Decision details

(Time: 3.05pm to 3.20pm)

The Executive received and considered report 150/08 of the Management Team which looked at corporate governance for the third quarter of 2008/09, being October to December 2008.  The report concentrated on:

·        corporate priorities

·        national indicators

·        progress against service prioritisation plans

·        key staffing data (sickness levels and turnover)

·        progress with business process improvement reviews

·        a financial commentary

At its meeting on 27 January 2009 the Management Team considered a third quarter corporate governance exception report.  The Management Team agreed the exceptions, comments and actions to be included in this report where performance/actions were not on target. 

The Executive reviewed progress against the corporate priorities.  In relation to the ‘facilitating the provision of affordable housing’, the Council was facing a challenging time.  Despite affordable housing provision being included in many planning agreements, developments were not proceeding due to the downturn in the economic climate.  The Council was developing strategies to overcome the worst effects and attempting to prevent homelessness with early intervention. 

Turning to performance against national indicators (NI), the portfolio holder expressed concern at performance against NI 195: improved street and environmental cleanliness (levels of graffiti, litter, detritus and fly posting).  At the end of the first sampling period cumulative performance was 7% (good performance was a low %).  By the end of the second sampling period the cumulative performance had declined to 14%.  Despite efforts to persuade the County Council to increase its budget for weed control, no action had been taken.  The portfolio holder promised to raise this again with the County Council as this was having an increasingly adverse effect on the Vale’s performance against its targets and was contrary to the outcome of recent consultation with residents on the draft Corporate Plan which identified ‘a clean Vale’ as being one of the three highest priorities.  The Executive supported the portfolio holder in her quest to encourage the County Council to allocate further funds to weed control to raise performance against this target.  Members were keen to achieve better than the national average performance.  The Executive asked the Strategic Director to draft a letter to the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership and Oxfordshire County Council to highlight the problem and ask for higher standards of weed control.  Continued poor performance could have an adverse effect on Local Area Agreement targets and performance awards. 

The Executive noted progress against the 26 service prioritisation plans included in the 2008/09 budget.  Members also noted that staff sickness was very slightly lower this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, whereas staff turnover was lower this quarter compared to both the previous quarter and also quarter two last year. 

Turning to the financial commentary, the Executive noted that the second quarter budget monitoring report to the Executive on 5 December 2008 had identified a potential overspend against the budget of £910,000 with a significant element of the overspend being as a consequence of a shortfall in income from planning fees, legal land searches and car parking, and a substantial budget pressure on assisted travel.  As a result the Executive had instructed officers to take any measure required to bring the budget back in balance.  Since that date recruitment to staff vacancies had been held and the use of £140,000 of unallocated Planning and Delivery Grant had been pledged to offset some of the shortfall in planning income. 

Contrary to expectations the income from investments was likely to exceed the budget in the current year.  The sharper fall than expected in interest rates meant that the Council’s fund manager had made greater capital gains on the redemption of certificates of deposit than expected on their holding.  However, this was not expected to continue into 2009/10.  A projected drop in the return on property investments meant the total investment and property income earned in 2008/09 would be £117,000 below budget. 

Other budget pressures increases had emerged over the third quarter.  The overall effect had been to reduce the predicted year-end overspend to just under £800,000.  This figure was used to identify the likely level of general fund balances going forward into the budget setting process for 2009/10.  However, despite Members not explicitly calling for any action, they asked that the Strategic Director (Chief Finance Officer) and other officers should look at how the overspend could be reduced further. 

RESOLVED

(a)       that the Management Team’s corporate governance report be received;

(b)               that the Strategic Director be requested to write to the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership to highlight that the County Council’s reduction in its weed control budget is having an adverse effect on this Council’s national indicator performance to improve street and environmental cleanliness and could impact on Local Area Agreement performance and performance awards, and that higher standards of weed control be encouraged; and

(c)        that the Strategic Director (Chief Finance Officer) and other officers should actively take steps to reduce the predicted overspend.