Agenda item

Purpose of report: Scrutiny of Services and Budgets

This report presents the revenue and capital budget outturn for 2013/14 and proposed carry forward requests to 2014/15

Declarations of interest: None

Witnesses:

Kevin Kilburn, Deputy Chief Finance Officer

Key points raised during the discussion:

1        A report from the Committee’s Performance & Finance Sub-Group was tabled at the meeting.  A copy of this report is included as an attachment to these Minutes.

2        It was reported that the out-turn was largely as expected when the provisional figures were reported to the previous meeting, although there had been an increased under-spend of £800,000 as a result of the timing of costs related to the winter flooding.  The £6M shortfall in the achievement of efficiencies for the year was in line with the projection which had been reported since September 2013.

3        It was noted that the Council had made a provision of £700,000 to cover the risk of potential costs of claims relating to closed landfill sites, in line with the advice of auditors. 

4        Details were requested about the size of the bid made to the Department of Transport pothole fund, referred to in the last paragraph of page 48 of the report.

5        The Committee was concerned about the £3.6M staffing budget under-spend due to recruitment delays in Adult Social Care, and it was noted that this was largely due to competition for staff with the London Boroughs.  This issue was being looked at by the Adult Social Care Select Committee, and the Committee requested details about specific initiatives undertaken by the Service to address the problem.

6        The Committee noted that further details about the virement for the Children’s Services Contact Centre re-alignment referred to in paragraph 4 of Annex 2 would be circulated to the Committee.

7        Details of the six Council priorities for which performance was rated red, as highlighted in the report of the Sub-Group, were noted.  The Committee agreed the following recommendations:

(a)  That the Adult Social Care and Environment & Transport Select Committees scrutinise performance against the three priorities in each of their Directorates for which performance was rated as red at year-end 2013/14.

(b)   That the following process be adopted for scrutiny of year-end performance results:

·         Each Select Committee to scrutinise year-end performance information for the priorities within their remit annually at their May/June meeting, with services providing written explanation of the reasons for any priority rated as red.

·         That the outcomes of the scrutiny be reported to the Council Overview & Scrutiny Committee annually at its meeting in July.

Action by: Scrutiny Officers

8        The Chairman reported that he had called-in the recent Cabinet decision relating to Grant Criteria and Funding Opportunities Guide, and Members would be canvassed about possible dates for the call-in meeting.

Actions/further information to be provided:

Further details about the virement for the Children’s Services Contact Centre re-alignment referred to in paragraph 4 of Annex 2 to be circulated to the Committee.

Action by: Kevin Kilburn

Details to be provided about the bid made to the Department of Transport pothole fund.

Action by: Kevin Kilburn

Details to be provided about specific initiatives undertaken by the Adult Social Care Service to address the issue of significant vacancies in reablement and front-line teams.

Action by: Ken Akers

Committee next steps: None.