Agenda, decisions and minutes

No declarations of interest were made. 

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the last meeting.

That subject to the suggested amendment, the minutes be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman. 

The minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 11 July 2013 had been circulated to Members with the agenda. 

Accuracy

            Councillor Ian Dunbar referred to the penultimate paragraph on page 7 and suggested that the second sentence should be amended to read ‘He also felt that the Minister who had made a statement about foodbanks was a disgrace and said that people were forced to use foodbanks due to the Welfare Reform cuts.

Matters Arising

In response to a question from Councillor Haydn Bateman on whether a response had been received from Welsh Government on the application for costs by Streetscene during the severe weather, the Leader of the Council said that a response had been received but that the criteria had not been met for the payment from the emergency scheme. 

Councillor Marion Bateman referred to the final paragraph on page 1 and asked for further information on the additional superannuation costs.  The Corporate Finance Manager agreed to meet with Councillor Bateman after the meeting to discuss the issue.     

RESOLVED:

That subject to the suggested amendment, the minutes be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman. 

That the report and the verbal updates be noted.   

The Corporate Finance Manager introduced a report to provide Members with the revenue budget monitoring 2013 (Month 3) for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which was being submitted to Cabinet on 17 September 2013. 

For the Council Fund, the projected net in-year expenditure was forecast to be £2.065m less than the budget, which was an increase of £1.065m on the £1m reported at Month 2.  This was reflected in the table at paragraph 3.01, which had been expanded to show the position at Head of Service level in line with accountability for the monitoring of budgets.  The main reason for the improvement of £1m in the forecast was due to an improved position within Social Services for Adults in Community Services as detailed in paragraph 3.04.  The significant in-year projected variances were detailed in appendices one to five together with the actions required to address each variance. 

A number of actions had been taken to strengthen financial control, budget management and financial reporting and these were detailed in paragraphs 4.02 to 4.09 of the report.  The Council’s Financial Procedure Rules had recently been updated and were agreed at Audit Committee and Constitution Committee in July 2013 and would be considered for approval by Council on 25 September 2013.  Financial Procedure Rule 3 (FPR3) in relation to Budget Management had been particularly strengthened in relation to accountability, forecasting and reporting and an extract was included at appendix 8.          

            Paragraph 5 detailed the amounts held centrally for pay inflation for the 1% pay award and for non standard price inflation in respect of Energy for Street Lighting, Energy, Fuel and Food Costs and it was currently assumed that the amounts included would be required in full. 

The risks and assumptions were identified in section 6.00 and the achievement of efficiencies were reported at section 7 where it was noted that at this early stage it was estimated that 95% of the efficiencies included in the budget would be achieved. 

Section 8 advised of the outcome of the piece of work undertaken on forecasting and trend analysis and included a recommendation that the budget for Social Services for Adults could be reduced by £1.670m and that a recurring efficiency of £1.435m be included in the MTFP. Further work was also being progressed in respect of Out of County Placements and Family Placement which would be reported in the Month 4 budget monitoring report.

The current position on unearmarked reserves was detailed in paragraphs 9.01 to 9.04 where it was reported that the Minister for Local Government & Government Business had decided not to exercise discretion to fund the Council’s claim for financial support under the Emergency Financial Assistance Scheme for costs incurred due to the severe weather in March 2013.  An allocation of £0.518m had been made from the contingency reserve to the appropriate Council Fund service accounts to finance the recovery costs expenditure. 

            The Corporate Finance Manager also advised of a projected overspend of £0.043m on the Housing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

That the report and the progress made to date by the workstream be noted.      

The Head of ICT and Customer Services introduced a report to provide an update on the Procurement Workstream within the Flintshire Futures Programme.

He detailed the three primary goals for the workstream and explained that alongside these goals, challenging efficiency targets had been set in terms of reduced spend and process efficiencies.  An electronic purchase to pay system had been introduced and since its introduction in December 2011 almost 12,000 orders with a total value of £32m had been processed.  An electronic sourcing system which would automate the remaining elements of the procurement process in relation to tendering, supplier management, contract management and the select list was also in the process of being implemented.  The Head of ICT and Customer Services explained that a new set of Contract Procedure Rules had been developed and would be considered for adoption by County Council on 25 September 2013. 

Procurement training needs had been identified and a staff training programme was being developed with the aim of improving procurement knowledge and skills across the Council.  Collaboration was a major element of the Flintshire Futures workstream and the Council was currently considering membership of the Welsh Procurement Consortium (WPC) following the dissolution of the North Wales Procurement Partnership (NWPP) earlier this year.  The Head of ICT and Customer Services provided further details of the WPC and explained that they proactively encouraged and used the Welsh market place with 73% of suppliers being based in Wales.  The Council had already committed to being a member of the new Welsh National Procurement Service (NPS) established by the Welsh Government and to avoid duplication, the WPC would focus on categories of spend not covered by the NPS.  A report on the WPC was to be considered by Cabinet on 17 September 2013. 

The Head of ICT and Customer Services explained that on a sub-regional basis, the management support for the Flintshire Central Procurement Unit had been provided on a part time basis by the Denbighshire Strategic Procurement Manager.  It had been identified that there was a duplication of efforts across various procurement initiatives and activities within both councils so to build on the progress to date and deliver the plans for the future it was proposed, subject to a full business case, that both corporate procurement units formally merge.  A report on this was to be considered by Cabinet on 17 September 2013.  A bid had been made to the Welsh Government Regional Collaboration Fund for the joint arrangements and to look at how improvement category management across the North Wales region could be introduced where there were joint specialist teams responsible for categories of spend with associated savings targets.  The Flintshire Futures Procurement workstream had achieved its savings targets for 2013/14 of £2m on an on-going basis and due to the major budget challenges ahead, increased targets for future years as part of the Medium Term Financial Plan would be set. 

In response to a question from Councillor Ian Dunbar  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

That the report and results of the Information Commissioner’s Office audit and the action plan to implement the recommendations made be noted.         

The Democracy & Governance Manager introduced a report to inform the Committee of the audit undertaken by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on Data Protection Compliance. 

He explained that the audit had been carried out in April 2013 and a report was received from the ICO in June 2013 with 38 recommendations of which 22 had been accepted, 14 partially accepted and two not accepted.  At the time of preparing the report, 11 recommendations had been implemented with a further four being implemented since.  The follow up process by the ICO will be based on an update from the Council of the agreed action plan signed off at Corporate Management Team level and this was to be submitted to the ICO by 17 January 2014. 

            Councillor Ian Dunbar queried whether the Committee could comment on the recommendations that had been proposed by ICO and amend if necessary.  The Democracy & Governance Manager said that the recommendations could not be amended as the timescale had been short and 36 of the 38 recommendations proposed had been agreed by the Council.  It was felt that the two which had not been accepted could be achieved in a different way to that suggested by the ICO.  A summary of the report was available on the ICO website. 

RESOLVED:

That the report and results of the Information Commissioner’s Office audit and the action plan to implement the recommendations made be noted.         

That the report be noted and Members support the new approach to performance reporting.

The Head of ICT and Customer Services introduced a report to provide an update on the streamlined and corporate approach to performance reporting. 

To date, quarterly reports had been submitted to the relevant Overview & Scrutiny Committee which were detailed in nature.  The effectiveness of this approach had been considered and it had been decided that quarters one and three would focus on the monitoring of the Improvement Plan activity and quarters two and four would report on performance and would be presented by the Heads of Service.  These would focus on performance exceptions, both good and poor and would ensure that ‘business as usual’ was still being monitored and reported against.  Appendix 1 to the report detailed the accountability mapping of the Council’s priorities and identified which Overview & Scrutiny would lead on each priority.  The first report would be submitted to Cabinet in October 2013, followed by quarterly updates. 

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Management said that it was important that the Improvement Plan had been adopted and that this approach would provide the opportunity to streamline and focus attention on what it was felt was relevant. 

Councillor Marion Bateman asked a question about smart meters being implemented in the Council’s housing stock and was advised by the Head of ICT and Customer Services that he would ask the Head of Housing to provide a response following the meeting. 

The Leader of the Council said that in the past the Outcome agreement had not necessarily been aligned with the priorities of the Council.  He welcomed the accountability mapping of the priorities in appendix 1 which identified which Overview and Scrutiny Committee would monitor each of the priorities. 

Councillor Paul Shotton welcomed the more streamlined approach and asked if priorities would be added to.  In response the Head of ICT and Customer Services said that the priorities had been agreed but that there was a need to ensure that they were adaptable and flexible. 

Following a comment from Councillor Ian Dunbar, the Leader of the Council provided assurance that Economy and Enterprise was a key priority for the Council. 

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted and Members support the new approach to performance reporting.              

(a)       That the report be noted;

(b)       That the Forward Work Programme be amended to move the Procurement as a Flintshire Futures Workstream to March 2014 from 14 November 2013; and

(c)        That reports on workstreams for the workforce as part of the next phase of the ‘Change Programme’ be included in the Forward Work Programme when they became available. 

The Member Engagement Manager introduced the report to consider the Forward Work Programme of the Committee. 

He detailed the items for consideration at the 10 October 2013 meeting of the Committee and explained that the Procurement as a Flintshire Futures workstream would be submitted to the March 2014 meeting of the Committee instead of the 14 November 2013 meeting.  He also referred to paragraph 3.02 and advised that the Flintshire Futures workforce workstream in its current form had reached a natural end.  New workstreams for the workforce were to be redesigned as part of the next phase of the ‘Change Programme’ and it was suggested that the Committee receive a report at a future meeting on the new workstreams when they were developed. 

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the report be noted;

(b)       That the Forward Work Programme be amended to move the Procurement as a Flintshire Futures Workstream to March 2014 from 14 November 2013; and

(c)        That reports on workstreams for the workforce as part of the next phase of the ‘Change Programme’ be included in the Forward Work Programme when they became available. 

There was one member of the press and no members of the public in attendance.