Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

None were received

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications.

There were no substitute members.

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made on this occasion. Cllr K Salmon advised for transparency that they had a potential interest in the DSG in relation to the Council Budget Monitoring Report 2024/25 at Quarter One.

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the Meeting held on 16 July 2024.

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 July were agreed as a correct record.

To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution. Further information on the requirements for submitting these is available to view at the following link:-

https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1

The deadline for the submission of public questions is midday 3 clear working days before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.

None were received for this meeting

This report provides the quarter one 2024/25 projected financial outturn information for the general fund and housing revenue account (HRA).

The February 2024 approved general fund budget for 2024/25 was balanced on the assumption of £38m in savings, efficiencies, and additional resources. 

The quarter one budget monitoring position for 2024/25 demonstrates the ongoing financial challenges to this authority from relentless increasing demand and cost pressures. These pressures are not dissimilar to those faced by all upper tier local authorities. The council’s robust financial governance and proactive management of its budget is enabling significant mitigation.

Services are expected to implement mitigation strategies to address emerging operational pressures identified within the first quarter. This is critical to maintaining the financial health and sustainability of the council as the medium-term financial plan makes no allowance for replenishing any reserves used to balance 2024/25 budget.

The expenditure on the Special Educational Needs and Disability Service (SEND), which is within the high needs budget, continues to exceed the government grant made available as part of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and reflects the rising demand for services in this area. This position has significantly worsened from the already dire position assumed in the budget for 2024/25. BCP Council has taken steps to manage this situation locally but, as a national issue, these steps are limited. Conversations for an urgent solution continue with the Department for Education (DfE) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG). 

The Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Board was advised of the quarter one 2024/25 projected financial outturn information for the general fund and housing revenue account (HRA).

The February 2024 approved general fund budget for 2024/25 was balanced on the assumption of £38m in savings, efficiencies, and additional resources. The quarter one budget monitoring position for 2024/25 demonstrated the ongoing financial challenges from increasing demand and cost pressures, not dissimilar to those faced by all upper tier local authorities. The Council’s robust financial governance and proactive management of its budget had enabled significant mitigation.

The Board was informed that Services were expected to implement mitigation strategies to address emerging operational pressures identified within the first quarter.

The expenditure on the Special Educational Needs and Disability Service (SEND), continued to exceed the government grant made available as part of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and reflected the rising demand for services in this area. This position had significantly worsened from the position assumed in the budget for 2024/25. Conversations for an urgent solution were continuing with the Department for Education (DfE) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG).  The Board raised a number of issues, including:

·     Carparking Overspend and Cost of Collection Charges – The Board sought clarification as to whether this was due to transactional charges by Credit Card Companies being considerably more than budgeted. The reasons for this were being examined along with mitigating measures to address this.

·     Charges per transaction had increased but numbers using the car parks had reduced. The Portfolio Holder was asked if charges had reached a point which deterred people from using the car parks. It wasn’t believed that this was the case and different factors around this were being looked into.

·     Action: It was suggested that the O&S Board should look into parking charges further and undertake a more in-depth look into whether the current policy was suitable. The Board was advised that the Chief Operations Officer was carrying out an in-depth look into this.

·     The Board raised issues regarding wellbeing concerns at points 21, 22 and 23 of Appendix A1 to the report for Children’s Social Care.  There was a strong oversight of the Children in Care Overspend which was addressed though Gateway Meetings.

·     Costs of agency staff and whether it was realistic that this could be reduced. A significant recruitment drive had changed the position to around a mix of 30 percent agency staff and 70 percent permanent staff. There was clear support for remuneration for social workers in children’s services in order to support this agenda.

·     The reduction of the Adult Social Care Budget by £5.1million. An amount had been budgeted for mental health support which had not been required. This was an ongoing budget issue which was proposed to support the ongoing budget  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

The Overview and Scrutiny Board to receive a demonstration of the new Performance Dashboard and consider how this can be utilised by the Board as an ongoing tool to drive impactful scrutiny. This item includes the Cabinet report which provides the Quarter 1 monitoring report as an example.

The Leader introduced the item which included a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Director of Marketing Communications and Policy provided further information to the Committee on the utilisation of the performance dashboard within a presentation attached as an Appendix to these minutes.  The Board was informed that BCP Council adopted the corporate strategy, ‘A Shared Vision for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 2024-28’ in May 2024. A set of measures of progress for achieving the vision, priorities and ambitions were incorporated. The first quarterly performance monitoring report for the Vision, presenting an update on the progress measures was outlined to the Board. The Board was advised that the vision could also be monitored through a new performance dashboard which was available on the Council’s website providing up-to-date real time information on the progress measures. The Board received a presentation and demonstration of the dashboard through the website. In the following discussion number of points were raised including:

·     Violent crime and sexual assaults were combined on the monitoring tracker and the Board asked if these could be separated out.

·     It was noted that the measure for Anti-Social Behaviour monitoring was by reports to the police. A Councillor advised that it appeared to be nearly impossible to report at the moment and asked if there was another measure which could be used.

·     In response to a query the Board was advised that the development of the performance dashboard had considered what other authorities already had. Research with the LGA had taken place and the service had looked into those Councils’ which were highlighted as having best practice.

·     The Board asked if BCP could sell to other authorities. It was reported that this had been considered and would be investigated further.

·     The organisation was using Power BI, this was positive, and it was really good to be transparent with the public moving forward. However, it was important to ensure that with the information being publicly accessible that it was presented in an appropriate way. For example, the target for more Fixed Penalty Notice and the potential public perception of these statistics.

·     Consideration should be given to replacing the target regarding waste diverted from landfill with a more appropriate target on recycling.

·     It was also suggested that a target around wealth inequality should be considered.

·     The Board questioned whether it had been tested for accessibility by the public or if it was going through an appropriate test group. It was noted that it was already live, but it was not thought to have gone through the suggested testing as yet.

·     The Board asked about the frequency of updates to the data. It was explained that data came from the scorecard which was updated daily. At present this was manually entered but the ambition was to have it be able to link into systems data.

·     The Board asked about the ease of changing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

The Council was issued with a ‘Best Value Notice’ by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) on 3 August 2023. This followed an assurance review that was commissioned in response to the Council’s July 2022 request for a capitalisation direction under the Exceptional Financial Support programme. The Chief Executive also carried out an internal assurance review prior to this, with the conclusions supported by the external review.

In response to receiving the ‘Best Value Notice’, an action plan was agreed by Cabinet on 6 September 2023 and has been monitored and updated regularly since.

The ‘Best Value Notice’ expired on 2 August 2024. This report outlines the good progress made against the action plan.

The Leader of the Council presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'D' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Board was asked to note the good progress made against the Best Value Notice action plan. The Council was issued with a ‘Best Value Notice’ by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) on 3 August 2023. This followed an assurance review that was commissioned in response to the Council’s July 2022 request for a capitalisation direction under the Exceptional Financial Support programme. The Chief Executive also carried out an internal assurance review prior to this, with the conclusions supported by the external review. In response to receiving the ‘Best Value Notice’, an action plan was agreed by Cabinet and has been monitored and updated regularly since.  The ‘Best Value Notice’ expired on 2 August 2024. The report outlined the progress made against the action plan. A number of issues were raised in the discussion, including:

·       That it may be useful to have an updated communication to Councillors to remind them of what actions were appropriate and noting that there had been lots of changes on the Council since that time. It was noted that the first four years were challenging which was partly due to the tight political balance and there were now measures in place to address those issues. New Councillors coming on board had an induction programme which would cover this but an annual reminder to Councillors would be beneficial.

·       The Chief Executive advised that BCP Council had gone through several points to ensure these were reflected within the Constitution. The report went back one year since the notice, and this was served sometime since the review was completed. There was confidence that measures were in place to address issues that it was not thought would happen now.

·       An issue was raised regarding the Councillor/Officer relationship, especially considering staff pressures and job changes. It was noted that many officers were great at engaging but there was sometime officer reluctance to engage with Councillors. The Board asked how confident officer felt in dealing with Councillors. The Chief Executive wanted to make sure that all officers were aware of what the rules were and were confident in dealing with issues in this regard. It was noted that officers were being asked to find ways of making savings to services which was a difficult position for them but there was a need to have rules in place to create a more open culture of trust within the organisation.

·       A Councillor asked about the initial training for Councillor’s and there being a need to help Councillors understand the ‘corporate’ business. For example, use of different IT systems. It was suggested that it would be a good idea for there to be a cross-party buddy system in place for new Councillors.

·       It was noted that the progress which had been made was positive, the initial review  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

The Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Board is asked to consider and identify work priorities for publication in a Work Plan.

The Chairman presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'D' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Board was asked to consider and identify work priorities for publication in a Work Plan.

The Chairman noted that the regeneration report would be moved to the relevant meeting depending on when it was considered by Cabinet. The Chair asked the Board for any comments on the Work Plan.

An issue was raised regarding devolution and what conversations and plans were taking place concerning this in relation to a request from central government. It was noted that an expression of interest, including high level details needed to be submitted to the secretary of state by the end of September to include other partners. The Council was currently exploring what would be the best outcome in terms of what we want was wanted for the area. It was suggested that an item on this in September would be a good idea if possible.

RESOLVED: That the Work Plan as circulated be noted subject to the amendments outlined above.