Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

No questions for the Committee had been received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 13^th November 2013 (excluding exempt information) be confirmed.

Report CSD 14002

The Committee noted matters arising from previous meetings, and the Chairman announced that he had asked for an update on the Bromley Youth Employment Project for the next meeting on 5^th February.

The Committee received extracts from the Contracts Register showing (A) Chief Executive’s/Resources contracts over £50k and (B) contracts across all departments above £200k. It was suggested that it was no longer necessary for the Committee to receive these summaries or that a shorter document just highlighting particular issues would suffice, but most Members considered that receiving the quarterly extracts was still useful. 

The Resources Portfolio Holder, Councillor Graham Arthur, attended the meeting to update the Committee on his work and answer questions. Councillor Arthur summarised the following work currently taking place –

·  World War 1 Commemorations – Officers were coordinating fifteen events, including a reconstruction of a WW1 allotment.

·  Registrars Service – Councillor Arthur congratulated the Registrars Service on an outstanding inspection outcome which would result in a light touch inspection regime for the future. The Service had been very successful in generating business and now ran at a surplus. 

·  Electoral Registration – The annual canvass was being carried out for the last time, and a report was being prepared for General Purposes and Licensing Committee on arrangements for the 2014 local and European elections. 

·  Civic Centre facilities – The recent Coroner’s Inquest held at the Civic Centre included use of Skype to interview a witness in Hong Kong. Further investment in Civic Centre facilities was needed to increase lettings income.

·  Finance – The budget was currently in balance, but there was a potential shortfall of £7m still to be addressed for 2015/16 and further savings were needed.

·  Benefits – The full effects of the benefits changes had still to be fully felt, but Cllr Arthur had recently visited the Liberata team and had congratulated them on the job they were doing. He reported that the Government would be withdrawing its £993k funding for the Welfare Fund from 2015/16, resulting in a further burden for the Council.

·  IT Manager – Work was being carried out with LB Southwark to recruit a senior IT professional to serve both boroughs, and other authorities had also expressed an interest.

·  Economic Development and Investment Fund – property investments were now producing around £1m in income per annum, while disposals of operational property exceeded £30m. The Asset Management group were looking at the use of all assets very rigorously.

·  Commissioning – The Customer Service Centre had recently been outsourced and in-depth reviews of all service areas had resulted in 7 bundles of work which would be scrutinised by PDS Committees. The annual report on Commissioning was due to be published in February.

·  Partners – Other partners would be forced by budget restrictions to limit themselves to a minimal service in coming years – Cllr Arthur stated that most residents understood this.

The Chairman urged all Members to continue to tell MPs about the pressures on the Council and to urge them to reduce the Council’s statutory duties.

Councillor Nicholas Bennett referred to the line on Health Authority Clinics in the list of Council property holdings produced in the answer to Councillor Papworth’s question (minute 419), and stated that a clinic in Hawes Lane in his ward had been empty for 8 years. Councillor Arthur responded that there were regular discussions with health services about property matters, but NHS property was not controlled locally.

Councillor Nicholas Bennett asked whether the information he had requested on the cost of new statutory duties imposed since 2010 would be available, as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 420.

Report CSD14013

On 20^th November 2013 the Executive had received a second quarter capital monitoring report and had agreed a revised Capital Programme for the four year period 2013/14 to 2016/17. This had included scheme re-phasings within the Resources Capital Programme. 

RESOLVED that the recommendations be supported.

Members of the Committee are requested to bring their copy of the agenda for the Executive meeting on 15^th January 2014.

The Committee received a report informing them of progress with the shared parking service with LB Bexley and the issues that had arisen during the first six months of operations. The report had also been considered by the Parking Working Group on 9^th October 2013 and the Environment PDS Committee on 19th November 2013. It was noted that the creation of the shared parking service had been approved by the Executive in November 2012, not 2013 as stated in paragraph 3.1 of the report.

Councillor Tony Owen queried what real savings had been achieved, and how. Most of the savings had been as a result of combining two teams of staff (from 37fte posts to 27.5fte) – this had been done through keeping vacancies open and some staff choosing not to join the new service. Savings had been achieved from the Parking IT Support contract and there would be additional savings in future when a joint enforcement contract was tendered.

Lessons learned in establishing the shared service were summarised in an appendix to the report. Officers highlighted good support from other Council departments, such as Legal, Finance and HR, maintaining good relations with staff throughout, ensuring that all approvals were in place at each stage and keeping Members informed from an early stage. The biggest challenge had been to move to a shared IT system.

Members queried how staff worked together with some on Bromley’s local terms and conditions and some on Bexley’s, still based on the national arrangements. This had not caused any problems and in practice all staff were managed through Bromley HR procedures.

Some costs were apportioned 50:50 to the two boroughs, where there were functions that both needed to run a parking service, but where there were different activity levels, such as in parking appeals and representations, costs were apportioned based on numbers from the previous year. This was considered to be not overcomplicated and broadly fair to both boroughs.     

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

Report CSD14009

The Committee received a report on the performance of the Revenues Service contract provided by Liberata for the six months up to 30^th September 2013, including a letter from Amanda Inwood-Field, Liberata’s contract Director. It was noted that the table in appendix 3 (page 63 of the agenda) should refer to outstanding debt in thousands of pounds, not millions. This report was considered together with the report on the Benefits Service and representatives from Liberata attended the meeting to answer questions on both reports.

The Chairman congratulated Liberata for doing a good job in difficult circumstances and highlighted the reductions in outstanding Thames Water debt.

Councillor Nicholas Bennett asked about progress with reducing the proportion of income collected as cash and “channel shift” towards more efficient means of collection. On-line, direct debit and telephone payment methods were emphasised, but there was a core of people who still preferred to work in cash. Councillor Bennett requested that the next report include some information on the percentage of money received through the various channels.

Councillor Will Harmer suggested that benchmarking data would be useful to compare performance with other boroughs – it was confirmed that there was a London benchmarking group and end of year figures would be available.

Councillor Neil Reddin asked whether the Accounts Payable performance (paragraph 3.12 in the report) had plateaued – Liberata representatives agreed that it would be difficult to achieve a significant improvement in performance. Councillor Tony Owen suggested that debtors should be forced to pay by direct debit when voluntary agreements were secured. 

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

Report CSD14010

The Committee received a report detailing performance provided by the Liberata Benefits Service for the six months up to 30^th September 2013. This report was considered together with the report on the Revenues Service.

Councillor Tony Owen agreed that performance was good, but queried whether too much store was set on comparing performance with the same period the previous year, when circumstances may have changed considerably, and on allowing a 5% error rate target. It was confirmed that although the contract allowed for 5%, the real target was still 0%.

Councillor Peter Fookes asked whether the case-load of 23,000 was the highest ever, and whether the Council could offer a small discount for e-billing, like many utilities did. It was confirmed that the case-load, although high, had reduced and was not at record levels. Officers were aware that some authorities had begun to offer e-billing.

The Chairman thanked the Liberata representatives for attending the meeting and for their good performance on both services.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.  

Report CSD14004

Updates had been circulated from the Environment PDS Committee’s meeting on 19^th November 2013 and the Renewal and Recreation PDS Committee’s meeting on 26^th November 2013.

RESOLVED that the press and public be excluded during consideration of the items of business referred to below as it is likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings that if members of the Press and public were present there would be disclosure to them of exempt information.

The following summaries

refer to matters

involving exempt information

The exempt minutes of the meeting held on 13^th November 2013 were confirmed.

The Committee scrutinised the following proposed decision of the Resources Portfolio Holder.

The Committee considered the future of the former Manorfields care home site and recommended that it be retained by the Council. 

The Committee scrutinised a report on the Executive’s agenda for the meeting on 15^th January 2014 concerning the Economic Development and Investment Fund.