Issue - meetings

(a)       That the contents of the report be noted; and

(b)       That written responses be provided to Councillor Woolley’s written observations and questions, by 8 August 2014.

The Chief Executive introduced an update on the Functional Value for Money (VFM) Programme and the Programme Management arrangements in place, as requested at the previous meeting.  A total of £7.5m of functional VFM efficiencies were included in the 2014/15 budget, monitored through a programme management system supported by the tracking spreadsheet shared with Members which showed progress and levels of risk.  This indicated that overall progress against individual targets was consistently strong.  The workforce efficiencies achieved at this stage were below target with further work to be done.

The Corporate Finance Manager spoke about the monitoring process to assess progress and risk on each initiative, involving communication links between Service Heads and Finance Managers, regular review by the Functional VFM Board and updates to the Chief Officer Team.  Progress on the achievement of all efficiencies included in the 2014/15 budget would be incorporated in the regular budget monitoring reports from Month 3.

Councillor Robin Guest asked whether the identification of around 40% of target workforce efficiencies had resulted in specific savings.  The Chief Executive confirmed that these efficiencies had been achieved to date through the reduction of posts at all levels by voluntary agreement.

Councillor Arnold Woolley suggested that the format of the spreadsheet could be improved by avoiding the use of acronyms and replacing the colour coding with a corner flash or ‘RAG’ status circle to reduce printing costs and for ease of reading.  The Chief Executive agreed to review this but explained that the document was a standard format used by officers and shared with the Committee.  Councillor Woolley went on to suggest the inclusion of more detail on the delivery of actions, such as the allocation of workload from voluntary redundant posts, and commented on the updating of information in the spreadsheet.

In response to queries raised on efficiencies for Learning Disabilities, the Chief Executive said that consultation on changes to on-call arrangements were taking place and that the two other efficiencies questioned in this area were both achievable.

In thanking Councillor Woolley for his questions, the Chair suggested that the full list of questions be passed to the officers to enable a detailed response to be shared with the full Committee prior to the next meeting.  Councillor Woolley agreed and went on to refer to the Committee’s role in scrutinising. The Chief Executive agreed with this approach given that some of the issues within the spreadsheet were specialist areas and said that a response would be provided to the Committee within a week.  Councillor Clive Carver asked that the questions and answers be circulated to the Committee by email as well as hard copy.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the contents of the report be noted; and

(b)       That written responses be provided to Councillor Woolley’s written observations and questions, by 8 August 2014.