The Leader presented the
following priorities for the forthcoming year in terms of the
budget and providing value for money across the Council’s
services:-
Strategy
- The key role of the Council was to
provide services to improve the quality of life for people in
Exeter, to reduce inequalities and to facilitate the economic
growth of the city
- The detail of how these objectives
were being delivered was outlined in the other Portfolio
Holders’ reports to Scrutiny Committees. However the Council’s long-term capacity to
deliver on these objectives was dependant on strong control of its
finances in these financially challenging times
- The Leader felt that it was his role
to balance the Council’s priorities and to ensure that
benefits to Exeter citizens were sustainable and fairly accessed
now and in the future.
This Year so Far
- Exeter residents continued to enjoy
the fifth lowest level of District Council Tax, despite the
relatively high percentage rise this year
- Exeter suffered a poor grant
settlement of just 0.8% increase. This equated to
£91k. This was the end of the
three-year settlement
- Good Auditor reports continue to
indicate sound financial performance
- Icelandic Banks investments continue
to be uncertain
- Potential losses from Icelandic
investments must now be accounted for; the government had rejected
the Council’s bid to capitilise the losses. As a result, the Council would have to account for
a potential loss of £694k.
Increased revenue
pressures
- Concessionary Fares final net cost
over three years was £3.7m.
Funding was being transferred to Devon County Council, but care
needed to ensure that core funding was not unfairly depleted to pay
for this
- Investment income remained low, with
low interest rates
- Car Park revenues were suppressed
and Planning & Building Control Income low
- A further £1m of savings had
been integrated into the 2010/11 budget on top of last years
£2.5m of savings. This was again on target to be
achieved.
- Tight management of vacancies and
identifying opportunities for efficiencies.
Budget
- The overall budget under-spend was
£768k
- Projected withdrawal from balances
was £1,685k with the Budget
being £2,500k
This year’s outlook
- Likelihood of relief from the
funding of concessionary bus fares
- Major fiscal problems nationally
being addressed by the Coalition Government
- Likelihood of frozen/reduced grant
settlements
- Uncertainties on Unitary
- Threats of further income falls
- The Council would need to look at
ways to generate income; pre-application fees had now been
introduced
- Increased demand on services such as
housing
- Disproportionate effect of public
sector cuts
- Continued savings required to
stabilise budget
- Sufficient reserves required to
weather a “second phase” of recession
- Continued monitoring of performance
against budget
- £600k-£1,400k of further
savings required over following two years.
In answer to Members’
questions, Councillor Fullam commented:-
- Once the cuts in
grant settlements were known, the Council would have a clearer
picture of the challenges it faces. There may be a need to look at
the discretionary services that the Council provided
- The Leader was not
supportive of a freeze on council tax but Exeter would fare better
than some other authorities as its council tax was low and
collection rates very good.
Councillor Cole presented a
briefing note outlining the following priorities for the
forthcoming year in terms of Business Transformation and Human
Resources across the Council’s services:-
Housing Benefits
- The Benefits Service had produced a
significant increase in assessing performance despite an increasing
workload and this was acknowledged by the Audit Commission in its
CAA Organisational Assessment
- The average time taken for assessing
new claims had been reduced from 26 to 20 days and the average time
taken to process changes of circumstances fell from 12 to 7
days; a remarkable achievement given
the increase in claimants which rose from an overall caseload of
around 9,500 to some 10,900
- The challenge was to maintain this
performance in the coming year with a possible further rise in
caseload and with 4 assessors on maternity leave out of a total
establishment of 21
- Would be monitoring the position
closely in the coming year but had every confidence in the
staff’s commitment to continue to provide a speedy and
quality service.
Customer Contact
- Numbers of customers visiting and
telephoning the Customer Service Centre (CSC) continued to rise,
particularly for Benefit enquiries, more services continued to be
delivered from the Centre with Home Choice enquiries being the
latest addition which had released a staffing and budget saving for
the Council
- Customers accessing services via the
CSC also have their transactions recorded on the Council’s
data systems which help the Council to plan and improve services in
the future
- Keen to see more services delivered
through the Centre where it could improve the customer experience
and save resources
- It was important that customers had
a choice of seeing or speaking directly to a member of staff if
they wish to, not all customers were able to visit the Civic Centre
or want to contact the Council only during normal office
hours. For these customers, the Council
was seeking to expand the range of automated services the Council
delivered. This was also a cost
effective way of dealing with service requests and queries so it
was important that those that wish to access the Council via
automated channels had the opportunity to do so
- The Council was currently investing
in the technologies and infrastructure to enable more services to
be accessed in this way including cleansing services, Choice Based
Lettings and electoral registration.
ICT
- IT underpins virtually all the
services the Council provide and this would continue to be the
case
- It was essential that the
infrastructure that supported this was kept up-to-date and
resilient as a failure in those systems would usually mean the
suspension of a service. As the number
and complexity of the Council’s systems grow, so does the
need for maintenance and development of those systems
- The Council would be reviewing how
it would be delivering that resilience in the future so that the
best use of all of its resources could be assured in the
future.
Organisational
Change
- Although the driver for the major
change to the way the Council operated may no longer be the
creation of a unitary council, the financial challenges facing the
Council over the coming years would still require it to
dramatically overhaul the way it operated to reduce its costs
- Would need to ensure that the
Council operated in a more streamlined and cost effective way to
make every pound go as far as possible
- Human Resources and Treasury staff
would have key roles to play in this process, at the same time as
reviewing the way they work
- Required careful resourcing and
planning to ensure that the appropriate advice and support to all
service managers was available to help them respond to the
difficult task they face
- Included consultation and engagement
with staff and unions which would be critical to the success of the
change programme
- The Council’s staffing
resource was critical to the successful delivery of it services;
need to plan its future resource needs to ensure it had the right
staff with the appropriate skills and abilities which would provide
those high quality services in the future. A vital piece of work was underway to prepare a
workforce plan and this would be brought to the Committee later
this year.
In answer to Members’
questions, Councillor Cole commented:-
- The workforce plan
would give a detailed breakdown of the staff, qualifications,
training undertaken and needs and how adaptable the work force
was
- Overpayment of
housing benefit was mainly due to change in claimants
circumstances; in some cases it could be difficult to trace
residents particularly when they move out of the area although a
90% recovery rate was high when compared to the performance of
comparable councils.
The Scrutiny Committee-
Resources noted the priorities for the forthcoming year.