{Disestablished Committee} - Finance and General Purposes Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Read the Minutes

11 January 2007

Present:

• Councillor Priest - In the Chair 
• Councillors Andrews, Clayton, Hassan, Isherwood, Morrison, Brian O'Neil, Trotman and Watson. 

Present by Invitation:

• Councillor S. Murphy, Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources
• Councillor Jeff Smith, Executive Member for Children's Services 

FGP/07/01 Urgent Business

The Chair reported that he had agreed to the report 'Council Tax Base for Tax Setting Purposes 2007/2008' being submitted for consideration as urgent business.

Decision

To agree to consider the report as urgent business in order to give the Committee the opportunity to comment on the proposed council tax base within the relevant timeframe and before the Chair is requested to determine whether to exempt the matter from further scrutiny.

FGP/07/02 Minutes

Decision

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2006.

PE/07/03 Selected Business Plans 2007/2008

A joint report of the Chief Executive and City Treasurer was submitted, together with the business plans selected by the Committee at its last meeting.

Legal and Democratic Services

The City Solicitor introduced the report and commented how the aims and objectives of the plan reflected those of the Council as a whole as the Division supported a wide range of services across the authority. The Committee noted that the Legal Services Division had recently undergone a senior management restructure to align resources to the new directorate model of the Council and to reflect the impact of work on major projects such as Academies and Building Schools for the Future.

The Committee noted that the Division had also been working to improve value for money and was in the process of agreeing improved ways of working with its clients; which would include redressing the balance of qualified and administrative staff to ensure that work was carried out at the appropriate level and to increase flexibility and improve responsiveness. The Service was also addressing changes to election implementation under the Local Government Bill, was preparing for the changes likely to ensue from the White Paper 'Strong and Prosperous Communities' in relation to the democratic core of the Council and ethical standards, and was endeavouring to achieve the Lexcel standard.

During a wide-ranging discussion members highlighted the following concerns regarding: -

• the ratio of 115 qualified staff to 35 support staff, and whether the number of support staff was sufficient to avoid qualified staff doing administrative tasks. Members noted that this was already the subject of review. 
• the methodology of gauging year on year caseload variations.
• the opportunities for benchmarking with other authorities in discrete areas where comparative information would be relevant; recognising that few local authority legal services operated across as many disciplines in house as Manchester did.
  whether the increase of 39% in caseload had resulted in backlogs of work. The Committee received an assurance that there were no known areas where casework was being delayed. 
• how the service would achieve its ambition of being the first choice legal services provider within the council. 
• whether the service had the appropriate skills base to effectively minimise outsourcing. 

The Head of Legal Services undertook to provide a breakdown of billed hours by qualified staff to assist in illustrating changes in workload from previous years. Furthermore she commented that benchmarking was challenging as legal services sections were rarely comparable across authorities but she accepted that some benchmarking in discrete areas might be meaningful. In working towards being the first choice legal service provider within the Council the Committee noted that the Division was committed to providing a service that would be competitive to the private sector both in terms of cost, and in terms of quality of service. Part of this approach embraced increasing the skills base of staff in order to reduce the need for outsourcing; however this was not appropriate in all cases, for example it would not be cost effective to recruit specialists in classes of law for which cases rarely arose. Outsourcing would also continue to be necessary in relation to the retention of barristers in cases before the Crown Court and Court of Appeal where rights of audience were exclusive.

Summary

1. To note the business plan with the comments made by the Committee, particularly with regard to the benchmarking of services with other comparable providers of service.

2. To request further information to better illustrate changes to workloads and how these are managed within the resource base.

Revenue and Benefits Unit

Members indicated that the Business Plan broadly reflected the position that had regularly been reported to the Committee and welcomed the continuing strong focus on improving services to customers. Some difficulties in terms of recruiting and retaining staff against competition from 'aggressive' recruiting by a commercial operator were being experienced and the Committee welcomed the AGMA-wide cooperation to offset these difficulties.

Some concerns were expressed regarding the continuing impacts on processing times from the introduction of the new computer management system. Officers indicated that it had always been anticipated that the process would take about twelve months to fully bed-in, and this had to be viewed against the massive transfer of cases that had been involved. It was anticipated that by the end of first quarter of the year the levels of performance that existed prior to the changeover would be recovered, already information from the last quarter signposted that 70% of new claims were being processed within 14 days

Summary

To note the draft business plan.

Children's Services

Incorporating the following business plans:

• Education
• Strategy, Performance and Operations
• Children and Young People's Services Division

Children and Families

A report of the Director of Children's Services was submitted summarising the four inter-related business plans and detailing measures to be taken and monitoring processes in place to realign expenditure to the budget during the remainder of the current financial year and for the next.

The Manchester Improvement Programme Director highlighted the proposals to improve financial control of demand-led budgets by positioning control and responsibility for those budgets closer to the level at which decisions were being made. Accepting this, members were however concerned that decisions made in other parts of the City Council often involved implications for Children's Services and were an improved and joined-up approach would provide more affective and appropriate family interventions. The Executive Member for Children's Services recognised the issues involved and assured the Committee that work was already being done to develop a smarter application of Council policies from the perspective of how the outcomes benefit children and families. The Assistant Director of Children and Families responded that more sophisticated measures were being developed, in co-ordination with other departments, for those children who were on the brink of requiring formal care provision, to provide tailored forms of assistance that may help avoid subsequent and more costly care solutions.

During further discussion members highlighted concerns about the number and cost of external placements for children with special educational needs. Officers indicated that the number of children involved (177) had not increased significantly over the past 4 years, but that the cost of the provision of care had. Widening the discussion to encompass looked after children in out of city placements, the Assistant Director confirmed that the Department was committed to reducing the numbers of out of city placements by increasing the internal skills base, and she outlined the extensive scrutiny which took place before decisions were made to place children in care, and indicated that savings of £218,000 were anticipated in the 2007/2008 financial year.

Summary

1. To note the business plans with a measure of reassurance that the strategic approach being adopted towards budget realignment is the right one, but mindful that there is way yet to go.

2. To continue to monitor progress at periodic intervals during the financial year.

Adult Social Care Services

Incorporating the following business plans:

Adult Social Care Services

A report of the Director of Adult Social Care was submitted summarising the business plan and detailing measures to be taken to realign expenditure to the budget during the remainder of the current financial year and for the next. The Director commented that the pressures faced in squaring the ambition to provide high quality and responsive services on demand which met the expectations of service users, with that of strict budgetary control, were shared by most local authorities, and the City Council was taking a leading role amongst its partners in transforming services to realise this ambition.

During discussion members highlighted concerns about the implications of a vacancy freeze as part of the forward budget strategy. The Director clarified that this was not intended to be a blanket freeze and that all essential vacancies would continue to be filled, however it was important that there was an absolute justification for the filling of all vacancies in non-care sections.

Members requested a copy of the Executive summary of the "The State of Social Care in England" published by the Commission for Social Care Inspection on 10 January 2007.

Summary

To note the business plan with more confidence that the budget strategy being pursued will make significant progress towards budget realignment.

Decision

To note the business plans with the comments above.

PE/07/04 Council Tax Base for Tax Setting Purposes 2007/2008

A report of the Head of Financial Management was submitted advising members of the method and outcome of the calculation of the City Council's tax base for tax setting purposes for the 2007/08 financial year which would be determined by the City Treasurer under delegated powers, The Committee was advised that the as this was a Key Decision, and because of the crucial timing of the budget determination, the Chair of the Committee would be requested to exempt the decision of the City Treasurer from further scrutiny.

Decision

To support the Chair in agreeing to exempt the decision from further scrutiny.