Agenda and minutes

No apologies for absence were received from members of the Committee.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors JA Fox, JR Fox, Miners and Saltmarsh.

No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 14 September 2010 were approved as an accurate record.

There were no requests for call-in to consider.

We welcomed Councillor Seaton, Cabinet Member for Resources to the meeting.

The report came to the Committee as part of the Council’s agreed process for budget setting and informed the Committee of the Cabinet’s initial proposals for the Medium Term Financial Plan to 2015/16. 

The Cabinet had been working on the budget proposals since June 2010 and had based its work on the following principles, actions and priorities:-

·         Continuing to reduce costs and bureaucracy by robustly pursuing its efficiency agenda through the business transformation programme and other council departments.

·         Further reducing its dependence on consultancy where it was appropriate to do so and upskilling its own workforce.

·         Considering other ways of delivering the best services to our residents that placed less of a financial burden on the tax payer including working with voluntary organisations and businesses to secure value for money and improvements in performance.

·         Reducing the number of people employed by the organisation and reducing senior management costs.

·         Reviewing all the buildings the council owned and used ensuring they were being used as efficiently and effectively as possible and any that were no longer needed were disposed of.

·         Continuing to secure savings by ensuring services provided the best value for money for residents.

·         Only making reductions in services where there was still not enough money available to deliver them when other savings had been accounted for.

If all proposals were accepted, the Council would face the following financial position:

Whilst the Cabinet had modelled the position over five years to ensure that they were aware of the financial horizon, at this stage they had not developed specific proposals to try and close the gap further in the last two years.  There remained considerable uncertainty over the financial position for a number of reasons. Including the following:

·         The Spending Review covered four years only.

·         The Local Government finance settlement was likely to cover two years (possibly with a further two in outline).  However the Government was intending to review the whole system of local government finance and would implement changes in 2013-14

·         The new Census information would be fed through into financial settlements. It was expected that this would see a more realistic estimate of the growing population of Peterborough.

·         The impact of the new homes incentive would be clearer

·         The Council would benefit from its investment in renewable energy, through reduced energy bills and avoiding the carbon tax

·         The country was likely to be returning to a healthier economic position

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• The work put in to develop the Strategy was recognised and it was acknowledged that some bold and difficult decisions had to be made.  Did the Cabinet Member believe that enough savings would be delivered and did he believe the Strategy was sound? This was a balanced budget.  The Government would only be giving us details of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Councillor Lane introduced the report which provided an update on the work of the Scrutiny Group which had been established to review the Council’s use of consultancy.

This was Scrutiny’s second review into the use of consultants and considerable progress had been made by the Group.  The Group had been given access to the Verto system which showed the current status of the Council’s projects and were looking at a number of projects to see how and what benefit consultants brought.  One issue that the Group felt strongly about was that it was important to use in-house skills where possible.  A final report, with recommendations, from the Group would be brought to the Committee in February 2011.

Comments and observations were raised around the following areas:

• The review had taken a long time since it was set up in March and appeared not to have got anywhere.  Was a full list of consultants used by the Council available?  A full list was not available but the review had established that the number of consultants being used had reduced considerably.
• The Committee should acknowledge receipt of the report with a proviso that we were unhappy at the speed of progress being made in undertaking the review.  It could appear that the delay reinforced the view that the Council was trying to hide the real situation.
• Councillor Seaton advised that he did not believe that anything was being hidden and if the Group felt that they were having problems getting all the information that they needed then they should let him know.
• A number of different officers had been interviewed by the Group and a number of questions had been raised around the contract with Amtec.  It may appear that progress had been slow but a lot of progress had been made.
• Had Councillor Fletcher received any answers to his questions which were submitted in January?  Many of Councillor Fletcher’s questions related to the Professional Services Partnership contract.  The Group had looked at a number of invoices to see how consultants had been contracted.  A number of the questions now had answers and the Group was close to getting answers to all of them.
• Why were the Group not able to see the contact between Amtec and V4 to establish what the sub-contracting arrangements were?  The City Council did not hold copies of the records between Amtec and V4.
• Did the Group believe everything was in order?  The Group would like to reserve judgement until it had completed the review.  Some consultants appeared to have shown value but it was necessary to take a view on whether the overall contract was providing value for money.
• At the invitation of the Chairman Councillor Fletcher gave his views on the work so far.  He believed that the progress made was pathetic and it was unacceptable that he had never received any answers to his questions which were submitted in January.  The review should not have taken this long to undertake and he still  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The latest version of the Forward Plan, showing details of the key decisions that the Leader of the Council believed the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would be making over the next four months, was received.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• Councillor Arculus enquired when ward councillors would be consulted on the proposed decision in relation to the proposed sale of land at Vawser Lodge.  The Scrutiny Manager would check at what stage the decision was.

ACTION AGREED

(i)                  To note the latest version of the Forward Plan.

(ii)                The status of the proposed decision in relation to Vawser Lodge to be established.

We considered the Work Programme for 2010/11.

It was agreed to add the following to the work programme:

• City Centre Area Action Plan (March 2011)

ACTION AGREED

To confirm the work programme for 2010/11.

Thursday 6 January 2010 at 7pm (Budget Meeting)

Thursday 6 January 2010 at 7pm (Budget Meeting)