Performance & Finance Working Group No 46

Date of Meeting 3rd March 2016Time 10:00-14:00

Venue: Council Chamber

Working Group Attendees
Val Potter (VP) / George Potter (GP)
Pam McGowan (PM) / Sheila Sharpe (SS)- Apologies
Phil Palmer (PP) / Ray Finney (RF)
Ryan Davenport (RD) - Apologies / Tina Bakewell - Apologies
Stuart Manning (SM) / Pauline Inett (PI)
Council Attendees
Roger Bayliss (RB) / David Moxon (DM)
Sue Ross (SR)
  1. Minutes from previous meeting – 17/12/2015
  • DM welcomed the new attendees to the meeting
  • Minutes were accepted as a true record of December meeting.
  • All actions were responded to by DM
  1. p10 Finance Clinic Summary
  • DM ran through the HRA as at p10 (end of January 2016). The position is looking positive with an income shortfall of around £2,500 and a surplus of £15,500.
  1. 2016/17 Budgets following approvals
  • DM explained that following the draft budget agreement by Cabinet in December this had gone out to consultation. There were no comments received neither through either the NWLDC website nor via email. Therefore what went forward for final approval was essentially what was discussed in December with the one change regarding the government decision to allow the sheltered housing to be charged a rent increase.
  • DM confirmed that both Cabinet and Council approved the budget without any further changes.
  • GP asked that in future, given it’s importance, budget consultation should be discussed and reviewed as a one item agenda meeting. DM confirmed that he would take steps to allow this to happen.
  • Discussion was held around the Older Persons Service with GP sharing his concern around the lack of investment by NWLDC following the withdrawal of funding by LCC. SR explained that it was still very early days and that the service still needed to ‘find its feet’ with regards delivery which in turn would inform the investment levels required. PI as leader on the Older Persons Working Group would be able to influence this further.
  1. 2015/16 Benchmarking Results
  • DM shared the report given to the T&LCF on 29th February 2016. He explained that the results were not particularly good but that it was important to measure relative performance to other like authorities.
  • To this effect the peer group had been reviewed and changed for 2014/15 in order to reflect more rural districts.
  • Some costs had increased due to changes in team structures, other costs were probably exaggerated due to the impact of the DHIP works which concluded in 2014/15.
  1. Update on PASE activity
  • DM provided an update on PASE by explaining that at the outset the agreement was for Openhousing to be the tenant contact system, Oneserve the repairs system and PIMSS the asset management tool.
  • Work had progressed reasonably well with the majority of the top 12 tasks having been completed or well on their way to being finished.
  1. Value for Money Efficiency Savings
  • DM shared the cashable and non-cashable savings from the VfM register.
  1. Repairs Value for Money Review
  • To be carried forward to the next meeting
  1. AOB
  • VP suggested whether we might reduce the slot for the meeting to 3hrs (10-1) and remove the lunch in order to save money as well as ensure alertness of attendees during the afternoon. DM agreed that this would be debated further at the June meeting.