Agenda and minutes

At this point, Members are asked to declare:

·        Any personal interests not included on the Register of Interests

·        Any prejudicial interests or

·        Any disclosable pecuniary interests

Which they may have in respect of business on this agenda.

Members were invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal interests, not included on the Register of Interests, or any prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interests they may have in respect of business on the agenda.

Councillor Potter declared a personal interest in relation to the Service Level Agreement for community transport services as an employee of York Wheels Ltd.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting of the Task Group held on 20 May 2013.

Resolved:  That the minutes of the Loans and Grants Task Group meeting held on 20 May 2013 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

At this point in the meeting, members of the public who have registered their wish to speak on an item on the agenda or an issue within the Task Group’s remit can do so.

Anyone who wishes to register or who requires further information is requested to contact the Democracy Officer for this meeting, details of whom are listed at the foot of this agenda.

The deadline for registering to speak is 5:00pm on Tuesday 3 September 2013.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report presents the review findings to date together with some additional information requested at the last Task Group meeting.  Members are asked to consider whether they now have all the appropriate information to identify the recommendations they wish to make as a result of their work on the review.

Consideration was given to the interim report of the Task Group which had been set up to undertake a review of how loans and grants from the City of York Council to outside organisations were being monitored.

The background to the review, details of the information gathered to date, together with the review focus were set out at paragraphs 2 to 32 of the report.

Details of additional information gathered to inform the Task Groups work was reported at paragraphs 33 to 42 and outstanding information arising from the Group’s meeting in May reported at paragraphs 43 to 52.

Officers confirmed that work was ongoing to update the Council’s financial regulations to include a section specifically relating to grants which would include the levels of delegated authority.

Having considered the information contained within the report, Members listed the following as issues found arising from the review:

·        Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) lacked metrics for specific and measurable targets

·        That there were numerous ways in which funding could be accessed

·        CYC Departments did not use the same criteria when processing loans/grants

·        There was no overarching system for applications in place and no risk assessments were undertaken.

As a result of their work on the review Members agreed that:

General

A common approach should be set for the processing of future loans and grants. This would enable a clearer and more transparent overall picture of the Council’s loans and grants to be made.

Draft Service Level Agreement Template (Annex B)

To provide a corporate approach a template for Service Level Agreements should be set up together with officer guidance notes to support the process of producing an SLA, as per the newly drafted SLA template and guidance notes at Annex B of the report.

Any Service Level Agreements that made reference to other documents must always have the document attached as an appendix to the agreement.

Section 4 of the Service Level Agreement – Responsibilities of the Service Provider to include reference to risk assessment, public liability and employee insurance requirements, training and equipment, Health and Safety policies, that adequate staff are in place and that the body should advise CYC at the earliest opportunity of any problems or delays in service provision.

Website

To improve transparency, provide information on the Council’s website of loans and grants made, together with information on how to make loan/grant applications to include details of those available to the voluntary and third sector.

Defaulted Loans

An examination to be made of the set up of a separate recovery route for defaulted loans, to allow the Corporate Finance Team to identify and actively monitor them.  With information on the website of the default procedure and Officer involvement.

Council Plan 2012-15

Amend the Council Plan reference in the report, at paragraph 54, to confirm that the review supports all the Council Plan priorities.

Interest Rates

Include information on Interest Rates which should be applied at the market rate or better or a reason provided for any disparity. Wording to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.