Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor M Tett. Councillors Barnes, Bracken and Newcombe were appointed as new Committee Members, replacing Councillors Ashman, Egleton and Ng.

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The Chairman confirmed the appointment of Councillor D Goss as Vice-Chairman of the Finance and Resources Select Committee for the ensuing year.

The minutes of the meetings held on 7 April 2022 and 18 May 2022 to be confirmed as a correct record.

The minutes of the meetings held on 7 April 2022 and 18 May 2022 were agreed as a correct record.

Public questions is an opportunity for people who live, work or study in Buckinghamshire to put a question to a Select Committee.

The Committee will hear from members of the public who have submitted questions in advance relating to items on the agenda. The Cabinet Member, relevant key partners and responsible officers will be invited to respond.

Further information on how to register can be found here: https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/your-council/get-involved-with-council-decisions/select-committees/

There were none.

To consider a report that outlines lessons learnt from other Local Authorities and how they have been applied at Buckinghamshire Council.

Contributors:

Councillor John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Sarah-Murphy-Brookman, Corporate Director – Resources

Matthew Strevens, Head of Finance – Corporate

Mark Preston, Head of Projects & Pensions

Nick Graham, Service Director – Legal & Democratic Services

Papers:

Lessons learnt from other Local Authorities

Appendix 1: Consolidated Action Plan for Improvements

The Chairman welcomed Councillor John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources, and the officers to the meeting.

The Cabinet Member introduced the report and highlighted the following key points:

·       The report was a six-month update on lessons learnt from other local authorities. The last report had been presented to the Audit and Governance Committee on 25 January 2022.

·       Over the past two years, several declarations of insolvency and public interest and best value reports had been issued to a number of authorities. Buckinghamshire Council had taken the approach of reviewing recommendations from these reports and assess best practice to avoid similar issues. Two external reports covering finance and governance in relation to Slough Borough Council and an independent governance report in relation to Northumberland County Council had also been considered.

·       The Select Committee report examined recommendations made in these reports and related them to Buckinghamshire Council. It further provided an update on the consolidated action plan which identified areas for improvement. Buckinghamshire Council did not experience any significant issues in these areas but reports on other authorities’ issues were constantly being monitored to identify best practice to improve financial processes and governance arrangements.

The following points were noted during the Committee’s discussion:

·       A Member noted that a peer review had been undertaken for Slough Borough Council and asked whether such a process could also be considered for Buckinghamshire Council, for example by the Local Government Association (LGA). Members were advised that the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) had examined the financial systems and processes as part of Buckinghamshire Council’s service review and shared recommendations with the Council which had been considered.

·       A Member raised concerns about the transparency of the Buckinghamshire Shareholder Committee Meetings. Whilst the Member understood why a large portion of these meetings were confidential, they maintained that public records of the work undertaken by the committee were necessary to ensure effective public scrutiny. The Cabinet Member explained that this new committee had been set up following a recommendation of a recent report on local authority governance with respect to control of subsidiary companies. Previously, such reports had gone to the Cabinet with an open discussion being held prior to entering a confidential session. This open discussion would continue in future Cabinet Meetings. However, the purpose of the Shareholder Committee was for a subcommittee of the Cabinet to focus on governance procedures and to ensure there was no conflict of interest between Members and subsidiary companies. As the Committee also reviewed whether the companies were fit for purpose or required governance changes and discussed confidential property and financial matters, confidential sessions would be necessary. Additionally, statutory provisions were in place to ensure that commercially sensitive information remained confidential.  For future Shareholder meetings, consideration would be given on extracting information from confidential reports, such as business plans, so that part of the discussion could be held in the public domain.

·       Although there were some significant differences between Buckinghamshire Council and Slough Borough Council, valuable  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Revenue and Capital Outturn Report for the financial year 2021-22 as presented to Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday 7 June is attached for the Committee to consider.

Contributors:

Councillor John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Sarah-Murphy-Brookman, Corporate Director – Resources

Matthew Strevens, Head of Finance – Corporate

Mark Preston, Head of Projects & Pensions

Papers:

Budget Monitoring Outturn 2021-22

The Chairman invited the Cabinet Member for Finance, Resources, Property and Assets, Councillor J Chilver, to introduce the report. In the Cabinet Member’s presentation, the following points were highlighted:

·       The report set out the final financial outturn position for the financial year 2021-2022. It showed a more favourable position compared to the forecast position in the previous quarter on revenue overall. There was a £2.2m favourable variance, which was up from the £0.9 million forecast in quarter three.£7.7m of unrequired contingencies were built into the original budget due to the uncertainties and risks, particularly linked to COVID. It had been recommended that both these variances and the unused contingencies (total of £9.9m) be transferred to a specific reserve. This was to mitigate the growing financial risks in the current year and beyond linked to increased inflationary pressures, global turbulence, local government finance reform, and the new adult social care reforms. This affected both the Council’s direct costs and the costs of providers.

·       Construction inflation at 20% was particularly impacting on the Council’s future capital programme table.

·       Main overspends were seen in the education and children's services, transport, and health and wellbeing portfolios. The climate change and environment portfolio had seen an underspend, mainly delivered by increased revenue from the energy from waste plant.

·       There was forecast net slippage of £18.7m, which was an improvement on the quarter three position of £22.5m. This represented 9.5% of the overall capital budget, which is within the council's target of 10%. The slippage is mainly a result of COVID implications, including the availability of building materials and components. It had been recommended that slippage is carried into future years on already improved capital schemes.

·       Work had been undertaken to ensure the capital program was as realistic as possible. However, current inflationary pressures meant that a review needed to be undertaken. A task and finish group had been set up to review the capital budget to identify potential savings.

·       The Council achieved £12.8m of savings, which was below the target of £13.2m. Overall debt levels had been reduced over recent months. Unsecured debt over 90 days was at £8.5m, decreased from £10m in quarter three. Debt recovery had been affected by COVID, with suspensions of court activity. However, a recent focus on outstanding debt had significantly helped the overall position.

·       The overall performance for the last quarter on prompt payments to suppliers was 95%.

The following points were noted during the Committee’s discussion:

·       Comparing the council’s 10% slippage target to other local authorities was difficult due to some authorities adjusting their budget throughout the year. However, in comparison to published results from other authorities, Buckinghamshire Council’s slippage levels were good.

·       Prompt payment to suppliers was measured against two targets. For local, smaller, and medium-sized enterprises, the target timeframe for payment was 10 days. The general terms for payment were 30 days. As these timeframes were measured from the date on the invoice, delays in payment could occur as a result of processing time to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Q4 Performance Report 2021-22 as presented to Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday 7 June is attached for the Committee to consider.

Contributors:

Councillor John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Matthew Everitt, Interim Service Director – Service Improvement

Papers:

Q4 Performance Report 2021-22

The Chairman invited the Cabinet Member for Finance, Resources, Property and Assets, Councillor J Chilver, to introduce the report. In the Cabinet Member’s presentation, the following points were highlighted:

·        The report detailed the quarter four performance outturns and commentary for the Council's Key Performance Indicators. Trend data showing performance along with national and regional benchmarking in information was provided where possible.

·        There were 115 indicators in the report. Most of them represented the year-end outturn, though some data was provided in arrears. A small number of indicators were updated annually. Improvement actions were listed against each indicator if applicable.

·        The report showed that 71% of indicators were green and 22% are red. This reflected a good performance across a number of key areas. The proportion of green indicators had increased compared to the previous quarter, which was 69%. However, red indicators had also increased from 18% in quarter three.

The following points were noted during the Committee’s discussion:

·       A Member noted that there was no historical data provided for the climate change and environment KPI. This information had not been available at the time of publishing the quarter four reports and data would be published as an agreed indicator in future.

·       Comparison was drawn between the council’s budgeted 9 days staff sickness compared to the ONS average data of 4.6 days for 2021. The Cabinet Member explained that sickness levels were higher during Covid but had returned to pre-Covid levels. In the 2021 calendar year, the average sickness levels were at 8.42 days, which was comparable with other local authorities. There was a discrepancy between public and private sector sickness levels, the latter of which was generally lower. Local authorities were multi-purpose businesses, with some jobs requiring mental health considerations (e.g. anxiety and depression in social care). As lockdown has ended and officers returned to the office, there had also been more staff members sick with colds. The Committee was assured that interventions were being put in place, for example physiotherapy at council depots, to mitigate muscular/skeletal sickness absences. It was also found that return-to-work conversations had been important to make staff feel understood and valued when returning to the workplace after sickness. Managers were also attending workshops on effective return-to-work discussions for both long- and short-term sickness. The lower levels of sickness absence in the private sector could be explained by employees going to work despite being sick as a result of not receiving sick pay.

·       A Member noted that the average number of abandoned phone calls in the call centre in the last quarter had exceeded the 10% target (at 11.3%). The Cabinet Member advised that there had been an increase in customer contact after the Council followed up on unpaid Council Tax, as well as the new Revenue & Benefits system being implemented. These had resulted in the higher number of abandoned calls in Q4. The ability for customers to request call-backs from the team and advising customers of their position in the queue had also been helpful.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Quarter 1 Budget Monitoring Report as presented to Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday 12 July is attached for the Committee to consider.

Contributors:

Councillor John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Sarah-Murphy-Brookman, Corporate Director – Resources

Matthew Strevens, Head of Finance – Corporate

Mark Preston, Head of Projects & Pensions

Papers:

Q1 Budget Monitoring Report

The Chairman invited the Cabinet Member for Finance, Resources, Property and Assets, Councillor J Chilver, to introduce the report. In the Cabinet Member’s presentation, the following points were highlighted:

·       The report included data from April to June and included a forecast adverse variance of £3.8m (1% of portfolio budgets). This was made up of a £10.4m adverse variance on portfolio spend offset by £6.6 million of corporate mitigations. The largest adverse variances included Health and Wellbeing, Education and Children’s Services and Accessible Housing and Resources, which was largely attributable to energy costs, inflation, and variance in transport costs for school transport. This was offset by a favourable variance of £1.1m in the Climate Change Portfolio, due to the sale of electricity; and £6.6m favourable variants in corporate costs due to the forecast release of specific contingency budgets. These had been set aside to mitigate risks. Portfolio holders continued to look for further mitigations to bring forecast spend in line with the approved budget.

·       The current level of inflation was having a significant effect on capital budgets. A member-led Task & Finish Group was reviewing the Capital Programme.

·       £19.2m of savings were incorporated in the current year’s budget, of which £19m was forecast to be delivered. The overall debt levels had continued to see a downward trend, currently at £8.7m over 0 days. In terms of payment, the target of 95% within 30 days has been achieved (98% in April and 96% in May).

The following points were noted during the Committee’s discussion:

·       It was suggested that early warning indicators for Children’s Services could be monitored more closely. The Cabinet Member explained that the service’s pressures were a result of staffing and placements costs, increased volume and complexity of cases and inflation. The Council was attempting to mitigate these issues through forward planning, for example by attempting to reduce agency costs through offering more placements and affordable accommodation.

·       The Cabinet Member advised that funding for the Homes for Ukraine scheme had been ringfenced and would be reported through the Communities portfolio The funds were received in arrears from central Government and it would be important to examine options for accommodation after the end of the six-month programme; this was on the council’s risk register. Members were encouraged to write to the relevant Cabinet Member if they sought additional information.

·       Whilst a Member acknowledged the prudency of last year’s budget, it was suggested that consideration be given to whether any funds could deployed to assist residents with the cost of living crisis.

The Corporate Key Performance Indicators 2022/23 report as presented to Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday 13 July is attached for the Committee to consider.

Contributors:

Councillor John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources

Matthew Everitt, Interim Service Director – Service Improvement

Papers:

Corporate Key Performance Indicators 2022/23

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Resources, Property and Assets, Councillor J Chilver, introduced the report. The report detailed the 116 Key Performance Indicators agreed for the current financial year. These would be updated annually and linked to the priorities in the corporate plan.

The following points were noted during the Committee’s discussion:

·       The Cabinet Member agreed that a KPI for spending money may be ineffective and would consider how this could be amended.

·       A Member felt that whilst interventions for smoking and drug use were important to examine, KPIs relating to public health should be expanded to include obesity and diabetes. The Cabinet Member agreed and would refer the feedback to the Director of Public Health.

·       The Council engaged in different KPI benchmarking exercises with different comparative groups depending on the indicators and areas being investigated. The Council used information from the nearest neighbours to both set targets and monitor performance, as well as to better understand the needs of the population.

·        The Cabinet Member agreed with the suggestions that a KPI be introduced to indicate how the ‘homes built against housing requirements’ target (PRE 010) would relate to other planning matters and also that the five-year housing supply, which had been agreed by the legacy district councils, be allocated based on these legacy areas rather than all of Buckinghamshire.

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member for the report.

The Committee will discuss the work programme and agree the items for the next meeting.

Contributors:

All Committee Members

Papers:

Work Programme attached

Members were encouraged to suggest items for consideration in 2022/23’s work programme and could email these to the Chairman and the scrutiny officer.

The next meeting will take place on Thursday 22 September at 2pm.

Thursday 22 September 2022 at 2pm.