The Scrutiny Officer has submitted a report which details comments from the Scrutiny Finance Standing Panel relating to the Integrated Performance Report 2014/15 Q4.

Scrutiny Finance Standing Panel recommendations to the City Executive Board:

1.    Recommendation 1 - The General Fund outturn position for 2014-15 - a favourable variance of £1.808m which is mainly due to increased income - is a very good outcome and we recommend that officers are congratulated on overachieving against income targets.

2.    We support the transfer of £1.4m to a Dry Recyclate Reserve and recommend that the City Council urgently assesses options for significantly mitigating this serious budget pressure, including exploring the possibility of building and operating a waste transfer station and changing the Council’s waste collection system.

3.    We note that there are 4 red performance indicators against Meeting Housing Needs but only 3 are explained in the Corporate Summary.  We recommend that this is corrected and that fuller explanations are given for the amber risks relating to Environmental Development (section 4.3 in the Community Services Directorate).

4.    We recommend that the City Executive Board considers:

a)    Re-directing a relatively small portion of the under-spend towards addressing homelessness, where it could potentially go a long way;

b)    Other potential uses for part of the under-spend in improving performance against corporate targets, including investing in an additional HMO licensing officer.

5.    We recommend that the City Council continues to embed and improve the capital gateway process to further reduce capital slippage.

The Board noted the following responses to the Scrutiny Committee recommendations:

1.     The City Council’s General Fund outturn position for 2014-15 (a favourable variance of £1.808m) is a very good outcome and we recommend that officers are congratulated on overachieving against income targets.

A:  The favourable variance has largely arisen from increased income arising from commercial property rents, engineering works and other income.

2.     We support the transfer of £1.4m to a Dry Recyclate Reserve and recommend that the City Council assesses options for significantly mitigating this serious budget pressure, including exploring the possibility of building and operating a waste transfer station and changing the Council’s waste collection system.

A: The Council is exploring a number of options to mitigate budgetary pressures around dry recyclate which have become apparent during negotiations for the renewal of the contract with the current waste transfer station provider. Due to changes in the market price for recyclate the current provider is seeking significant increases in gate fees in order to ensure the viability of the current operation. 

3.     We note that there are 4 red performance indicators against Meeting Housing Needs but only 3 are explained in the Corporate Summary.  We recommend that this is corrected and that fuller explanations are provided for the amber risks relating to Environmental Development (section 4.3 in the Community Services Directorate).

A:  The missing red performance indicator for Meeting Housing Needs relates to Tenant satisfaction with their Estates; this has been discussed in a previous report and there is no new data. Further explanation on the risks within Environmental Development are included in an updated appendix (now appended).

4.     We recommend that the City Executive Board considers:

a) Re-directing a relatively small portion of the underspend (£50-100k) towards rough sleeping activities where it could potentially go a long way.

b) Explores other potential uses for part of the under-spend in improving performance against corporate targets, including investing in an additional HMO licensing officer.

A: The under-spend from 2014/15 has been transferred to earmarked reserves largely to mitigate future budgetary pressures. A small proportion has been transferred to the capital funding reserve which is considered prudent given the size of the council’s capital programme.  There is already a substantive reserve available for the area of homelessness and this can be used if needed.  HMO licensing is currently being consulted on and it will be appropriate to consider whether the staffing resource is adequate as part of the response to that consultation.

5.     We recommend that the City Council continues to embed and improve the capital gateway process to further reduce capital slippage.

A: The overall slippage on the capital budget was around £15million in comparison to the original budget of £63million. This primarily related to three schemes, Rose Hill Community Centre, Affordable Homes Programme, and Vehicles. The average spend on capital over the last 9 years has been around £20million and the delivery of £48.7 million in 2014/15 is significantly above this. The Council will continue to embed and improve its monitoring through the Capital Gateway process