Agenda and minutes

Introduction by the Chairman.

The Chairman opened the meeting.

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Montague.

In accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct, Members are requested to declare any interests orally at the start of the meeting and again immediately before consideration of the matter. Members are reminded to specify the agenda item number to which it refers and whether the interest is of a personal or prejudicial nature.

Members are also reminded of the requirements of Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 that they should declare and not vote on specified matters if they are two months or more in arrears with their Council Tax payments.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider and approve the minutes of the Finance and Performance Overview and Scrutiny meeting held on 6 September 2011 – attached.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 6 September 2011 be received and approved and the Chairman be authorised to sign them.

This report reviews the existing capital programme, identifies additional demands and resources and seeks Members views in developing a longer term plan that is affordable and delivers the outcomes that the Council is seeking. The report does not seek to make any immediate alterations to the capital programme but seeks to inform decisions that may be taken in the near future.

Report of the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources, and the Director of Finance and Corporate Services attached.

The Director of Finance and Corporate Services introduced the item.  It was estimated that around £200m of capital money would be spent over the next five years, with additional projects being funded from other funding streams such as Transport for London grants.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources said that spending was being targeted at items which would leave something for future generations; this methodology was also applied when considering increasing the Council’s borrowing.  He added that items could be funded in a variety of ways including government grants, property disposals, cash flow, existing savings and contributions from under spends.  Councillor Samuel said that the figures quoted in the report were the maximum amounts that the projects would cost and he expected that the final cost of funding would be much lower. The Director of Finance confirmed that work was still being undertaken on minimising any new borrowing requirement.

Councillor Samuel continued by saying that post-16 education was a priority for the Administration.  Esher College in particular was becoming more difficult to gain places at.  The Cabinet Member said that the London Borough of Harrow had carried out a large amount of work on introducing sixth forms and he encouraged members look at the changes that had been made there with cross-party support.  It was reported that there was 87% support for sixth forms in the borough.

The ‘Uplift Strategy’ was being directly informed by the All-in-One survey and as a result, additional funding had been identified in the budget to repair roads and pavements which had become damaged.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         The figure quoted on page 115 of the report regarding housing was deliberately broad because there were many factors that could affect it.  It was projected that an additional 400 housing units might be achieved in the coming years, depending on a number of issues including market conditions and negotiations with developers.

·         Negotiations needed to be held with developers in terms of the number of affordable units being offered on each development.

·         Academies had given their support for sixth forms, although they would need to fund any they wished to establish.

·         The Capital Programme was still in its early stages and this report was intended to give the committee an overall idea of the administration’s priorities for capital expenditure.

·         The Council was still finalising the method of funding the programme to ensure any borrowing was minimised and some flexibility was maintained as to timing.

·         The ‘stay-on’ rate at sixth forms was typically 90%, which was soon expected to rise to 95%.

·         No educational establishment could offer every subject, although sixth forms would be able to form consortiums to offer a wider range of subjects.

·         No further money had been earmarked for the secondary provision at Clifden Road site; all that was being funded was its purchase.

·         There were over 200 spare secondary school places in the borough.

·         The number of spare places in the borough  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

Attached to this report is the 2^nd Quarter Financial Monitoring Report which will be presented to Cabinet in November.

Report of the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources attached

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources reported that there were a number of under spends in the budget, which the Deputy Leader felt was a good signal to the local council tax payer that the Council was controlling its expenditure.  The money from under spends was being used in line with the principles set out in earlier reports to the Committee.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         Some savings were difficult to predict because the implementation dates of some projects were uncertain.

·         Consequential savings such as reduced energy costs and telephone bills resulting from decreasing staff numbers were not predictable.

·         There had been a consistent series of under spends since around 2000, although it was important to note that there were some areas that had overspends as well.

·         Santander were approved for short-term investments.

·         There were no plans to remove funds from Santander at the present time but this was kept under continual review.

Some committee members felt that ‘accidental’ under spends was not the best way to manage accounts.  Councillor Samuel agreed to provide details of previous years’ under spends in a future report..

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report gives details of the Council’s forward procurement activity over the course of the remainder of the financial year.

Report of the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources attached.

The Assistant Director for Commissioning Corporate Policy and Strategy confirmed that the appendix to the report had been reissued in order to correct some minor errors.  It was proposed to report three years worth of planned procurements at the start of each financial year.  The same proposal was being taken to each scrutiny committee, which would ensure a consistent approach. Shared services were, to some extent, included in the commissioning approach with other local councils.  A centralised procurement team for Richmond had been established. Sharing this service, once Richmond had become an expert in the process, could also be explored.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         Some procurements were already undertaken at a regional or London level.

·         Lower cost items had been included in the list as the committee might have been interested in more sensitive but lower value procurements.

·         There was a new pan-London framework for temporary staff, which involved the use of a broker who sought them at the lowest possible cost.

·         Extensions to contracts were occasionally sought in order to enable other areas of work to complete, before a retendering process was undertaken.  This was applicable to services such as ICT support.  It also allowed for market conditions to improve.

·         The views from each overview and scrutiny committee were to be collected and presented to a meeting of the Committee chairs for consideration and agreement of a coherent programme of scrutiny.

·         The effectiveness of the procurement process could be monitored, in the short term, through the routine performance monitoring reports.

Some committee members felt that the procurement process could be monitored in two stages – strategy and specific projects.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

A mid-year review of the Corporate Plan has been undertaken in order to report on progress in delivering our commitments.  This highlights key achievements across all the corporate themes.

Report of the Assistant Director, Commissioning, Corporate Policy and Strategy attached.

The Cabinet Member for Performance and the Assistant Director for Commissioning Corporate Policy and Strategy were present for this item.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         Various projects for the Ham area were at the initial planning stages.

·         The bus lane review would be looked at by the Environment, Sustainability and Community Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

·         The Civic Pride Fund totalled £75,000.

·         The All-in-One survey had influenced the prioritising of improvements to transport, streets and parks.

·         The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames was the safest borough in terms of the number of offenses committed per 1000 people.

·         The Council was working to be fully accountable to the public by publishing all Freedom of Information requests on its website, along with all expenditure over £500.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report presents an update on performance during Quarter Two 2011/12, providing details of steps being taken to address areas which are currently slightly off target.

Report of the Assistant Director, Commissioning, Corporate Policy and Strategy attached.

The Cabinet Member for Performance and the Assistant Director for Commissioning Corporate Policy and Strategy were present for this item.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         Indicators for planning were ones that typically experienced a lot of movement which meant they should only be examined if they were at the extreme high or low end of the scale.

·         The figures for the customer improvement programme had not yet been adjusted.

·         The high level of agency staff was a result of the Council being in a time of change; the use of agency staff provided additional staffing flexibility and lowered the number and cost of later redundancies.

·         As the shared Legal Services department was now based in Merton, the number of agency staff recorded at Richmond would decrease.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report gives a brief summary of the current position regarding options for the provision of ICT services at the Council beyond the expiry of the current contract, in advance of a more detailed report being distributed to the committee before the meeting on 14^th November.

Report of the Cabinet Member for Performance attached.

The Cabinet Member for Performance and the Assistant Director of Finance and Corporate Services were present for this item.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         Cabinet was being asked to agree to a short term 3 and 1/3 year extension of the service from Serco.

·         It was expected that a full re-tendering exercise would be carried out once the Council had largely completed its transformation and commissioning programme, and had established its longer term ICT needs.

·         The existing ICT contract with Serco was high performing when compared to those at other local authorities, but was also relatively high cost.

·         Any incumbent supplier, whoever they were, were always going to be at a slight advantage when bidding for contracts as they had gained experience of the organisation.

·         Legal advice had been sought on the use of the Southwark framework, which would end in 2012; while there was some risk of challenge from the market, because the Council was not engaging in a full open re-tender, this was thought to be low and manageable.

·         Five to seven years was the typical length of an ICT contract with the extension being only for 3 1/3 years.

·         The renewed contract had considerable flexibility built into it.

·         There was a clause in the current contract which secured ongoing investment in the infrastructure. The hardware refresh programme covered equipment such as desktop computers and laptops.  It did not include the renewal of items such as servers.

·         All hardware would be signed over to the Council at the closure of the existing contract.

·         There would be a need for ongoing investment in the Council’s ICT infrastructure, beyond the core Serco contract.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report outlines proposals for a Shared Human Resources Service between London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames.

Report of the Chief Executive attached.

The Chief Executive and Head of Human Resources were present for this item.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames would host the new service as Richmond’s policy was to commission services.

·         Redundancy costs were dependent on the outcome of the restructure; there would be a comparison of the cost for redundancies between the two councils.

·         All Human Resources (HR) services were going to be transferred with the exception of the pensions service.

·         The service level agreement was still to be drafted.

·         The cost of HR in Richmond was around £2m per year.

·         The HR cost per head of staff was comparable between Richmond and Kingston.

·         A large amount of money had already been saved in Richmond’s HR service and achieving additional savings would be difficult without sharing the service.

·         The proposed HR Board would include both Chief Executives and other senior staff from each organisation.

·         There had been informal consultation with staff and staff-side representatives.

·         The next stage was for Cabinet to make a decision.

·         The issue of legal challenge from staff had been considered and could not be ruled out, although processes would be managed in accordance with good practice to reduce the risk.

·         Both HR services managed high levels of vacancies thus reducing the number of redundancies.

·         It was envisaged that the Achieving for Children organisation would use the shared HR service.

·         The HR business partner model was to be retained in the new service.

·         There was legislation which stated what actions HR could take; nothing specifically related to councils.

·         There were service level agreements with each school that used the Council’s HR service.

·         Each school was free to commission their HR services from any provider they wished.

·         The shared legal services project was being used as a learning tool with sharing a HR service.

·         It was expected that the restructuring process would take place from January, with the new service operating from April.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report outlines proposals for a shared internal audit and investigations service between London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

Report of the Director of Finance and Corporate Services attached.

The Director of Finance and Corporate Services was present for this item.

Following questions from members of the committee, the meeting was advised that:

·         The sharing of this service was at an advanced stage.

·         The service will be able to complete its programme of work during the transition stage.

·         There was an agreement amongst south London boroughs whereby a wider shared audit service would be investigated in the future.

·         The accommodation strategy for the Council was being constantly revised in order to ensure that it met the needs of the organisation.

·         Home working was included in the borough’s accommodation strategy.

·         It was not always possible to plan to share services with the same authority because opportunities needed to be seized as and when they arose.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report describes the current position with regard to the council’s strategic partnerships, their key achievements and suggests that the role of scrutiny in partnerships covers the following areas:

• Contribution to the development of principles for partnership working
• Contribution to the development of partnership strategies
• Holding to account of partners. (this already takes place with regard to the police and health partners at the relevant o& S committees
• Performance review

Report of the Assistant Director for Commissioning, Corporate Policy and Strategy attached.

The Assistant Director for Commissioning Corporate Policy and Strategy was present for this item.  She advised the committee that the Local Strategic Partnership had been in place since around 2002.  The Assistant Director said that work was currently being done to consider the partnership’s future governance.

Some committee members felt that the new partnership should be reviewed once it had been running for a period in order to ensure that it was effective, particularly with the involvement of health professionals.  It was also felt that the partnership’s work should be closely linked with the Council’s Strategic Plan.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

This report gives details of the proposed work programme up to the 9^th February 2012.

Report of the Head of the Democratic Services attached.

Resolved that the following matters be considered and scheduled, where appropriate, at the agenda planning meeting:

·         Capital Programme Update

·         Procurement Activity

·         Q3 Performance Report

·         End of Year Review of Corporate Plan

·         Q4 Performance Report

·         ICT Update (including update on the Serco contract)

·         Staff Survey

·         HR Progress Report

·         Audit Services Progress Report

·         Richmond upon Thames Partnership