Agenda item

This report provides details of the headline performance issues from the performance monitor session on the 26^th September 2007. It also builds on this to present the latest projection of the Council’s revenue income and expenditure for the current year.

RESOLVED:(i) That the performance issues identified in the report be noted;

(ii) That the applications for supplementary estimate requests of £200k be granted to City Strategy to deal with shortfalls in planning and land charge income, to be funded from the contingency fund, but that consideration of the request in respect of concessionary fares be deferred until central government has responded to the Council’s representations for an increase in grant entitlement to offset the additional costs;

(iii) That the virements over £250k, set out in paragraph 57 of the report, be approved;

(iv) That the transfer between general fund and the traded activities profit from Neighbourhood Services of £152k, as set out in paragraph 58 of the report, be approved;

(v) That the applications for supplementary estimate requests of £480.5k to be funded from general fund reserves, as set out in paragraph 60 of the report, be approved;

(vi) That the transfer of the additional Local Area Business Growth Incentive (LABGI) grant (£537k) straight to general reserves (as set out in paragraph 54 of the report) be authorised, with the exception of £20k to be earmarked for erecting the Christmas 2007 lighting scheme;

(vii) That departments be instructed to continue to look for savings within their own budgets rather than request supplementary estimates for additional expenditure pressures;

(viii) That the action currently being taken by departments to manage the overspend identified be endorsed.

REASON:(i) So that corrective action on these performance issues can be addressed by Directorates and Executive Members & Advisory Panels (EMAPs);

(ii) In accordance with the Executive’s constitutional powers to make decisions on the level and granting of supplementary estimates;

(iii) In accordance with the Executive’s constitutional powers to make decisions on virements over £250k;

(iv) The virement request is within the budget areas where the Executive is the responsible body;

(v) In accordance with the Executive’s constitutional powers to make decisions on the level and granting of supplementary estimates;

(vi) The additional income is within the budget areas where the Executive is the responsible body;

(vii) To ensure that all practicable action is taken in departments prior to seeking additional funding from the Executive;

(viii) To enable the Executive to continue to monitor the budget.

Members received a report which provided details of the headline performance issues from the performance monitor session on the 26^th September 2007. It also built on this to present the latest projection of the Council’s revenue income and expenditure for the current year.

Overall, service performance across directorates showed fairly good improvement, particularly in waste recycling, the cleanliness of our streets and open spaces, brownfield site development, benefits processing and early educational attainments results. The most significant improvement had occurred with community safety, with significant reductions in anti-social crime and a predicted 35% decline in crime since the crime reduction strategy started. There were a number of service delivery areas however, which either needed to be watched closely between now and monitor 2, or where corrective action needed to be taken to turn performance around before 31^st March 2008. These included staff sickness, secondary school pupil exclusions and the need to achieve a score of 3 for Use of Resources (CPA).

If the current action taken by the Directors continued to be successful, then it was projected that the Council would overspend by £12k. However, this was due to savings on investment decisions and opportunities of £750k, slippage on IT schemes of almost £400k and other one-off savings identified by Directorates. Any recurring overspends would need to be funded in future budget processes and would reduce the opportunity to redirect resources to other areas. The overspends needed to continue to be fully monitored as any overspend resulted in reduced balances. The Medium Term Financial Forecast had already indicated that the next budget process would be extremely difficult. As much scope as possible would be needed to reduce the impact of service cuts and Council Tax increases. There had been a lot of work undertaken within departments to manage expenditure and bring budgets in on target. There were, however, some underlying pressures where the overspends looked set to continue. These would clearly need to be addressed as a high priority in future monitoring reports.

Officers reported a correction to the table on staff turnover at paragraph 13 of the report to swap the column headings on turnover levels for April-June 2007 and 2006/07 outturn.

Members expressed concern that central government had not fully funded the cost of providing “free” pensioners’ bus passes and supported the representations made to the minister on this issue, calling for fair treatment of local government. They highlighted the outstanding improvements in the Safe City indicators and also thanked officers for their hard work managing their budgets.

Members had previously noted the additional business rates income won through the law courts and which was worth over £500k to the City. In recognition of the contribution made by business in the City, and taking into account that it was not possible to make any budget allocation for erecting the cross street Christmas lights in this year’s budget, the Leader announced that an allocation of £20,000 from this rebate would now be directed into the lighting activity. This action had the support of local city centre traders and the City Centre partnership.

Having considered the advice of the Shadow Executive, it was