Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Tony Owen and Councillor Michael Rutherford, who was replaced by Councillor Julian Benington.

There were no declarations of interest.

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions to the Chairman of this Committee must be received in writing 4 working days before the date of the meeting.  Therefore please ensure questions are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on Thursday 17^th November 2016.

No questions had been received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 12^th October 2016 (excluding exempt information) be confirmed.

Report CSD16155

The Committee noted matters arising from previous meetings.

An update from the Chairman of the Renewal and Recreation PDS Committee is attached at Appendix A to these minutes.

The Committee noted the Forward Plan as published on 15^th November 2016. The Chairman commented that ways of reducing the amount of paper involved in publishing the Forward Plan should be investigated.  

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions to the Resources Portfolio Holder must be received in writing 4 working days before the date of the meeting.  Therefore please ensure questions are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on Thursday 17^th November 2016.

Three questions for written reply had been received from Mrs Susan Sulis – these are attached at Appendix B to these minutes.

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

Report FSD16078

The report summarised treasury management activity during the second quarter of 2016/17 and included a Mid-Year Review of the Treasury Management Strategy Statement and Annual Investment Strategy (Annex A). The report ensured that the Council was implementing best practice in accordance with the CIPFA Code of Practice for Treasury Management. Investments as at 30^th September 2016 totalled £290.3m (excluding the balance of the Heritable investment) and there was no outstanding external borrowing. For information and comparison, the balance of investments stood at £285.2m as at 30^th June 2016 and £282.6m as at 30^th September 2015, and, at the time of writing the report (10^th November 2016) it stood at £325.4m.

RESOLVED that the Treasury Management performance for the second quarter of 2016/17 be noted and the Resources Portfolio Holder be requested to recommend that Council approves the 2016/17 prudential indicators as set out in Annex B1 to the report. 

Cllr Stephen Carr, Leader of the Council, attended the meeting to update the Committee on his work and answer questions. He updated the Committee on progress with responding to the Ofsted inspection of children’s services, emphasising that he wanted a thorough review of services, not just basic compliance with the Ofsted recommendations. The Action Plan had now been signed off, and the council had been given six months to improve its services. The Action Plan would be monitored by Isobel Cattermole as independent chair of the Governance Board, and the new Director would be taking up his post on 1^st December. Ofsted had acknowledged that the Council had put resources in quickly and recognised the improvements on leadership, governance and partnership working, which now needed to be embedded in the organisation.

The Leader added that he had met with agency staff to encourage them to take up permanent roles with the Council; two or three had already signed up and about a dozen more were due to meet with HR. The Chairman commented that some people liked the flexibility of temporary roles, and asked whether the Council was able to offer flexibility within full-time permanent roles. The Council did have a package of measures to attract and retain staff, and consideration was being given to recruiting further high quality social work staff from Ireland.

A Member asked whether the lessons learnt from the Ofsted inspection were being applied to other services. The Leader confirmed that he had indeed challenged the Chief Executive on this.  

Another Member referred to the criticism from Ofsted that Councillors had made decisions based on financial considerations without having regard to the impact on children. The Leader responded that the Commissioner had stated that there was no evidence of this happening.

Report CSD16156

The Committee scrutinised the following reports on the Part 1 agenda for the Executive’s meeting on 30^th November 2016.

(5)  Budget Monitoring 2016/17

Report FSD16069

The Committee considered the second Budget Monitoring report for 2016/17, which was based on expenditure and activity levels up to the end of September 2016. The report highlighted significant variations which would impact on future years and early warnings that would have an impact on the final year end position. A net overspend on services of £7,377k was forecast.

The Committee discussed the need for better modelling of future demand. The Council’s approach was based on a four year financial forecast, converting projections of demand into expected levels of activity and taking measures to mitigate the anticipated pressures. Growth proposals were only considered once all mitigation measures had been investigated by the service, and provision was made for risk and uncertainty.

The Committee commented on the following issues –

(a) SEN Transport

The main cost pressure in the Education Portfolio was SEN Transport services with a projected overspend of £1.2m; the Committee noted that there was also a report on the Executive’s agenda on the procurement of an additional Framework SEN Transport contract. Modelling of future demand was becoming much more critical, and specific work was being carried out by the Director of Commissioning with senior managers to understand what was driving the pressures and how services needed to be adapted and markets developed. One factor was that the cost of transport exceeded the cost of the placements in around half of cases, so greater account needed to be taken of this. However, there was a difficult balance to be found between minimising costs and maintaining the Council’s statutory duties by meeting the needs of specific children for very specialist provision. Some Councillors argued for better utilisation of vehicles (including buses used for adult clients) and better coordination of routes, including increased cooperation with other authorities.  It was suggested that removing the branding of vehicles might help with this, and that contractors should have a role in proposing innovation. 

The introduction of a National Funding Formula for education would have an impact by reducing flexibility and funding for high needs would go down by about £2m, requiring SEN placements to be funded through Council Tax for the first time. A Member commented that many schools were not able to recover the full cost of 1:1 provision and that in future academies might not be able to continue with this. 

Members asked for an update on progress in completing the new Education Health and Care Plans for each child. This was a major task and the Council had three years to complete the programme; it was understood that this was on target. These comprehensive plans would make it easier to discuss the overall needs of children with parents.  It was confirmed that where substantial compensation payments had been made to families to provide for the needs of individual children this could not be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 382.

Report CSD16157

The report updated the committee on its work programme for 2016/17 and set out amended terms of reference for the Contracts Sub-Committee

RESOLVED that

(1) The work programme be noted.

(2)  The amended terms of reference for the Contracts Sub-Committee (as set out in paragraph 3.7 of the report) be approved. 

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 12^th October 2016 were confirmed.

Report CSD16156

The Committee scrutinised the following reports on the Part 2 agenda for the Executive’s meeting on 30^th November 2016, and supported the recommendations -

(25) Redevelopment of Chislehurst Library – Agreement of Heads of Terms

(26) Award of Contract for Construction Works at St George’s CE Primary School, Bickley

Penge and Cator Ward

The Committee agreed to consider an urgent report on granting a deed of variation to allow structural works to commence on this property prior to occupation of the remainder of the building, and recommended that the Resources Portfolio Holder grant the proposed variation.

(Councillors Ian Dunn and Angela Wilkins requested that their contrary votes be recorded.)