To report performance to the end of January 2007 against the Annual Operating Plan 2006-07, together with performance against revenue and capital budgets and corporate risks, and remedial action to address areas of under-performance.  The report also covers the progress being made against the Council’s Overall Improvement Programme.

The Committee considered the Integrated Performance Report setting out performance to the end of January 2007 against the Annual Operating Plan 2006-07, together with performance against revenue and capital budgets and corporate risks, and remedial action to address areas of under-performance. 

The report also covered the progress being made against the Council’s Overall Improvement Programme.   

The report to Cabinet on 22nd February was appended to the report.

The Head of Policy and Performance presented the report on performance.  He highlighted that 14 indicators were identified in the Red Category (not achieved or not expected to be achieved, or no targets/milestones identified).  Five of these were Local Public Service Agreement 2 targets meaning that a proportion of the performance reward grant would not be secured.  He noted the role of individual Scrutiny Committees in examining performance data.

The report to Cabinet had contained a recommendation on how to meet the funding gap between the lowest tenders for the two capital projects at Riverside Primary School and Sutton County Primary School and the resources available, now £2.28m.

The Chairman of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee highlighted to the Committee his concerns about how the funding gap had arisen and the action taken by the Children’s Services Committee to try to ascertain the reasons for the shortfall, outlining some of the findings and undertaking to circulate the relevant notes for Members’ information.  He also noted that the matter had not been specifically drawn to the Committee’s attention to seek their views. Once he had been formally notified of the intention to take a key decision on the issue there had been very little time for the Committee to comment, given the imminent expiry of the tenders for the two schemes.

Further concerns were expressed about how Scrutiny Committees could play an effective role in assisting decision making if they were not involved at an early enough stage remarking on the need for pre-decision scrutiny to be developed.

As the two capital schemes had been in development for some years it was also questioned why the shortfall appeared to have been identified so late in the day by officers.

The Chief Executive offered to look at the chronology of the decision making process to assess whether the funding issue had been identified quickly enough and reported quickly enough and to report back if this was required.

On behalf of the Executive it was stated that lessons had been learned.  In future where funding issues of this scale affecting large schemes arose it would be intended to prepare specific, separate reports for consideration.  It was also accepted that Officers needed to revisit the processes followed.

The Cabinet Member (Resources) commented that it was important to emphasise that, contrary to some reports, funding was in place to enable the schemes to proceed.  Income would also be generated in the future, for example from the sale of land for development of which account had not yet been taken and which would reduce the shortfall.  He had asked the Director to look in particular at the need to review the link between the increase in the estimated costs of schemes, budget monitoring information and funding issues.  The Director of Resources advised that, as part of the process of developing the Council’s strategic asset management, work was underway to prevent a similar situation occurring again.  

In the course of further discussion of performance the following principal points were made:

·          A question was asked about indicator HCS 13 for the average length of stay in bed and breakfast accommodation of households (towards whom the Council has a full statutory duty) which on the face of it appeared to show a decline in performance.  It was noted that this was a statistical quirk, with small numbers of families involved meaning that the average length of stay of one family could make a marked difference.  Significant progress was being made in reducing the length of such stays.

·          In reply to a question about the Council’s ability to influence the achievement of some of the targets of a more long term nature the Chief Executive said that it was essential to monitor progress and measure the effectiveness of activity and how progress compared with that of comparator authorities if these long-term objectives were to be achieved.

The Head of Financial Services then updated the Committee on changes to the financial position since the report, which set out the position to the end of January 2007, had been prepared.  He reported that the projected outturn on the revenue budget was now a £2 million underspend.  The award of Local Authority Business Growth Scheme Incentive Grant had also been confirmed at £1.4m. 

In relation to the Capital Programme, noting that the capital schemes at Riverside Primary School and Sutton Primary School had already been discussed, he reported that there had been slippage in the Capital Programme.  Whilst there were no funding issues, expected progress in delivering schemes had not therefore been made.

In relation to the corporate risk log a question was asked about the risk assessment of the Herefordshire Connects programme.  It was suggested that there may be some issues of presentation and that wording might need be clarified to indicate that although risks may have been identified it did not mean that they would materialise if the action identified to mitigate the risk was taken.

RESOLVED:            That the report be noted.