

The final outturn variance of £44.3m consisted of slippage into future years of £53.8m, accelerated spend ahead of profile of £16.3m, overspends of £4.0m, and underspends of £10.9m which would be released for other purposes. Cabinet was requested to approve the carry forward of slippage to future years and accelerated spend as detailed in the Cabinet report.

RESOLVED:

1)      That the report and success in achieving an overall balanced revenue outturn position for 2022-23 be NOTED. 

2)      That an increase to the Revenue Contribution to Capital Reserves (RCCR) of £0.6m be APPROVED to fund an update to the CCTV Control Room. 

3)      That the transfer to reserves as set out in paragraph 2.4 (b)(vii) of the Cabinet report be APPROVED. 

4)      That the overall Capital outturn position of £107.5m of investment in Council capital priorities be NOTED. 

5)      That the carry-forward of slippage  ...  view the full decision text for item 7.

The report set out the Revenue and Capital outturn position for Buckinghamshire Council for the financial year 2022/23.

The Council was continuing to experience significant financial pressures due to high levels of inflation and continued increase in demand and complexity in key services, such as Adults Social Care and Children’s Social Care, but however managed to have a balanced budget at year end due to robust financial management. Portfolio budgets had seen unavoidable pressures in areas such as energy inflation, in the cost of placements for looked after children, in Adult Social Care, Temporary Accommodation and provision of Home to School Transport, with an adverse variance of £9.8m across portfolio budgets at financial year end. Despite these pressures, the Council had managed to achieve a balanced revenue position overall, due to the effective processes in place for managing financial risk; pressures in portfolio budgets had been managed overall and mitigated by a favourable variance in corporate budgets due to contingencies set aside to manage risk, interest income and income from the energy from waste incinerator.

The biggest overspends by portfolio were £4.9 million in children’s social care due to the lack of national placements, £4.7 million in homelessness and regulatory services from a significant increase in demand for temporary accommodation, £3.2 million in transport services due to increased contract costs in home to school transport, £2.4 million in health and wellbeing due to demand and fee uplifts, £2.1 million in accessible housing and resources mainly due to inflation on energy costs for council properties. On the other hand, there was a favourable variance of £7.2 million in climate change and environment from additional income from the sale of electricity from the energy to waste site. On savings the Council achieved 96% of the £19.2 million savings.

One of the recommendations proposed the following transfer to reserves:-(paragraph 2.4 (b)(vii))

·        a transfer of £0.5m to the Collection Fund reserve from additional grant income from Business Rates levy surplus;

·        a transfer to the Highways Reserve of £0.5m to fund Highways lining;

·        a transfer of £4.7m to the Mitigating Future Financial Risks reserve.

The final year end position on capital was spend of £107.5m against a budget of £151.9m, and against total released budget of £129.9m, equating to 17% variance against released budgets compared to the target of 10%. Capital projects which were successfully completed this year included Kingsbrook Secondary School, Brunel Shed in Wycombe (which had now been leased out), the £1.8m DEFRA-funded Rural Broadband installation programme, the Berryfields and Haydon Hill Cycleways, upgrades to the Southern Waste Depot, a roof replacement on Bedgrove Community Centre, 7 School toilet projects, and SEN placement projects in Shortenhills, Holmer Green Senior School, Westfield and Princes Risborough Upper School.

Many capital projects had been impacted by the current challenging economic situation, with high levels of construction inflation, pressures in the labour market, supply shortages and delays to acquisitions causing slippage in the programme. This was reflected in the relatively high levels of slippage, but  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Cabinet received a performance report, which detailed the key performance measures reported through the Corporate Performance Framework for 2022/23. Cabinet also received the performance scorecard, which provided information on four key elements of performance for the Council covering Finance, Customer Service, Performance and Human Resources indicators. Within the performance report and performance scorecard, outturns which were performing at or better than target were classified as Green, those which were within 5% of the target were Amber and those which were more than 5% of the target were Red. At the end of Quarter 4, 116 indicators had outturns reported with a Red, Amber or Green status. Of these, 63 were Green (54%), 11 were Amber (9%) and 26 were Red (22%)

RESOLVED -

1)    That the Council’s performance for the Quarter 4 period 2022-23 be NOTED. 

2)      That the actions being taken to improve future performance, where required, be NOTED. 

Cabinet received a performance report, which detailed the key performance measures reported through the Corporate Performance Framework for 2022/23. Cabinet also received the performance scorecard, which provided information on four key elements of performance for the Council covering Finance, Customer Service, Performance and Human Resources indicators. Within the performance report and performance scorecard, outturns which were performing at or better than target were classified as Green, those which were within 5% of the target were Amber and those which were more than 5% of the target were Red. At the end of Quarter 4, 116 indicators had outturns reported with a Red, Amber or Green status. Of these, 63 were Green (54%), 11 were Amber (9%) and 26 were Red (22%)

The following areas were reported by each of the Cabinet Members on their performance measures :-

Leader

Buckinghamshire unemployment rate as a percentage of National unemployment rate – 68% as opposed to a target of 55%

The target was for the percentage unemployed in Buckinghamshire to be less than 55% of the percentage unemployed nationally. The Leader reported that this was due to the general downturn in the economy, but Buckinghamshire still had a fairly good claimant rate in terms of the national picture. One of the issues was that it was quite variable, and rates varied across the County, with the Wycombe Parliamentary Constituency area reporting a Claimant Count rate that exceeds the national average (4.0%). There were hotspots across the County which was one of the reasons the Opportunity Bucks Programme was introduced to target those areas. Work was ongoing with Bucks Business First and the Local Enterprise Partnership and other organisations to target improvement initiatives.

Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Average webchat response time – 1 13 seconds against a target of 50 s

The Cabinet Member reported that they had recently rolled this out across the majority of pages on the website to provide an alternative contact channel and the volumes of the webchat were increasing which was good news but staff were still in the process of being trained. Performance in the period had been impacted by the Revenues and Benefits recovery action being restarted following the system closure, this had meant that Customer Service resource had been diverted to assist with spikes in telephone contact as well as ongoing work to train additional resources. Improvement Actions were to explore opportunities to deploy AI at the beginning of live chats, to handle FAQs without human intervention required.

Average Call Wait Time - 4 39 seconds against a target of 3 s

The reduction in performance compared with Q3 was due to a significant increase in the number of calls received in Q4, with two spikes in call wait times across the quarter. These spikes in demand were driven by cyclical activity: council tax recovery action (22,000 letters issued) and annual billing cycle (270,000 bills issued). However, this could be compared to some of his green indicators where 94.5% of phone calls had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Cabinet received a report which sought approval to exercise an Option to Purchase the freehold of the High Wycombe Social Club building on Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe; lease back space to the Club and also for storage for the town’s Chair Collection; refurbish and improve the building in the process, as part of the Future High Streets funded ‘Southern Gateway’ area improvement. Cabinet Members suggested that other options for development should be considered which would still meet the requirements of the Government funding.

RESOLVED – 

1) That the Council exercise the Option to Purchase the freehold interest in the High Wycombe Social Club (‘HWSC’) on Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe

2) That authority be delegated to the Service Director – Property and Assets, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources, to agree the terms of the purchase and further to agree the terms of entering into a lease for HWSC; and to consider other development options as appropriate on condition that this would not have any adverse impact on the Future High Streets funding from Government.

The Cabinet received a report which sought approval to exercise an Option to Purchase the freehold of the High Wycombe Social Club building on Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe; lease back space to the Club and also for storage for the town’s Chair Collection; refurbish and improve the building in the process, as part of the Future High Streets funded ‘Southern Gateway’ area improvement. The Future High Streets Programme aimed at helping regenerate High Wycombe town centre by acquiring and refurbishing properties in need of improvement and the list of acquisitions had been approved by Government. The capital released on the sale of the freehold would fund a refit of the facilities with a new riverside external sitting area overlooking the River Wye. Following discussion, Cabinet Members suggested that other options for development should be considered which would still meet the requirements of the Government funding.

RESOLVED – 

1) That the Council exercise the Option to Purchase the freehold interest in the High Wycombe Social Club (‘HWSC’) on Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe

2) That authority be delegated to the Service Director – Property and Assets, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources, to agree the terms of the purchase and further to agree the terms of entering into a lease for HWSC; and to consider other development options as appropriate on condition that this would not have any adverse impact on the Future High Streets funding from Government.

To resolve that under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item(s) of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Act.

RESOLVED -

that under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item(s) of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Act.

Paragraph 3   Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

Cabinet Members discussed the confidential appendices and made some amendments to the recommendations.

11 July 2023 at 10am

11 July 2023.