(a)

Performance was an area that was scrutinised by all of the scrutiny panels, however the Performance, Finance and Customer Focus Overview and Scrutiny Committee panel had the responsibility for the overarching performance framework for the Council;

(b)

this was the fourth and final report for the last financial year and was therefore the previous administrations report on the corporate plan – the report covered the period January to March 2023;

(c)

the work undertaken with SME (small to medium enterprises) within the PL postcode to boost local economy was positive and figures were continuing to grow;

(d)

there was a consistent reduction in repeat referrals to children’s social care;

(e)

business rate collection had increased to 99%;

(f)

there were still some performance challenges that would be prioritised as a new administration, including:

·          

the percentage of household waste sent to recycling, reuse or composting had seen a significant reduction over the past year. The downward trend from the previous year showed the Council was 8% shy of its target;

·          

the city survey showed that during 2022 there was a reduction in the percentage of people who believed that their area was a place where people from different backgrounds could get on well together – in 2021 there was a high of 55% but now dropped to 42% in 2022;

(g)

the corporate plan on page 35 of the agenda pack was not the Council’s corporate plan any longer as it had been replaced; the new administration would revisit what the performance framework looked like and would mirror the five plus two: the five priorities and the two sections on growing up and growing old well in the city. Officers would undertake work to benchmark against other authorities’ performance;

(h)

there was a new Government office that had been launched in last few weeks, namely the Office of Local Government; it was launched as a new local government performance body and was part of the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It had three strategic objectives: to empower citizens with further information about their local authority, secondly to build on local leaders and councils knowledge of their services, and thirdly to increase central government’s understanding of local government performance highlighting excellence and identifying risks of failure to facilitate timely support. The new data comparator tool had recently published data covering adult social care, adult skills, waste management and local authority finances;

(i)

the government department had also launched a consultation into new statutory guidance of what constituted best value and the standards that local authorities were expected to meet by Government and residents – that was due to close on 15 August.

(j)

in terms of the increase in full time equivalent work days  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

(a)

the Strategic Risk Register was held at the executive level with the corporate management team, with the Operational Risk Register beneath that; these reports were submitted to the Audit and Governance Committee however it was considered that they should also be submitted to the scrutiny committees so that there was an awareness of the risks and big issues facing the Council;

(b)

there were 23 risks currently being managed on the Strategic Risk Register, 8 of which were rated as red. The report was submitted to Committee to aid Members in considering priorities for their work programme moving forward;

(c)

the current Strategic Red Risks included Council expenditure exceeding resources, pension fund accounting, demanding complexity of children’s services and  financial sustainability of CaterEd (both on the work programme for the Education and Children’s Social Care OSP), cyber security (to form part of the Performance, Finance and Customer Focus OSP work programme), IT supply chain constraints, adult social care workforce constraints, sustainable urban drainage system (SUDS) approval body;

(d)

there was a new risk on the Strategic Risk Register, rated as amber and concerned the capacity within the senior leadership team. There were a number of interims in place;

(e)

there were currently 119 risks on the Operational Risk Register; there was a reduction of 11 risks on the current register; the removal of those was because they were no longer relevant or duplicated in some way;

(f)

There were 7 red risks on the Operational Risk Register – only red risks were reported to the Audit and Governance Committee and to scrutiny. They included childrens services, the safety of some older trees in the city, asbestos management in some of the Council’s buildings, data security recruitment, home working and the school transport budget;

(g)

Members were encouraged to consider including pre-decision scrutiny of the Council’s IT procurement to their work programme for the forthcoming municipal year.

(h)

the IT contract with Delt was due to expire in October 2024; due to the complexity of the contract it was suggested that scrutiny on this matter might take approximately 9 months giving Councillors opportunity to get involved;

(i)

the Audit and Governance Committee had the responsibility for monitoring the pension fund liability accounting issue. At that meeting scheduled for 25 July 2023, the Audit and Governance Committee discussed this issue. It was highlighted that the Members were unable to sign off the Council’s account for 2019/20 as there was one outstanding issue that related to the pension and the way in which the Council undertook a transaction relating to it. Every year there was a deficit that existed on a pension. The Council took a decision to pay the deficit off for the next 20 years thereby not incurring a substantial cost  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

(a)

the purpose of the report was to give the committee an understanding of the  position of the Council, on a monthly basis, with respect to its forecast outturn; the earliest opportunity to consider the forecast outturn was May;

(b)

as of the end of May 2023, the Council was forecasting a potential overspend of £8.1m for the full year; the report detailed some specific areas as to where the pressures currently existed: the Council had undertaken a number of by-elections which would have had a direct impact upon the budget, there were some legacy savings in corporate services, the home to school transport budget was having an impact as well as the People’s directorate overspending  on strategic care packages and community connections;

(c)

the forecast savings against the Council in the capital programme were included in the report;

(d)

in terms of the £8.1m figure, it wasn’t considered unusual for this sum to be stated during this period; there was a legal requirement for the Council to balance its books;

(e)

Whilst the Cabinet Member and Interim Strategic Director for Finance stated they were concerned about the state of the budget, it was also highlighted that the savings status of the Council was positive and moving in the right direction.

(f)

it was a national trend that council’s across the country were in a similar position in terms of their budget forecasts, especially due to the impact of the cost of living crisis, mortgage rate increases and homelessness;

(g)

the scale of homelessness was having an impact upon the Council; there had never been an overtly homelessness problem such as was evident now. Post covid and as a consequence of the cost of living crisis was having an impact. It was considered that 20 people were competing for every one rented accommodation in the city. Strategic methodologies were required to be put in place to solve the problem;

(h)

the pressure placed upon the childrens services budget was not unique to Plymouth as it was a nationwide issue; the Council recently had an Ofsted inspection in which a number of recommendations for improvement were made. An improvement board was set up to ensure the right decisions were being made locally. Nationally, it was considered that the Council wasn’t adequately funded given the demographics that existed in the city;

(i)

the Strategic Director for Finance was the Chair of the Society of Unitary Treasurers and their three main issues for conversation and action was adults, childrens and homelessness;

(j)

there was enough coverage in the budget for the external factors affecting the Council, such as fuel costs, inflation and the war in Ukraine etc, as these were built into the budget base however this would be monitored;

(k)

trying to look  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

1.

HR issues and risk 25 - to invite the Chief Executive. To be added to September 2023 meeting;

2.

Safer Plymouth – review of the plan;

3.

Serious Violence Duty – Community Safety Partnership;

4.

Community Builders;

5.

Household Waste and Recycling;

6.

Pre-decision scrutiny on IT provision – potential select committee;

7.

Budget scrutiny;

8.

an update to be provided to Committee in September on the Pension transaction (as this was contained on the risk register).