Declarations of interest:
None
Witnesses:
Michael Coughlin, Director of
Customer, Digital and Transformation, Surrey County
Council
Kevin Foster, Chief Operating
Officer, East Sussex County Council
David Kuenssberg, Executive Director of Finance and
Resourcing, Brighton and Hove City Council
Louise Lawson, Senior Principal
Accountant, Surrey County Council
Adrian Stockbridge – Head
of Strategy, Performance & Change, Surrey County
Council
Key
points raised during the discussion:
-
Clarity was sought on why the Full Year Variances
for Services within the Orbis
Partnership had been omitted from the report. Officers indicated
that spending across service areas was difficult to predict several
months prior to the end of the financial year due to a lack of
clarity around potential areas of underspend and overspend. Members
were, however, advised that there was the likelihood of an
underspend of £100,000 within the Finance Team, a saving
which would benefit all partners. Further information was requested
on whether the savings forecast for Orbis in 2018/19 were achievable and the Committee
was advised that there was uncertainty around some of the savings
projected but that steps were being taken to mitigate the risks to
delivering these.
-
Discussions turned to the Orbis Joint Operating Budget for the financial year
2018/19, the Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) contribution to
which had been increased by £0.2 million. Members were
informed that this was a technical adjustment in BHCC’s
financial contribution to Orbis as
funding allocations had been moved from one area of the budget to
another. This enabled the variance to be agreed through
BHCC’s Targeted Budget Management process. Officers agreed to
highlight variations in BHCC’s contribution to Orbis more clearly through financial reporting
mechanisms in future.
-
Further information was requested on the overspend
within the Property Service. The Committee was advised that it may
be necessary to recruit more staff into the Property Service to
meet core objectives. Members heard that the Service was holding a
number of vacancies and that a restructure would be undertaken in
2019 to determine posts that could be deleted.
-
Clarity was sought on progress that had been made in
implementing the recommendations made through the Internal Audit
report. Members were advised that the audit had taken place
immediately following BHCC’s inclusion in the partnership
which meant that delivering against these recommendations was about
continued integration. Specific reference was made to the work of
the Finance Team which was working to automate more aspects of its
financial reporting and the support that it provided to individual
services with the partnership.
-
The Committee was advised that the Property &
Design Service within BHCC had resisted efforts to integrate with
Orbis which had not been as proactive
as other BHCC services in terms of integration with Orbis which had created some challenges around
implementing Orbis budget processes.
Efforst were being made to ensure that
this service plays a bigger part in budget processes. BHCC would
become part of the budget setting and management process from the
2019/2020 financial year and this would support a sense of shared
ownership of the Orbis budget. Members
heard that BHCC had long established processes in place for
managing service budgets and that there had been some challenges
associated with moving onto Orbis
budget management processes.
Actions/ further information to be provided:
- Variations to
BHCC’s contribution to the Orbis
Partnership budget to be highlighted more clearly within
BHCC’s financial reporting in future.
RESOLVED:
That the Orbis Joint
Committee:
- noted the Orbis operating budget
variance of -£0.2m at year end;
- noted the£1m estimated full year spend on Orbis investment;
- noted the year to date spend of £0.8m on
redundancies;
- noted the agency expenditure of £0.6m (2% of
staffing);
- noted the Services plan to achieve £4.6m efficiencies by
year end;
- noted the Audit report on Orbis
budget management; and
- approved the £0.04m transfer to the Orbis operating budget.