Agenda and minutes

Venue: Meeting Room 1, 135 Eastern Avenue, Milton Park, Milton, OX14 4SB

Contact: Ron Schrieber, Democratic Services Officer 

Items
No. Item

Sc29

Apologies for absence

To record apologies for absence and the attendance of substitute members. 

Minutes:

Councillor Vicky Jenkins submitted apologies.

Sc30

Minutes pdf icon PDF 217 KB

To adopt and sign as a correct record the Scrutiny Committee minutes of the meetings held on 9 and 26 July 2018 (attached). 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of the meetings held on 9 and 26 July 2018 were agreed as accurate records and were signed by the Chairman.

Sc31

Declarations of interest

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting.  

Minutes:

Councillor Matthew Barber declared a non-pecuniary interest in agenda item 9, Council tax reduction scheme, 2017/18, as some of the savings from the scheme were apportioned to his employer, the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner.

Sc32

Urgent business and chairman's announcements

To receive notification of any matters which the chairman determines should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chairman. 

Minutes:

The chairman informed the committee that she had asked Mark Stone, chief executive, to clarify the committee’s roles and responsibilities.

 

The chief executive stated that the scrutiny function was one of the key checks and balances to the council decision making process.

 

The committee could guarantee transparency and could hold the administration and officers to account.  In his opinion scrutiny worked best when it was involved early in the decision making process.

Sc33

Public participation

To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak. 

Minutes:

None.

Sc34

5 Councils contract changes and action plan pdf icon PDF 209 KB

To consider the report of the head of partnership and insight (attached).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee considered the report of the head of partnership and insight which gave an update on progress to date and next steps with regards to completing and implementing planned changes to the Five Councils Capita contract and establishing an action plan for the Council that would support its business direction and priorities for the next five years.

 

Councillor Ed Blagrove, Cabinet member for corporate services, introduced the report.  Also present to answer questions were Mark Stone, chief executive, Andrew Down, head of partnership and insight, David Wilde, IT consultant and Paul Abraham, Capita.

 

The committee was informed that the Council had worked closely with Capita to develop and take forward the following five contract changes:

a)    Establishment of an IT end user computing environment for South and Vale Councils only, meeting our compliance needs for General Data Protection Regulations and enabling a range of new technology opportunities for secure mobile, flexible and multi-agency working;

b)    Return of the Fraud Service in the Revenues and Benefits function as an in-house service so we can continue to grow our success in this field;

c)    Bringing finance business service partner roles and a number of other key responsibilities back in-house and better defining the roles and responsibilities between the supplier and customer across the finance function;

d)    Bringing ownership of strategic Human Resources (HR) back in house and better defining the roles and responsibilities between the supplier and customer across the HR function;

e)    Upgrading our finance system to a fully supported and up to date version of Unit 4 Business World (formerly called Agresso).

The scope of the changes for b), c) and d) were virtually agreed, with the changes intended from the end of October 2018, subject to any time limitations set by TUPE and subject to completion of the revised inter-authority agreement between the five councils. The scope of the changes for a) and e) were also near completion. The proposed changes would be submitted to Cabinet in October.

 

These changes were part of a wider action plan, attached as an appendix to the report, to achieve stability.

 

The chief executive informed the committee that Capita’s commitment to improving performance and renegotiating the contract had contributed significantly to the progress made to date.

In response to members’ questions about the action plan, it was reported that:

 

·         Some of the IT issues were caused by the Council’s legacy pre-contract IT being integrated with the Capita provisioned IT which had not been consolidated into a single environment.It was anticipated that the IT infrastructure would be brought up to a suitable standard by January 2019.

·         Since the publication of the action plan, some of the projects RAG rated as amber (in negotiation) had been reclassified as green (under way and on track).

·         The IT Enterprise Architecture road maps would be circulated to committee members.

·         The upgrade of the Agresso finance system was scheduled for April-June 2019.

 

The committee congratulated the Cabinet member, officers and Capita representatives on the progress made to  ...  view the full minutes text for item Sc34

Sc35

Capita performance: HR, payroll and IT pdf icon PDF 225 KB

To consider the report of the head of partnership and insight (attached).

Minutes:

The committee considered the report of the head of partnership and insight which, further to the meeting held on 9 July 2018, gave a brief update on the performance of the council’s contractor, Capita, in the delivery of the HR, payroll and IT services.

 

Andrew Down, head of partnership and insight, introduced the report.  Also present to answer questions were Councillor Ed Blagrove, Cabinet member for corporate services, Mark Stone, chief executive, David Wilde, IT consultant, Paul Abraham and Clare Dorey, Capita.

 

The committee was informed that, since the previous report, there had been no significant HR and payroll issues for the Vale.  For the key performance indicators, 100 per cent payroll accuracy had been achieved in June, July and August and payroll timeliness had also been met in full.

 

The IT service had improved operationally and good progress was being made with a view to agreeing a new IT strategy for Vale and South (see Minute 34 above).

 

RESOLVED: to note the report.

Sc36

Financial outturn 2017/18 pdf icon PDF 256 KB

To consider the report of the head of finance/senior business partner (Capita) (attached).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee considered the report of the head of finance and senior business partner (Capita) on the final year end position for revenue and capital expenditure against budget for the financial year 2017/18.

 

William Jacobs, head of finance, introduced this item. Also present to answer questions were Councillor Robert Sharp, Cabinet member for finance, and Richard Spraggett, senior business partner (Capita).

 

With regard to revenue expenditure, there had been an underspend of £2.5 million which had been transferred to the council’s reserves. Whilst this was a significant amount, the committee welcomed the detailed explanations for the income and expenditure variances set out in the report.

 

With regard to capital expenditure, £13.7 million had been slipped into future years.  The head of finance confirmed that almost all of this amount was due to non-expenditure in 2017/18 rather than delays in invoicing.

 

RESOLVED: to note the overall outturn position of the council as well as the outturn of individual service areas.

Sc37

Council tax reduction scheme 2017/18 pdf icon PDF 329 KB

To consider the report of the head of finance (attached)

Minutes:

The committee considered the report of the head of finance which gave an update on the effect of the council tax reduction scheme (CTRS) on council taxpayers during 2017/18.

 

Paul Howden, revenues and benefits manager, introduced the report.  Also present to answer questions were Councillor Robert Sharp, Cabinet member for finance, and William Jacobs, head of finance.

 

In response to members’ questions, the committee was informed that:

 

·         The CTRS caseload had reduced significantly over the last two years which meant that the CTRS bill had reduced and more residents were paying council tax.

·         The council’s policy of taking legal action to recover outstanding council tax acted as an effective deterrent and contributed to the council’s excellent collection rate.

·         The roll out of Universal Credit would necessitate some amendments to CTRS.  Any approved changes would be introduced with effect from April 2020.

 

For a number of years, the committee had received an annual update on the scheme.  However, given the reduction in caseload and the fact that the scheme appeared to be operating efficiently, the committee agreed that officers should only submit a report in the event of significant changes to CTRS being proposed.

 

RESOLVED: to note the report.

Sc38

Self-assessment questionnaire

To consider the responses to the self-assessment questionnaire.

Minutes:

Adrianna Partridge, head of corporate services, gave a presentation setting out the results of the councillor self-assessment questionnaire.

 

There had been an excellent response and the results would be used to shape a tailored development programme for members.

Sc39

Work schedule and dates for all South and Vale scrutiny meetings pdf icon PDF 436 KB

To review the attached scrutiny work schedule. Please note, although the dates are confirmed, the items under consideration are subject to being withdrawn, added to or rearranged without further notice.

Minutes:

The committee noted its work programme.

 

The chairman reported that she had agreed with officers to remove the CAB/Wantage Independent Advice Centre presentation from the work programme as it would be more appropriate for the presentation to be made to all councillors.

 

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