Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

RESOLVED:  To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Member:-

To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary or non pecuniary interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Sub-Committee;

(b)               all other Members present.

RESOLVED:  To note that the following interests were declared:

Agenda Item 9 – Contracts and Procurement Savings

Councillor Sue Anderson declared a non-pecuniary interest in that her son was in receipt of adult social care.  She would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.

Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinan declared a non-pecuniary interest in that  he had been Portfolio Holder for Adults and Housing at the time the consultation with adult social care service users was carried out.  He would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.

Councillor Stephen Wright declared a non-pecuniary interest in that he had been part of the team that had negotiated the Highways contract.  He would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 29 January 2013 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 29 January 2013 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

A Member stated that it had been 174 days since his initial request for information relating to the SAP system.  He added that this delay did not reflect the openess and transparency required by the scrutiny function or the respect due to Members.  He requested that an explanation regarding the delay in providing this information be provided to Members by relevant officers.

To receive questions (if any) from local residents/organisations under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

RESOLVED: To note that no public questions were put, or petitions received.

To receive any references from Council and/or other Committees or Panels.

RESOLVED: To note that no references were received.

Report of the Divisional Director, Strategic Commissioning.

The Sub-Committee received a report which set out issues considered by the Chair since the last meeting of the Performance and Finance Scrutiny Sub?Committee.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

Report of the Corporate Director of Resources, considered by Cabinet at the meeting on 14 February 2013.

The Sub-Committee received a report of the Corporate Director of Resources, which had been previously considered at Cabinet on 14 February 2013.   The report set out the Council’s revenue and capital monitoring position for Quarter 3 as at 31 December 2012.

An officer stated that much of the data in the Quarter 3 report had been superseded by the Quarter 4 report and highlighted the following areas of the report:

·                    the position within the Resources Directorate had significantly improved since the previous quarter, resulting in a net favourable variance.  This improvement had been mainly due to a reduction in External Audit fees, underspends on pension liabilities, release of excess commitments on expenditure service credits on the Capita IT contract and vacancy management across the Directorate;

·                    the Environment and Enterprise Directorate was forecasting a significant favourable variance.  There was an increase in fees from improved parking enforcement;

·                    there was an adverse variance of just under £700k in the Children and Families Directorate.  This was due mainly to unpaid PCT debts, some of which had subsequently been recovered;

·                    there was an improvement in investment income in Capital financing, however, some slippage was anticipated in the following year which meant reduced revenue;

·                    there had been a significant improvement in the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) since quarter 2;

·                    there were areas of significant underspends in the Capital Programme due mainly to delays in progressing projects such as the Schools Expansion Programme.

A Member stated that it would be helpful to both Councillors and members of the public if, in the future, the Revenue and Capital Monitoring reports provided a more detailed explanation of how and why budgets were revised during the year and who was responsible for these.  The officer stated that the original budget figures had been set by Council and the revised figures were those subsequently set by Cabinet, taking into account any virements.  The officer undertook to include this level of detail in future reports.

The Member asked how the delays in the Vaughan School expansion programme would impact on revenue and how any risks arising from these were being mitigated and managed.  The officer stated that a number of temporary ‘bulge’ classes were being planned to deal with this and added that slippage in the Capital Programme generally impacted positively on revenue.  The officer undertook to provide this information to Members of the Sub?Committee.

Referring to the Council’s sundry debts, which had been written off during the third quarter, a Member asked why after school clubs and nurseries had monies owing from them.  The officer advised that this was not an unusual occurrence as Harrow did not require payment up front for these services and sometimes parents defaulted on these.

The Chair stated that the report referred to the closure of Greenhill Crescent car park.  However, as there was no car park in Greenhill Crescent, she sought clarification on whether this referred to the Car Park in Greenhill Way or to the one on Greenhill Road.  The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 126.

Report of the Corporate Director of Resources.

The Sub-committee received a report which set out the progress in advancing the Council’s Procurement Transformation Programme since its launch in October 2010. 

The Chair noted that appendix 6 of this report, which related to Adult Social Care had been marked as ‘to follow’, and asked why this appendix had not yet been circulated to the Sub-Committee.  An officer advised that this appendix related to a block contract that had now ended as a result of savings agreed in the MTFS.

The Chair stated that this situation was unacceptable and did not demonstrate the level of due diligence expected of Council officers.  She added that, in the future, Members of the Sub-Committee would expect all reports to be provided in time in order to allow Members sufficient time to read and consider them prior to meetings and any late reports should be prefaced with reasons for lateness in the future.

Terms of reference for the Strategic Procurement Board & Directorate Contracts Boards

A Member stated that he had serious concerns regarding both the current and proposed structure charts and the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Strategic Procurement Board (SPB) and Directorate Contract Boards (DCB) as set out in the report.  Both documents failed to indicate Member oversight and involvement in the governance of what was a very important area of the Council’s responsibility, with potential for huge savings and costs. 

The Corporate Director of Resources advised that the proposed structure chart was a reflection of recent changes in officers’ roles and new appointments.  He also advised that the Terms of Reference documents were for an officer level meeting and were not a full description of the role of members in overseeing third party spend.  The new structures included a new Divisional Director, Commercial Contracts and Procurement and three Commercial Business Partner roles.   The recruitment and job matching process for these was underway.  Officers in the Resources Directorate had been consulted regarding these proposals  during the summer of 2012. 

He added that, the Council spent over £160m on contracts with third parties, and better management of this activity would be achieved through the appointment of senior, high calibre officers with oversight of the entire procurement function and responsibility for further developing the service. 

The Member asked how the Personalisation of Care Budgets (PBs) would impact on procurement and income streams.  He added that he had asked this question at the previous meeting and was still awaiting a response from officers. 

In response, officers made the following points:

·                    the Council had engaged in extensive consultation with service users regarding their specific needs;

·                    the Council would continue to have a major role in the following areas: purchase of care and services; building up the market; ensuring standards and quality of service were maintained; and that services and products were sustainable and provided value for money.

A Member who was not a member of the Sub-Committee asked that if each Directorate had a dedicated procurement manager, would that manager have authority to act  ...  view the full minutes text for item 127.

Report of the Divisional Director of Planning.

The Sub-Committee received a report of the Divisional Director of Planning which set out the recent IT issues affecting the consultation processes in respect of planning applications. The Divisional Director highlighted the following aspects of the report:

·                    there had been concerns raised by some parties regarding website accessibility of the Civica  Portal and planning documents relating to the Vaughan School consultation;

·                    between 24 February and 16 March 2013 access to the website had not been possible for a period of 16 hours in total.  It had therefore been necessary to suspend the consultation on the Vaughan School planning application and remove the documents from the website and re-start the process.  It was important to note that the Vaughan School re-consultation had run for 62 days prior to being considered by the Planning Committee at their meeting in April;

·                    IT colleagues had proposed a number of both short and long-term solutions.  The main issues related to the software platforms, Civica and MVM, which was a back-office system.  These programmes had been partially integrated with each other, however, investigations had revealed that the Civica Portal had a “memory leak,” which could only be resolved through an software upgrade;

·                    the Council had a choice between a lower cost, modest upgrade, which would resolve the memory leak or a more expensive solution with a longer lead-in time and more significant knock on impacts across other services using Civica.  Longer lead-in times meant reduced benefits.  Officers, in consultation with the relevant Portfolio Holder, were weighing up costs, timescales and potential benefit of implementing these.

A Member stated that he was disappointed to see that the option of shared services as a possible solution had not been considered.  The officer advised that officers have an ongoing dialogue with other Local Authorities about alternative delivery options.  Neighbouring authorities had suggested that they had little interest (or clear financial incentive) to engage in developing such options at the present time.  Officers from Harrow were however continuing to consider all possibilities.  Other possible options included changing to larger-volume processing service such as provided by Northgate off site or the use of an alternative planning portal using Sharepoint. 

The Member stated that the report should have included values for upgrades to version 15 of Civica and for the other possible options.  An officer stated that he had only recently received indicative figures regarding this from Capita, which suggested that an interim upgrade to version 15 would take between 7-8 months to complete.  Officers were awaiting further information from Northgate on the scope to move away from the current Civica based process.  He added that the Council’s policy had been to get maximum use from assets for as long as possible, and that Harrow had been using an out of date system for some time.  The Member asked to know the timescales for the solution to be implemented.  The officer advised that this information would be available once all the relevant information had been assessed and discussions had taken place with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 128.

To resolve that the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business, on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of confidential information in breach of an obligation of confidence, or of exempt information as defined in Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972:

RESOLVED:  That, in accordance with Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item for the reason set out below:

The Sub-Committee considered the appendix relating to Housing Asset Management: Responsive Repairs Contracts.  A Member requested that information relating to savings that had been made in 2012/13 and anticipated savings in subsequent years on the four responsive repair contracts be circulated to Members.