Issue - meetings

70

QUARTER 3 REPORT – PERFORMANCE, RISK AND FINANCE

DECISION

1.         That the quarterly monitoring information for Quarter 3 be noted.

2.         That the specific finance recommendations in the report be agreed, summarised as follows:

·         F1: The reserve movements detailed in Table 6

·         F2: The updated capital programme detailed in Table 8

·         F3: The supplementary estimate in respect of the Towns Fund Capacity Funding, as set out in Table 11

Portfolio Holders and Officer

Cllrs Skinner, Welton & Howard

SR/PJ

REASON FOR DECISION

Cabinet Members presented the headlines of the quarterly monitoring information on performance, risk and finance for Quarter 3 of 2019/20 (April to December 2019) in relation to their own portfolios.

With respect to performance, the areas of success and improvement were:

·         Planning applications (Cllr Welton)

·         Supporting business growth and promoting the Borough (Cllr Welton)

·         Switchboard (Cllr Welton)

·         Benefit and Council Tax Support processing times (Cllr Howard)

·         Information requests (Cllr Howard)

·         Gym memberships (Cllr Brown)

·         Event income (Cllr Brown)

·         Broadly compliant food businesses (Cllr Stevens)

·         Car parking income (Cllr Sharman)

·         Housing completions, empty properties and housing standards (Cllr Griggs)

Members praised staff for their hard work achieving these performance levels and for continuing to work through the current difficult situation. 

In response to a question, Councillor Skinner explained that the CCTV directed/assisted arrests were on those occasions that the Police called for the CCTV centre’s assistance; they could only be carried out when requested, as with the CCTV evidence packages.  The number of CCTV incidents reported was down from 478 the same quarter the previous year to 209, which seemed to indicate a decreasing trend in the number of incidents. 

Areas of concern/watching brief were:

·         Long term sickness absence (Cllr Skinner), though this was on target overall

·         Swim sessions (Cllr Brown)

·         Household waste and recycling (Cllr Stevens)

·         Fly tip response times (Cllr Stevens)

·         Market income (Cllr Sharman), which would be considered during the Transformation Programme

The report also listed other items of note:

·         Commercial waste growth in income and number of customers (Cllr Stevens)

·         Low contamination rates in domestic recycling (Cllr Stevens)

·         Scrutiny led Inquiry evening on 16^th March 2020 (Cllr Stevens)

Members stressed that the significant impact of the pandemic would be reflected in future quarters’ reports. 

Councillor Howard presented the quarterly risk information.  No new strategic risks had been identified up to the end of December.  Covid-19 updates would be necessary going forward and would be incorporated into future quarterly reports.  A summary of strategic risks was set out the report and full details were contained in Appendix B. 

Councillor Howard then outlined the financial management information.  The key headlines were set out in the report as follows:

-        Key financial events during Q3 2019/20 (section 1)

-        Revenue budget (section 3): table 1 details spend for the year against budget by service area, table 2 by portfolio holder and table 3 by corporate priority.  A small net underspend was projected.

-        Variations to budget (section 3)

-        Controlling Migration Fund (section 4,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 70