Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Burton, Dobbs, Goodwin and Wilkinson.

Apologies were also received from Councillors JR Fox, Goldspink, Kreling, Over and Councillor Seaton, Cabinet Member for Resources.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 12 November 2009 were approved as an accurate record.

There were no requests for call-in to consider.

To scrutinise the following elements of the budget:

(a)   Scrutiny Commission for Rural Communities

(b)   Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee, including the Asset Management Plan

(c)    Strong and Supportive Communities Scrutiny Committee

(d)   Environment Capital Scrutiny Committee (Operational issues), including the Draft Local Transport Plan Capital Programme

Please ensure that you bring your copy of the budget papers with you.

Further to the meeting held on 6 January 2010, the Committee continued to scrutinise the proposed budget 2010/11 and Medium Term Financial Plan to 2014/15.  The meeting tonight would examine the budget as it related to:

• Scrutiny Commission for Rural Communities
• Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee
• Strong and Supportive Communities Scrutiny Committee
• Environment Capital Scrutiny Committee (Operational Issues)

Scrutiny Commission for Rural Communities

The Executive Director of Strategic Resources was asked whether the budget had any specific impacts on the rural communities.  He advised that there was nothing specific for the rural communities but he would be presenting the budget to the Parish Liaison Meeting next week which may highlight specific issues.

Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee

Observations and questions were asked around the following areas:

• Why were some offices within Council buildings being used as storage?  It was a difficult balancing act between what and when items were needed.  A project was looking at storage in a different way, including placing storage where it was needed and ideally looking at electronic storage.  There was a need to maximise office space within buildings.
• What was cheapest, using office space or using a warehouse?  A warehouse would be cheapest but at the current time the Council was tied into existing leases for office space.
• Some staff were starting to work from home, for example the Revenue and Benefits team and we were also looking at out of city centre offices.
• The budget papers showed the savings which had been made and were expected to be made by the Business Transformation Team.  If they were doing such a good job why were we still required to keep increasing the level of Council Tax?  Were the savings the Business Transformation programme making going on consultants?  The Business Transformation Programme had saved £24m.  The need to raise Council Tax was due to a number of factors including the impact of the credit crunch and recession, leases of council properties and low interest rates which kept the investment income down.  The use of consultants was good value for money and covered consultancy work and interim appointments.  All consultants were procured properly.
• We were currently paying around £8-9m per year on consultants, why did we not have the staff with the required the skills to undertake the work.  The last Freedom of Information request was around that figure.  We often needed specialist expertise and it sometimes was best to employ people as and when they were needed.  We did look to see if we could use the expertise of people internally.
• It was clear that the Council was continuing to employ consultants at the same level even though we had been given a commitment that the Council was working hard to reduce its reliance on them.  It seems that some consultants appeared to be employed on a permanent basis.
• Were there any records which showed the number of consultants employed for more than six months?  There was not a central database kept but within Strategic Resources no consultants  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Each financial year, through the Planning Guideline process, the Council was awarded an allocation of funding from central Government to spend on transportation schemes and maintenance of the road network.  To ensure that this money was spent effectively the second Peterborough Local Transport Plan (2006–2011) was developed, in consultation with a wide range of key stakeholders and was approved by full Council.  The Council considered a range of transport solutions to best address local problems, meet the growth aspirations of the City and integrate the Government’s ‘shared transport priorities’ agreed nationally by the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Department for Transport (DfT). 

The Council has allocated a total of £10.406m for 2010/11 from the funding awarded from central Government (Table 1 refers) and the allocations for Integrated Transport and Capital Maintenance were awarded on the basis of a formulaic calculation that took into account a number of parameters for example passenger numbers, road lengths, Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI) etc.  Primary Route Network funding (PRN) was an allocation which was specifically ring fenced for the maintenance of structures on strategically important transport corridors.  This allocation was set following the determination of an evidence based bid submitted to Government in August 2007.  A further sum of £0.390m of transport resource funding was also awarded, the details of which are shown in Table 2.  In addition to the external funding Corporate Capital funding has been allocated to areas detailed in Table 3.

Table 1 – LTP capital allocation

* The figures shown in Table 1 did not include funds carried forward from 2009/10 financial year. 

Table 2 – Transport Resource Funding

** Both the Specific Road Safety Grant and the Detrunked Roads Maintenance Grant were classified as Area Based Grants and a bid had been submitted to Strategic Finance for the sums indicated.

Table 3 – Corporate Capital Funding

Observations and questions were asked around the following areas:

• Was LTP funding being used to progress the suggestions of water taxis and cable cars?  That work would be using different funding as they were not in the LTP.  The proposals were being looked into as the river had great potential to help with the LTP.  Officers were waiting for the Environment Agency Water Strategy to be completed to inform the water taxi options and a report would be brought to the Committee when it was completed.
• A number of faults with street lighting at Gresley Way had been raised as the lights had been out for 18 months.  Will the money proposed in the programme be sufficient  ...  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.

ACTION AGREED

To note the latest version of the Forward Plan.

We considered the Work Programme for 2009/10.

With the recent adverse weather conditions, members felt that it was important to review the actions taken since we had considered this item earlier in the year.

ACTION AGREED

To add the following items to the work programme:

• Cost for the Waste 2020 Programme – date to be confirmed
• Options for Park and Ride – date to be confirmed
• Water Taxi Options – date to be confirmed
• Long Term Transport Strategy – date to be confirmed
• Adverse weather conditions – review of actions – date to be confirmed

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Tuesday 2 February 2010