This report is designed to provide assurance that progress is being made towards achievement of the agreed revenue and service delivery targets, and that the reasons for major variances or potential under-performance are understood and are being addressed to the cabinet’s satisfaction. Cabinet is asked to review projected revenue outturn for 2018/19 and consider performance for the first half of the year.

The cabinet member finance and corporate services introduced the item. Highlights of the quarterly report were noted as:

·        a projected overspend of £1.2m for 2018/19 compared to £2.2m at the same point in 2017/18, there was confidence that this could be managed;

·        52% of performance measures were the same or better than at the same point in the previous year;

·        Hoople had planned savings of £600k for 2018/19, the company was predominately a council owned subsidiary and not designed to make a profit;

·        the re-profiling of capital as set out in appendix B would better profile anticipated expenditure and borrowing for future years;

·        debt write offs were low for the first 6 months of the year compared to the previous year;

·        the redesign of the Home First service was complete and capacity was being expanded to keep people out of hospital where possible;

·        35 refugees had been welcomed to the county as part of national resettlement schemes;

·        the troubled families programme had validated secured change in 299 families, bringing in £239k to the council;

·        the Priority Space site opened at the Enterprise Zone in September and would treat material from previous site clearances so that it can be reused elsewhere;

·        68 affordable dwellings had been delivered against a target of 200;

·        there had been a reduction in the use of agency staff except for in the children and families directorate, this would be monitored over the following quarter;

·        universal credit had been launched in Herefordshire and almost a third of recipients had taken up the offer of support in making a claim and budgeting, the citizen’s advice bureau was to take over the support to universal credit claimants from April 2019 as part of a national commissioning exercise.

The cabinet member children and families noted the following in relation to performance in their portfolio area:

·        school performance was good, with pupils outperforming national averages;

·        the new local Early Help Assessment had replaced the Common Assessment Framework and the number of completed assessments had increased, this early intervention should reduce the need for statutory services in the longer term;

·        the number of children subject to a child protection plan had reduced but the number of looked after children had increased overall;

·        there was pressure on the availability of placements and therefore on costs;

·        improvements continued to be made following the Ofsted inspection;

·        recruitment and retention of social workers remained challenging, as all councils were competing for good social work staff.

The cabinet member health and wellbeing noted the following in relation to performance in their portfolio area:

·        the £1.5m allocated in the capital programme for the Hillside centre was expected to increase to just over £2m following appraisal;

·        the budget for the adults and communities directorate showed a projected £405k overspend, budgets were being managed but with demand led services there was constant challenge.

The cabinet member transport and regulatory services noted the following in relation to performance in their portfolio area:

·        additional money had been provided by central government to be used to deal with potholes across the county;

·        research had been carried out into the best placement of litter bins, this had shown that removing some bins had actually reduced litter;

·        the upgrading of high town in Hereford continued and there had been no complaints regarding access during the works;

·        priority parking schemes for residents would be reviewed in February 2019 to see if any further adjustments were required.

Group leaders noted the content of the report. It was stated that the continuing overspend in LAC illustrated the need to set a more realistic budget. The high costs of recovering debt, for example council tax, were also highlighted.

The leader of the council concluded the discussion and thanked officers for their work during 2018.

It was resolved that:

a)               the projected financial outturn and performance for the first half of 2018/19 are reviewed and cabinet determines any additional actions required to achieve improvement.