Agenda item
One Council Programme
This report provides an update to the Budget and Finance Overview and Scrutiny Panel on the One Council Programme and the way it fits in with the Medium Term Financial Strategy.
Minutes:
Peter Stachniewski, Head of the One Council Programme, presented a report to the committee updating members on the financial benefits and costs of the One Council Programme and its role within the Medium Term Financial Strategy. The One Council Programme had been launched in 2009 and was designed to fundamentally change and improve the way that the council carried out its business whilst limiting the impact of budget reductions on Brent residents. An overview of the current Programme and proposed new projects was attached at Appendix 1 for members’ information. Over its initial four year period the programme was tasked with delivering savings of between £90m and £100m. The Programme had thus far delivered cumulative financial benefits of £41.2m per annum by the end of 2011/12. It was anticipated that for 2012/13, the financial benefits of the Programme would amount to a further £13.4m, bringing the cumulative total to £54.6m per annum. Although this was £1.1m short of the budgeted benefits of £55.7m target, other measures taken meant that the council’s overall budget was forecast to be in balance in 2012/13.. Members’ attention was drawn to paragraph 4.3 of the report which set out the reasons for the shortfall in 2012/13. By 2014/15 the cumulative benefits were budgeted at £77.9m per annum; however, it was expected that by 2013/14 there would be a shortfall of £1.029m and this would rise to £2.371m by 2014/15. Several measures were being pursued to address this gap, including the possibility of achieving additional savings via procurement, further managing down service demand via the Improving Waste Management project and reviewing existing projects, particularly the Realignment of Corporate and Business Support project, to identify any further possible savings.
Peter Stachniewski highlighted a number of high-risk areas to the committee. In particular, the savings associated with the integration of Health and Social Care had been calculated based on the business case developed; however, should the integration not go ahead, alternative means of delivering these savings were being considered. The savings associated with the improved early help services were also difficult to fully estimate. These savings were therefore ambitious and would need to be closely monitored. The committee was further advised that the impact of the Welfare reforms on the council’s temporary accommodation budget was likely to be significant, despite policy changes which had been implemented to minimise the weight of these changes.
In the subsequent discussion the committee queried whether the challenging financial targets set for the various One Council projects were achievable and confirmation was sought of the planned duration of the overall One Council programme. Members further questioned the efforts being made to maximise the council’s income and raised queries on parking charges, the level of debt recovery and the number of successful Parking Charge Notices (PCN) appeals. Additional details were also requested in relation to how the variation for the Transitions to Adult Life project for 2012/13 had been absorbed.
In response to members’ queries, Peter Stachniewski advised that the financial targets had different types of risk associated with them. The savings relating to the integration of health and social care were considered high risk, not because the targets were difficult to achieve but because they depended on the integration taking place. In contrast, the risk relating to children’s social care sprung from the nature of the work undertaken by the service; it only took the arrival of one or two complex cases to significantly increase the expenditure of the department despite the successful deployment of various cost containing measures. The council pursued a risk based approach to setting the budget and within this it was appropriate to set challenging targets. Elizabeth Jones (Assistant Director of Finance) further explained that the planned savings for the Transition to Adult Life service would be made going forward but could not be achieved during the early stages of the implementation of the new team structure.
Addressing members’ questions on the maximisation of income, Peter Stachniewski explained that the figures quoted included the charge increases that had been made across the council; however, the council was restricted in the range of services for which it could charge. A new corporate policy for debt recovery had been introduced and improvements made in this area. At present, the council recovered approximately 69% of PCN related charges and there was a work stream within the related one council project to examine this. As part of this effort, the council was working to ensure that appeals against PCN’s were held in time; otherwise the debt could not be recovered.
Phil Newby advised the committee that the one council programme had initially been envisaged as lasting until the end of the government’s comprehensive spending review period, 2011/12 to 2014/15. It was now expected that local government would be required by central government to continue to achieve further savings and the one council programme offered Brent a systematic approach to making these savings. Project delivery costs met by the One Council Programme were estimated to be£12.7m overall by 2014/15, whereas the on-going financial benefits would amount to £78m per annum.
With reference to the Waste and Street Cleansing one council project, Councillor Brown requested further information on why the targets on waste reduction had not been met and what further actions were being taken to meet the targets. It was agreed that these questions would be put to Sue Harper (Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods Services) at the following meeting.
RESOLVED
That the report be noted.
Supporting documents: