Issue - meetings

Issue - meetings

Outturn and Performance Report 2020/21

Meeting: 06/09/2021 - Finance and Performance Panel (Panel of the Scrutiny Committee) (Item 21)

21 Scrutiny-selected Performance Monitoring pdf icon PDF 586 KB

The Finance and Performance Panel has agreed to consider its suite of KPIs for performance monitoring purposes at each meeting.

The Panel is recommended to NOTE the performance monitoring update having identified any questions it wishes to receive written responses to, or whether it wishes to invite a relevant officer to a future meeting.

Responses to the previous questions submitted are included within the report.

Minutes:

The Panel discussed its own selected suite of KPIs. It was commented that there was significant crossover between these KPIs and those in the Integrated Performance Report, but that the commentary was more useful in the Integrated Performance Report.

The Panel raised a number of specific issues. These included the commentary on the difficulties of calculating local spend owing to the distorting impacts of a small number of large contracts. The Head of Financial Services agreed that it would be possible to take out the outlying data points, but raised a point of caution that smoother data would not necessarily be more reflective of reality. A similar challenge with the measure was differentiating between the location of a firm contracted with, and any sub-contractors. This would prove challenging to pull out without significant work. It was requested that the Procurement Manager attend a future meeting to discuss this in more detail.

The KPIs were NOTED.


Meeting: 02/08/2021 - Finance and Performance Panel (Panel of the Scrutiny Committee) (Item 12)

12 Scrutiny-selected Performance Monitoring pdf icon PDF 300 KB

The Finance and Performance Panel has agreed to consider its suite of KPIs for performance monitoring purposes at each meeting.

The Panel is recommended to NOTE the performance monitoring update having identified any questions it wishes to receive written responses to, or whether it wishes to invite a relevant officer to a future meeting.

At its previous meeting the Panel requested a briefing on how KPIs were set; neither of the officers best able to deliver this briefing is expected to be available for this meeting, and it will be deferred until the Panel’s next meeting.

NB The performance monitoring report is to follow.

Minutes:

The Panel considered the suite of performance monitoring KPIs. The Scrutiny Officer informed the Panel that contrary to the written recommendation, that suitable officers be invited to the September meeting to explain how individual KPIs were set, that even the officers best placed to answer this would not be in a position to answer with the granularity required by the Panel. Instead, written questions should be submitted and responses requested for all the KPIs. This recommendation was not agreed, but it was instead AGREED that Panel members should submit questions to the Scrutiny Officer outside the meeting, that the responses be shared, and subject to those responses the Panel should agree outside the meeting any officers they wishes to invite to the next meeting.


Meeting: 08/07/2021 - Finance and Performance Panel (Panel of the Scrutiny Committee) (Item 5)

5 Outturn and Performance Report 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 512 KB

The Outturn and Performance Report attached will be considered by Cabinet on 21July 2021. Nigel Kennedy, Head of Financial Services, and Anna Winship, Management Accounting Manager, will be available to present the report to the Panel and respond to any questions.

The Panel is asked to note the report, having any agreed any recommendations to Cabinet arising from it.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Anna Winship, Financial Accounting Manager, presented the Financial Outturn Report 2020/21 to the Panel.

Headline figures showed a deficit of a little over £2m for the General Fund owing to the effect of Covid, with the recommendation being that, as previously agreed, the deficit would be covered by the use of reserves. The level of reserves stood at £68.4m, of which 17% was reserved for Covid-related costs. It was hoped, however, that reserves in later years would be replenished. The HRA showed a favourable variance of £8.4m, with £1.9m to be carried forward and £6.5m being transferred to the HRA reserves for future capital spending. Capital Spending stood at £68.8m, a favourable variance against the latest budget forecast of almost £10m.

Within the General Fund most service areas reliant on income were showing adverse variance owing to having not achieved the expected income targets. Big drops in income were noted particularly with regards to Building Control, Community Services (particularly the Town Hall), car parking and corporate property. Bad debt provision was being made for the income not received in the last year from the Council’s corporate tenants. Further, no interim dividend was declared by ODS.  In addition, the local cost of benefits showed an adverse variance of £0.85m, arising from loss of subsidy due to local authority error of around £350k (0.5% of total spend and a figure lower than many recent years) and a reduction in overpayment income raised compared to last year, due to increases in benefit entitlement and reduced ability to collect arrears, all in relation to COVID 19. Favourable figures relating to interest payable arose because of not having to borrow as much as anticipated. Another favourable variance, on funding arose because higher losses from car parking meant an increase in government support for lost sales, fees and charges. Although presenting as a favourable variance, overall the recompense of the government did not cover losses which precipitated the government support.

Councillor Amar Latif joined the meeting at this point

In response the Panel raised a number of questions, including the degree to which income losses could certainly be apportioned to Covid and not be masking alternative issues. Officer views were of the view that losses in income were directly attributable, the rapid rise non-payment of rent in commercial properties, the closure of the Town Hall and loss of income, and the precipitous drop in car parking coinciding precisely with Covid. Future expectations of commercial property arrears were discussed, with the existing bad debt provision being expected to be fully used. When setting the budget, a long-term impairment of income of £2m was forecast. Other income streams were anticipated to bounce back more fully and swiftly.

When set against other authorities Oxford’s position, though not easy, was better than many. In the last week a further Council, Slough Borough Council, had had to issue a s.114 notice, declaring its inability to deliver a balanced budget. The Audit Committee had also raised similar questions,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5