?

review and prioritisation of the capital programme;

?

Plymouth City Centre – Business Improvement District renewal 2015 – 2020;

?

City Deal – land transfer agreement to transfer areas of South Yard from the Ministry of Defence to Plymouth City Council;

?

Plymouth employment and skills plan;

?

2015/16 to 2018/19 sustainable balanced budget and council tax 2015/16;

?

cost and volume for fostering contract award;

?

adoption and implementation of anti-social behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014;

?

major events 2015;

?

implementing the Care Act 2014;

?

collaborative enforcement, shared problems, shared solutions;

?

residential and nursing care home fair price for care.

(1)

the Plymouth Employment and Skills Plan and the Major Events Plan 2015 are included on the work programme for the Working Plymouth Panel, for post scrutiny, as these items were being considered by  Cabinet on 9 December 2014;

(2)

the residential and nursing care home fair price for care is considered as part of the budget scrutiny process.

(a)

the estimated revenue overspend at the end of the year was £3.073m as at September 2014; the overall net spend equated to £208.383m against a budget of £204.680m which was a variance of 1.81 percent;

(b)

this needed to be taken within the context of setting £16m of management and net transformation savings in 2014/15 on the back of balancing the 2013/14 revenue budget where £17.8m of net revenue reductions were successfully delivered;

(c)

the key pressure points were still in Adult Social Care where, although client numbers were broadly in line with the set budget, the average cost per care package per client was significantly higher (which reflected the more complex needs to clients that the Council was supporting);

(d)

there was a significant increase in placement with young people placed in independent foster care which had increased by five to 74 against the target budget of 60; residential placements had reduced by three to 27 against a target budget of 18 but with a significantly number of these placements being high cost due to the complex nature of these children’s needs; due to ‘Operation Triage’ taking place in September, an additional 15 young people had to be accommodated and this had put additional pressure on the placement budget;

(e)

additional management solutions and escalated actions to deliver further savings from the Council’s transformation programme were being worked up in order to address the in-year forecasted overspend;

(f)

the latest capital budget covering 2013/14 to 2016/17 stood at £216.398 which was approved at Full Council on 15 September 2014 (including Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry at £7.445m);

(g)

the forecast had been amended to remove estimates in relation to 2013/14 and to incorporate income projections in respect of 2017/18 together with updated forecasts for the 2014-2018 period; the revised 2014-18 Capital budget for approval was £210.154m;

(h)

an additional cost of £629,000 had been incurred due to the discovery of asbestos whilst undertaking demolition works at the Mayflower car park;

(i)

a survey of the Council’s estate was in progress to identify the priorities for maintaining the stock and meeting the contractual obligations in order to protect the level of rental income;

(j)

agency staffing figures were regularly reviewed to ensure that staff were being utilised appropriately; the strategic directors had been tasked to look at their spend on agency staff; the structures of areas with high levels of agency staff would be reviewed;

(k)

it had always been anticipated that driver behaviour would improve in relation to the enforcement of the bus lanes and as such the income stream would reduce;

(l)

The Council had been notified since the publication of the monitoring report that the bid to the Department of Education Innovation fund for £3.5m had been unsuccessful; the implications of not receiving the funding would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84.

 (a)

the quarter 2 report outlined progress and emerging trends of the Corporate plan and progress of the new 50 Pledges;

(b)

the majority of the Corporate Plan key actions were on target to achieve their milestones in order that the outcomes were completed by the end of 2016/17;

(c)

of the 42 key actions -

?

one (K41) (not on target) (RED);

?

four (milestones had not been completed but there were mitigating factors which means that the outcome is not at risk (AMBER) (K27(B), K39, K44, K49);

(d)

of the 25 performance measures tracking outcomes of the Corporate Plan, the majority were performing well; one (P17 – the percentage of residents who believed they could influence decisions affecting their local area) was below target; action was being taken to find better ways of improving the measure;

(e)

16 measures were performing well; the remaining five (P10, P18, P21, P22 and P23) were 15 percent or less below target; there were two performance measures which were still to be developed and no data currently existed;

(f)

the Local Government Ombudsman found that only 10 complaints out of 82 had been upheld.

(g)

whilst a number of the Pledges had been completed there were a number which remained outstanding; Pledge 19 would be completed in December following consideration by Cabinet;

(h)

an engagement campaign would be launched in January 2015 to encourage people to register to vote; the University of Plymouth had also undertaken a campaign to encourage its students to register;

(i)

it was acknowledged that the Your Plymouth Panel’s review of the Customer Service Strategy 2015-2018,  chaired by Councillor Kate Taylor had achieved some good outcomes;

(j)

the data used for Pledge 17 (percent of residents who believe they can influence decisions affecting their local area) was based on historical surveys such as the ‘place survey’;

(k)

there was a focus within the Council’s Customer Service Strategy 2015-2018 for improving communications with its customers and making it easier for them to interact with the Council; work was being undertaken to enable the better use of small screen device when accessing Council services;

(l)

a total of 77 complaints/enquiries had been considered by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) in 2013/14; although the LGO had made 82 decision in 2013/14 (the discrepancy with the figures had arisen as five complaints/enquiries had been received in the previous year 2012/13).

(m)

the locations that had been identified within the city for 20mph zone schemes (Pledge 23);

(n)

looking at the process to make it easier for residents to participate in the online consultation for the Plymouth Plan;

(o)

the provision of a detailed breakdown of the complaints which had been upheld and those that had not which had been considered by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 85.