Agenda and minutes

Councillor Liz Kemp declared a Personal Interest in Agenda Item 6 as she was a Member of the Board of Hillingdon Homes.

Agreed as an accurate record.

To confirm that 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 Head of Finance Manager for Central Services outlined the main issues in the budget proposals:

Deputy Chief Executives

·        Priority growth of £50,000 for the provision of a Voluntary Sector Support Package has been included in the draft budget for consultation

·        The savings included in the draft budget for the Deputy Chief Executive’s Office totalled £400,000. these savings would not impact on Council front line services

·        Reference was made to Development and Risk Contingency which included a provision of £40,000 for the Joint Appointment of a Director of Public Health

·        There were no identified service pressures within the Directorate

Finance & Resources

• The Finance & Resources budget still included property services although the management structure had changed and property now fell within Planning & Community Services
• There was no growth identified within the Finance & Resources Directorate. (There was however, a sum of £1m for the Council, which remained unallocated for further priority growth initiatives during the financial year)
• The Finance & Resources savings included in the draft budget amounted to £509,000
• The current draft Development and Risk Contingency included a provision of £420,000 to cover the cost of Uninsured Insurance Claims.

Members were informed there would be no increases in fees and charges in line with the agreed fees and charges policy for the Council agreed by Cabinet in February. Clarification was sought on the reason for the differences in the charges for Registration of Births, Deaths & Marriage certificates from the Registrar and from the Superintendent. Subsequent to the meeting the Head of Democratic Services reported that these charges were statutory fees. The event (Birth, Death, Marriage etc) would be registered initially by the Registrar and certificates issued would remain at the lower fee as long as the register remains in the possession of the Registrar. Subsequently a higher fee was attached when the Superintendent becomes involved with additional workload / responsibility if required. 

Reference was made to the Business Improvement Delivery Programme (BID) which comprised a number of projects which were aimed at transforming the way the Council worked. The BID programme had been put in place to help deliver Council savings of £19 million next year and more than £50 million over the next four years. This would inevitably impact on the Council’s staffing levels.      

Resolved- 

1.      That the budget projections contained in the report be noted and officers be thanked for their presentations.  

 Deputy Chief Executives

The Head of Policy introduced the report and the main points highlighted were:

• The performance information for 2008/09 was used for both the Area Assessment and the Organisation Assessment elements of the Comprehensive Area Assessment. The Council had received a score of 3 for the Organisation Assessment
• As part of the Area Assessment the Council was awarded a Green Flag for partnership working to support unaccompanied asylum seeking children  
• DCEO had 12 targets in the Council Plan which were under the theme “serving our community and customers”. At the end of Q2 there were 2 targets completed, 9 on track and just 1 target showing slippage
• The target which had slipped was in relation to improving footpaths in north and west of the borough under the chrysalis project
• There were 10 targets in the group plan that would enable the Council to achieve its priority of achieving value for money. At the end of Q2, 8 tasks were on target, 2 tasks showing slippage, with one task showing serious slippage. This was the appointment of the Joint Director of Public Health. Members were informed that the post had now been filled and the post holder would commence duties in March 2010
• Reference was made to Local Indicators and in particular sickness absence figures where DCEO had ended 2008-09 just within its target of 6.5 and had a good first quarter of 2009-10.
• In response to a request regarding details of the Q3 sickness figures for the whole of the Council, officers subsequent to the meeting reported that the current (cumulative) sickness absence figures for the Council to November 2009 was 8.38 days. When the Swine Flu figures were excluded, this reduced to 8.17 days. This was above the target for the Council of 7.5 days, but compared well with other London Boroughs and nationally
• The £1.6m service review savings would not impact on front line services.

Finance & Resources

The Support Services Manager for Finance & Resources introduced the report and the main points highlighted were:

·           National Indicator on Avoidable Contact for 2009-10 -  a half yearly sample measurement was taken in July 2009 with a result of 21% avoidable contact

·           BV9 – Proportion of Council Tax Collected and BV10 – Proportion of non-domestic rates collected for Q3 were both better than their targets

·           Members Enquiries and Customer Complaints – Performance was back to an acceptable level after a poor performance in the middle of 2008-09. Officers would provide Members with details on whether the number of customer complaints had increased

·           Three tasks for achieving value for money and which were managed by Corporate Property were showing slight slippage, largely due to delays in implementing the Corporate Landlord organisational model. In Q3 there had been good progress on this and this would allow some of the slippage to be recovered by the year end

·           Good progress had been made in relation to reducing the use of agency staff and agency staff were now being retained for more demonstrably robust  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45.

Members were provided with details of the Group Service Plans for Deputy Chief Executives and Finance & Resources directorates, together with achievements for 2009-10 and priorities for 2010-11.

Discussion took place on the Business Improvement Delivery Programme (BID) and the possible impact the savings would have on the Council’s delivery of service. Members were informed that the programme would make the Council more efficient in order to provide the best possible value for money for residents. This was likely to result in a different model of working for the Council, with services aligned around related functions (from the resident perspective).

Resolved-

1.      That the presentations be noted and officers be congratulated on the achievements.

Discussion took place on the draft scoping report for this Committee’s second major review. Members were provided with an economic impacts dashboard document which had been produced by officers on behalf of Hillingdon Partners. This provided details on the important indicators on the economy and the impact of the economic recession.

A general discussion took place around the theme for this Committee’s next review and the main issues raised were:

• How Council services interacted with businesses
• Undertaking a survey to find out the number of vacant Council-owned business premises. This to include Industrial Estates in the Borough
• The use of empty Council-owned business premises for community groups, colleges, art and local interest groups
• The role of the Chambers of Commerce and Trade Associations within the Borough and whether businesses on Industrial Estates were represented by an association
• How the Council could help businesses in Industrial Estates in terms of enabling them to network with other businesses and to carry out business with one and other
• To look at business to business support and how the Council could help facilitate this
• To look at building up a data base of businesses in Industrial Estates
• How the Council could help promote businesses on Industrial Estates. The possible partnership working with IT companies such as Google to help businesses in relation to promoting their business through their websites
• To explore the possibility of grant money from the London Development Agency or West London Alliance
• Approaching larger corporate companies to see if they would get involved with the Council to help smaller businesses
• To investigate the feasibility of a “Hillingdon Business Card” which would offer privileges to businesses in the Borough
• To investigate the feasibility of a “Hillingdon Business Card” which would offer discount opportunities on a business to business basis for companies within the Borough
• To investigate if there were any main shopping parades that didn't have ½ hour free parking and chargeable controlled parking thereafter.

Resolved-

1.  That a scoping report be drafted for the next meeting of this Committee based on the issues outlined above.

Members noted the work programme for the remainder of 2009/10.

Noted.