Agenda item

To consider report 35/11 of the head of finance.   

If any councillor has any detailed questions on this paper, they are advised to contact Paul Howden before the meeting (email paul.howden@southandvale.gov.uk). 

Also appended is a copy of the minutes from the committee’s debate on this matter in 2010. 

The committee considered report 35/11 of the head of finance, which reviewed the 2010/11 performance of the council’s financial services contractor, Capita. 

The chair invited Councillor Dudley Hoddinott to address the meeting.  Councillor Hoddinott believed that the report highlighted a number of instances where communications could be improved.  Although some customers reported excellent service, others believed the service was not so good.  In particular, customers had difficulty in speaking to the right person and did not always have confidence in the responses to their questions or found correspondence difficult to understand.  Councillor Hoddinott asked what actions had been taken to ensure customers spoke to the most appropriate person and what was being done to improve both verbal and non-verbal communication? 

Capita’s representative, Darren Keen, could not identify the reasons for these customer responses to Capita’s survey.  He reported that Capita trained its call centre staff and monitored calls.  No issues had been discovered.  As for written communication, Capita was bound by the law on what had to be included in its letters and forms; it had no choice on the wording. 

The committee then considered the officer’s recommendations to rate Capita’s performance for each service.  The following points were made:

Revenues

• The number of complaints about the revenues service were believed to be approximately the same as the previous year.  However, the chair asked for the officers to confirm this to the committee members outside of the meeting
• The Citizen’s Advice Bureau no longer had concerns over the bailiff service
• The committee was pleased to note an improvement in rating the revenues service from ‘good’ in 2009/10 to ‘excellent’ in 2010/11. 

Benefits

·        During 2010/11 the Audit Commission qualified the council’s 2009/10 benefit subsidy grant claim, criticising the council’s benefits arrangements.  Initially, this meant the council would be penalised £52,998 on its subsidy grant claim for breaching the local authority financial error threshold.  However, the council challenged this penalty and following further audit work, the Department of Work and Pensions had agreed to waive the penalty but the final decision rested with the Secretary of State.  The outcome was awaited. 

·        In terms of old debts owed to the council, these were paid off over time by a court order arrangement.  There was a cost to the council but it had reduced its bad debt provision.  The officer undertook to provide the committee with the level of bad debt written off last year. 

·        Most of the overpaid benefits were due to fraud or benefit recipients not advising the council of their changed circumstances.  However, the accuracy of administering benefits claims had improved. 

• The committee was pleased to note an improvement in rating the benefits service from ‘weak’ in 2009/10 to ‘good’ in 2010/11. 

Exchequer services

• Councillors noted that exchequer services covered accounts payable and accounts receivable. 
• The committee was pleased to note an improvement in rating the exchequer service from ‘fair’ in 2009/10 to ‘excellent’ in 2010/11. 

Financial management system

• Since writing the report, Capita and the council had agreed to improved training in the report writing capabilities of the financial management system. 
• The committee was pleased to note an improvement in rating the financial management system from ‘weak’ in 2009/10 to ‘good’ in 2010/11. 

Concessionary fares (assisted travel)

• The committee was pleased to note an improvement in rating the administration of the concessionary fares service from ‘good’ in 2009/10 to ‘excellent’ in 2010/11.  The officers reported that they had recommended a ‘good’ rating as the council had received no complaints about this service but could not justify awarding a higher rating as they had no data to support this. 

The committee congratulated Capita and the council’s contract monitoring officer on the significant improvements made during 2010/11.  The committee agreed with the officer’s assessment of Capita’s performance and agreed with the ratings set out in the report. 

The committee noted that the financial services contract was closely monitored by the Ridgeway Shared Services Partnership Board.  The board consisted of two Cabinet members from the Vale and two from South Oxfordshire District Council.  It met at least every quarter and sometimes monthly to monitor Capita’s performance.  The committee thanked the board for its work. 

RESOLVED: To recommend the Cabinet member for finance to agree the financial services contractor’s performance ratings for 2010/11 as follows:

• Revenues – excellent
• Benefits – good
• Exchequer services – excellent
• Financial management system – good
• Concessionary fares – excellent