Agenda and minutes

The Panel noted that there were no substitute members.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 17 June 2013 were agreed.

No declarations of interest were made.

The Panel noted their Terms of Reference and Work Programme.

(Director of Finance and ICT) To consider the attached report.

The Assistant Director ICT, David Newton took the meeting through a presentation on the proposed ICT Strategy. Members noted that the strategy was made up of three documents, strategy; projects and initiatives (plus an annual ICT update). The strategy document was an overarching 5 year core strategy document. The ICT projects document listed all projects and would be updated annually. Finally, the ICT Update would give an annual update of the progress made. The strategy will be taken to the Cabinet in October for formal approval. However, not all items in the strategy had been budgeted for. These will be taken to the Cabinet for consideration on a rolling programme.

Apart from internal drivers for change the council was also responding to changes in the public sector such as the Public Sector Network (PSN), the G Cloud, the use of open source/open standards software and the localism agenda.

The ICT strategy was based around ten key themes:

1)    Working smarter – to acquire and provide the skills and tools for the council to become smarter, more adaptable and more efficient;

2)    New technology – develop the ICT infrastructure to take advantage of new technology and greater efficiency, keeping up with technology including ‘Cloud’ where there was a robust business case;

3)    System integration – where suitable facilitate the integration of back end systems across directorates and functions, including common architectures;

4)    Big data (Business Intelligence) – to provide tools to collect, use and manage data efficiently and effectively across the council and partners;

5)    Value for Money – to maximise value for money by making best use of existing systems and hardware and exploring alternative software solutions including open source;

6)    Keeping the Lights on – maintain reliable and secure ICT service for internal users and members;

7)    24/7/365 – to provide 24/7/365 digital by default services for residents;

8)    Partnerships – investigate and develop external partnerships where appropriate for EFDC and internal partnerships where ICT could add value;

9)    Communication and Training – putting in place communication and training to assist technical and cultural change and development;

10)A shared vision – to provide a clear supported and understood ICT strategy building on the Council’s needs, external drivers and demands from residents.

Councillor Knapman said that he was surprised that we had not done this before as they were common sense ideas. He thought we were on the right lines here but was interested in what this would cost the council and could we afford it. Mr Newton said that the budgeted costs would go to Cabinet on a yearly, rolling basis for capital projects.

Councillor Angold-Stephens was unclear on how the bespoke systems of the Council could be integrated with each other. Mr Newton said that the key to this was link them to the property gazetteer with a unique property number to link all the systems using this as a key field.

Councillor Stallan said that elections had been mentioned and also there was a reference to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

(Office of the Deputy Chief Executive) To consider the attached report.

The Performance Improvement Manager, Mr S Tautz, introduced the report on the quarter 1 performance of the Key Performance Indicators for 2013/14.

It was noted that a range of thirty-four Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for 2013/14 was adopted by the Finance and Performance Management Cabinet Committee in March 2013.

As an additional enhancement to the quarterly review of KPI performance, this was the first period for which KPI reporting reflected an additional ‘amber’ performance status. This performance category identified indicators that had not achieved the target for the quarter, but where performance was within a tolerance or range.

The meeting noted the Q1 performance for KPI 41 had shown a marked increase in the number of days taken to re-let void properties. Initial investigations had shown that individual properties were capable of distorting overall performance because, despite being by their nature difficult to let, they were not currently included under the definition of ‘difficult-to-let properties’ which were taken out of the overall calculation. There were also concerns about the current definition of ‘Major Works’. The Assistant Director for Housing was to review both of these issues and bring a full report on the definition of KPI 41 to the next meeting.

The meeting went on to considered only the KPIs that were designated red or amber.

KPI 4 - % of visitors to the council website were satisfied with their experience – noted that it was just slightly below its target. People tended to comment on the satisfaction of the service they were looking for and not specifically on the use of the website. But the indicator was considered important as the website was one of our primary communications tools and we needed to get it right.

KPI 10 –how many working days did we lose due to sickness absence – members were disappointed that this had dipped slightly below its target but officers assured them that it would rectify itself by quarter 2. They also noted that staff were offered flu vaccinations on an annual basis.

KPI 11 –what % of the rent we were due to be paid for our commercial premises was not paid – noted that the notes at the top were in error and that they needed updating as it had moved from annual reporting to quarterly.

KPI 20 – how much non-recycled waste was collected for every household in the district – it was noted that we performed at a high level on this indicator but we had reached some sort of plateau. Officers were still looking at ways to do better especially with the new waste contracts being considered. The public needed to be encouraged again to recycle as they may have got a bit lax. Asked about the progress made on recycling in blocks of flats, officers noted that that they were trying to get more flats involved and also the new waste contract would be considering as they went through the procurement process.

Councillor Jacobs queried the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

(Director of Finance and  ICT) To consider the attached report.

The Assistant Director of Finance, Peter Maddock, introduced the first quarter financial monitoring report for 2013/14, covering the period from 1 April 2013 to 30 June 2013. He noted that the salaries schedule showed an underspend of £99,000 or 2.0%. This compares to 3.4% at this time last year.

The Deputy Chief Executive showed a 4.8% overspend; this was because some external funding was secured for a disability awareness officer and the Youth Futures Project after the budget was agreed.

He also noted that expenditure in Building Control was underspent by 13.8% or £9,000.

The Council had received £1.940m of the original £2.5m investment placed with Heritable Bank as at 30 June 2013, this now brought the recovery up to 77.28%. A further payment was due in July but was not received until late August; however a sum of £420,161 was received which exceeded expectations and brought the recovery to 94.4%.

Development Control income at Month 3 was £19,000 below expectations. Generally applications so far this year have been quite small, though pre-application income had exceeded the full year’s budget already which may indicate that some larger applications are on the way.

He also noted that the Hackney Carriage and other licensing income were below expectations; there have been fewer renewals particularly on other licenses. This appeared to be related to the recession. Also, income from MOT’s carried out by Fleet Operations was below expectations and income at month 3 was £8,000 below target. Expenditure on salaries was down but only by about £3,000. Local Land Charge income was broadly in line with the prior year and above the original estimate which suggests, as last year, income would exceed budget for the year.

Councillor Wyatt noted that the income from MoTs had fallen. He wondered if a survey on local garages and their charges had been carried out to compare prices, or if we used discount rates for our MoTs. Mr Maddock said he was not sure about a survey being carried out but he did know that we had competitive rate.

Councillor Knapman noted that the pre-application incomes on planning applications were up, but just what was this income. Mr Richardson, Assistant Director (Development Control), said that they had expanded this to include a wider range of applications. This has already brought in about £35,000 so far this year which had exceeded expectations. However, they did not seem to be getting many major applications.

Councillor Jacobs wondered why we were not performing as well as expected on refuse collection and recycling. The Director of Environment and Street Scene, Mr Gilbert said that they were continuing to press County for data. This was a long winded process, it takes a long time before we get billed for this.

Councillor Mohindra asked why the voluntary sector grants decisions had been delayed. Mr Maddock said that some grants had been delayed from month 3 to month 4. Grants were generally done on a three year cycle.

Councillor Knapman asked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

(Office of the Deputy Chief Executive) To consider the attached report.

The Performance Improvement Officer, Barbara Copson, introduced the report updating the Panel on the progress towards the achievements of the Council’s equality objectives. 

As part of the Public Sector Equality duty, the Council adopted four equality objectives with the capacity to make a difference to the communities of the district. The report reflected progress made to the end of the first quarter of 2013-2014.

The equality objectives focused the Council’s equality related work and were required to be published every four years. The objectives must be specific and measurable, and set out how progress would be measured.

The equality objectives helped the Council meet one or more aims of the Public Sector Equality Duty and were focused on the following key areas where improvement in relation to equality had been identified:

·         the use of equality intelligence

·         ownership of equality

·         engagement

·         the workforce equality profile

The report set out the progress made against each of the four points identified.

Councillor Knapman welcomed the report but would have liked more information on the equality implications identified through the process and how the equality implications had been addressed in order to avoid discrimination against any particular group. Members would like to know how things were being done, how much was being spent and what VFM the Council was getting from these improvements.

Officers took his comments on board but noted that there was a lot of information that they needed to get across.

RESOLVED:

That the current progress in relation to the achievement of the Council’s equality objectives and other work to ensure compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty be noted.

1)            The Chairman would report back to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the findings of the sub-committee set up to look at cross charging (recharging) in the Council. A copy of that report is attached to these minutes. Members were invited to read the report and comment on it at this Panel’s next meeting.

2)            Councillor Knapman asked that this Panel consider the effect on Council Tax if/when the government withdraw some or all of their grants to local councils. We would need to have plans in place on how we could cope with this loss in revenue and how it would affect Council Tax. He noted that some councils had not taken up the government grants on offer just because they would stop in a few years time.

Councillor Stavrou, the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Technology, said that they had this in mind and were presently looking at it. They were looking at the changes to the mid-term financial strategy and looking at all the likely scenarios to weather this storm.

Councillor Knapman replied that as this concerned this Scrutiny Panel, they needed to see the scenarios. Could they be brought back to this Panel.

Mr Macnab said that we should confirm the panel’s intention to look at this with the main O&S Committee and get their blessing.

3)            The Panel paid tribute to Councillor Finn, who sadly had recently passed away. He was a valued member of this Panel and the Council. He would be greatly missed.

To consider the forward programme of meeting dates for the Panel.

Next meetings:

12 November 2013;

20 January 2014 (joint meeting with Finance Cabinet meeting); and

11 March 2014.

The dates for the future meetings of this Panel were noted.