Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: County Hall Worcester

Contact: Alyson Grice/Samantha Morris  Overview and Scrutiny Officers

Items
No. Item

200.

Apologies and Welcome

Minutes:

The Chairman informed Members that, due to unavoidable circumstances, the relevant officer was not able to attend for item 6 Councillor ICT.  It was agreed that the item would be deferred to a future meeting.

 

Apologies were received from Mr J A D O'Donnell, Mr R J Morris, Mr A Stafford and Mrs L C Hodgson (Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Communities).

 

201.

Declarations of Interest and of any Party Whip

Minutes:

None.

 

202.

Public Participation

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services  in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 15 November 2017).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

Minutes:

None.

 

203.

Confirmation of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Minutes:

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 13 September 2017 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

204.

Budget Scrutiny: Reviewing the 2017/18 Budget Position for Corporate And Communities pdf icon PDF 90 KB

Minutes:

As part of the Council's development of the 2018/19 budget, the Corporate and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel was asked to review the 2017/18 budget position prior to consideration of the 2018/19 budget at the Panel's January meeting.

 

Commercial and Change Directorate

 

The Panel received a presentation from the Senior Finance Manager (Financial Planning and Reporting).  In the course of the discussion, the following main points were made:

 

·       With reference to the Public Health Grant it was confirmed that £1.1 million currently appeared in the COaCH budget pending identification of qualifying expenditure across other Directorate budgets.  Following negotiation between the Director of Public Health and Service Directors, funds would be transferred to Adult and Children's Services accordingly.

·       Further clarification was requested on what was included in Commissioned Expenditure.  It was confirmed that this covered multiple contracts and included, for example, IT licences, maintenance of property (Place Partnership Ltd), and legal services.

·       It was confirmed that there was a total of 302 fte staff in the COaCH directorate.

·       Members were informed that at month 6 the IT Services budget was forecasting an overspend of £1.2m, which included the non-delivery of outstanding savings targets of £900k.  This was due in the main to the IT support costs (laptops, licences etc) still being incurred as a consequence of a forecast reduction in headcount across the County Council not being realised as quickly as first estimated.  Positive inroads were already being made into this overspend.  The DXC contract (formerly HPE) had been reviewed and, as a result, the service had been partially brought in-house.  It was a volumetric contract and the fact that the headcount had not reduced as anticipated meant that the contract was costing more than forecast.

·       It was confirmed that the Commercial Team undertook an ongoing review of contracts looking for opportunities to renegotiate contractual clauses and make further savings.  The Cabinet Member added that this involved identifying whether contracts were fit for purpose and looking for more effective spend.  Concern was expressed that the budget for the Commercial Team itself was forecast to overspend by £324k.

·       A question was asked about the figures in relation to headcount and how many people the forecast overspend related to.  The Head of Commercial promised to let Members have the figures after the meeting.

·       Members were reminded that potential and actual malware attacks had led the Council to invest in new licences.  This should be seen as a one-off, in-year cost.  It was also confirmed that following the County Council elections in May, the provision of new equipment for new Members had had some impact on the IT budget.

·       A further question was asked about the basis on which calculations about headcount were made and what data was used to make these predictions.  It was confirmed that the forecast figures were taken from Directorate plans which showed what they were intending to do in relation to numbers of staff.

·       Members were reminded that further work would continue on the outturn for the rest of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 204.

205.

Councillor ICT pdf icon PDF 90 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

This item was deferred to a future meeting.