Agenda and minutes

Councillor Edward Lavery (Councillor Mary O’Connor substituting).

Councillor John Riley declared a personal interest in agenda item 5 as he was a Governor of Field End Infants School.

Councillor Mary O’Connor declared a personal interest in agenda item 5 as she was a Governor of Moorcroft School and Botwell School.

Councillor David Yarrow declared a personal interest in agenda item 5 as he was a Governor of Ruislip High School.            

Agreed as an accurate record subject to an amendment to Minute No. 2 as amended at the Council meeting on 2 July 2009  – the last sentence, so that it reads:  “These responses would be sent to Members of this Committee by email, and based on this information, Members would be asked to email or telephone the Chairman on whether they were content with the information supplied or whether they recommended the calling-in of the particular item. The majority of the Committee Members would have to agree to the call-in request for it to proceed.  The Chairman would then advise the Head of Democratic Services.”

To confirm that the items of business marked Part I will be considered in Public and that the items marked Part II will be considered in private.

It was agreed that all items of business were considered in public.

The hear the Call-In of any decisions made at the Cabinet meeting prior to this meeting or made by Cabinet Members, other Council Committees or a delegated officer and published within five working days of this meeting.

Members should bring their Cabinet agenda to the meeting.

Members should consider any other decisions published in the five working days before this meeting.

The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether to refer back any decision to the decision maker.

Members gave consideration to the Cabinet reports of 16 July 2009 and after careful consideration Members decided not to call-in any decision made by the Cabinet at their meeting.

However, officers were asked for clarification on a number of issues detailed in reports. These were:

Item 11 - Council Budget - 2008/9 Revenue and Capital Outturn - Could officers explain in more detail the £246k under spend in Education and Children Services, under Director & Youth Services, paragraph 3, page 243 of the Cabinet agenda? What was the reason for the staffing vacancies, have the posts been removed?

Subsequent to the meeting officers provided Members with the following response.

 “£50k of this under spend was due to the departure in year of the Deputy Director for Learning and School Effectiveness.  £65k was an adjustment following the centralisation of Early Retirement Charges which had been borne by the service.  The under spend in Youth services was staffing costs associated with the new mobile bus.  As the purchase was delayed, staff costs were not incurred until later in the year.  There was a £40k under spend due to delayed recruitment in Connexions, a £30k under spend was reported this year.  There was a further one-off saving in Connexions due to the early completion of a project”.

Item 11 - Council Budget - 2008/9 Revenue and Capital Outturn  - Could officers explain in more detail the £281k Pressure in Education and Children Service, under Resources, Policy & Performance, paragraph 4, page 243 of the Cabinet agenda? What was the shortfall of the grant for Barnhill PFI and what were the additional payments?

Subsequent to the meeting officers provided Members with the following response.

“The grant shortfall on the Barnhill PFI amounts to approximately £140k.  This represents the difference between the funding allocated to the Council via Revenue Support Grant and the amounts payable under the contract.  The contract was reviewed during the course of the year.  The payments required to the sinking fund had not been recalculated to take account of benchmarking data and some items had been charged to the sinking fund in error.  Discussions were had with the contractor and an agreed amount to top up the fund was agreed by both parties”.

Item 12 - Council Budget - 2008/9 Revenue and Capital Outturn - Could officers explain the significant under spends on Extended Schools - New Grant and Early Years Foundation Stage - Surestart as detailed under Education and Children Service, Capital paragraph 7, page 245 of the Cabinet agenda? Members asked that for future reports there should be an extra column, giving for example, explanations on under spends/overspends.

Subsequent to the meeting officers provided Members with the following response.

“This was a three-year grant allocation and any under/over spends can be carried from one year to the next.  The annual split of the allocation was determined by the DCSF and was not based on the Council’s expected spend.  The programme was currently behind schedule due to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.