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 that there were no Reserve Members in attendance at this meeting.

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 Committee,;

(b)               all other Members present in any part of the room or chamber.

RESOLVED:  To note that the following interests were declared:

Agenda Items 9, 10, 11,12 and 13 – Chair’s Report; Revenue and Capital Outturn Report 2011/12; Presentation: Major Contracts; Development Management Performance - Householder Applications: Report on Progress – Council’s Use of Performance Information Scrutiny Review

Councillor Sue Anderson declared a non-pecuniary interest in that she worked for the National Health Service and had carried out work for Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust.  She would leave the room if discussion of any of the above items related to her interest.

Councillor Ann Gate declared a non-pecuniary interest in that she was married to the Portfolio Holder for Children, Schools and Families.  She would leave the room if discussion of any of the above items related to her interest.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 2 February 2012 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 2 February 2012 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

To consider and confirm the Sub-Committee’s Terms of Reference.

The Sub-Committee considered its Terms of Reference. 

A Member of the Sub-Committee advised that the Local Area Agreement was no longer in existence and therefore paragraph 3 of the Terms of Reference should be deleted.  The Member suggested replacing this area of responsibility with responsibility for the new Health and Wellbeing Strategic Board.  The Sub-Committee agreed to receive a report regarding the amendment of its Terms of Reference at a future meeting and to forward any proposed amendments to the Constitution Review Working Group for consideration.

RESOLVED:  That a report regarding the amendment of the Sub-Committee’s Terms of Reference be considered at a future meeting.

To appoint a Vice-Chairman of the Sub-Committee for the 2012/13 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED: That Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinane be appointed Vice-Chairman of the Sub-Committee for the 2012/13 Municipal Year.

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 a Reference from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of 30 May 2012.

The Sub-Committee received a reference from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of 30 May 2012, regarding a review which had considered how the Council could most effectively communicate with young people in decision–making and community activity.  The Sub-Committee was requested to give consideration to how young people could be involved in the follow up work of the review.

A Member of the Sub-Committee suggested that the Sub-Committee could extend a standing invitation to Members of the Harrow Youth Parliament to meetings of the Sub-Committee.  Another Member proposed a discussion forum attended by Councillors, officers and young people in Harrow, to look at the wider Council agenda, which would enable young people to see how this related to their lives.  It was agreed that further consideration be given to arranging a meeting at a community venue where the recommendations from the review could be considered. 

RESOLVED: That the reference be noted.

Report of the Divisional Director Partnership Development and Performance.

The[M1]  Sub-Committee received a report that set out issues considered by the Chair since the last meeting of the Performance and Finance Scrutiny Sub-Committee.

A Member questioned why Police officers visited burglary offenders in their homes following their release from prison.  A Member advised that this was an informal method of monitoring prisoners who had been recently released and were living in the community.

Following a question from a Member, an officer stated that the update on policing for the Olympic Games had been provided to the Safer and Stronger Communities leads.  An update had been provided to the chair’s briefing but had been omitted from the agenda and she undertook to circulate [HLS2] this information to Sub-Committee.

A Member stated that the Borough Commander had recently advised that there was a general reduction in crime in Harrow, but this appeared to conflict with recent crime statistics for the borough.  The Chair undertook to look into this and report back to the next meeting of the Sub-Committee.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.

Report submitted to Cabinet on 20 June 2012 by the Corporate Director Resources.

The[M1]  Sub-Committee received a report of the Interim Director of Resources, which had been previously considered at Cabinet on 20 June 2012.   The report set out the Council’s revenue and capital outturn position for 2011/12. 

The Divisional Director Finance and Procurement advised that:

·                     the Council had delivered an overall under spend of £1.3m, after allowing for £1.8m recommended to be carried forward;

·                     £500k had been allocated to General Reserves and £800k to the Transformation and Priority Initiatives Fund (TPIF);

·                     there was £4.6m in provision for known redundancies in the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and liabilities for the MMI;

·                     overall Directorates had achieved an under spend of £0.295m;

·                     there were emergent  pressures in year at quarter 1 of around £1m; these occurred  in Adults and Housing in respect of demography   and in  Community and Environment as a result of capitalisation issues and a reduction in the Capital Programme.  Therefore  a spending protocol had been issued.  Some areas had held back on non-essential spend;

·                     there was a substantial under spend on the Capital Programme.

A Member questioned the figures relating to Adults and Housing as set out in Table 1 of the report.  He queried whether the £50k under spend figure should in fact be £2m.  He also noted that the original budget of £8.5m for Corporate Finance had increased to £10.3m, with an under spend of £429k.  He also noted that the under spend for Place Shaping was a revised amount, whereas an over spend had been forecast initially and noted that the position was similar for the Chief Executives Directorate.

The Divisional Director Finance & Procurement advised that these changes to budget were due to virements in-year and that the budget each quarter was adjusted to reflect these, which involved changes between budgets.

A Member stated that the figure for Children’s Services was closer to £1.2m and not £3.4m.  He added that if there were in-year changes to the figures, then these should be clearly set out and explained in future reports.  He queried why when the Adults and Housing Directorate had made savings over £2m, this amount had been taken out of the budget. In his view, the report was incomplete and lacked transparency as it was not possible to track exactly what was happening.

Another Member stated that the figures were misleading as the end of year position had changed, which made it difficult to monitor the budget.

The Divisional Director advised that:

·                     virements did not affect the outturn position;

·                     no monies had been taken out of the Adults and Housing Directorate budget, but had merely been re-allocated in line with agreed budget adjustments;

·                     in the past, detailed information about all virements and movements had been included in the table, however, this had been removed at the request of Members.

The Divisional Director Finance & Procurement undertook to circulate more detailed information regarding virement and movements relating to the Council’s revenue and capital outturn position 2011/12 to Members of the Sub-Committee.

A Member questioned whether the Council had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80.

Report of Divisional Director, Partnership Development and Performance.

The Sub-Committee received a report of the Divisional Director, Partnership Development and Performance which provided an update on the Council’s use of performance information and the implementation of the recommendations made in phase 2 of the Scrutiny Review.

The Divisional Director Partnership Development & Performance drew Members’ attention to the following:

·                     not all targets had been delivered as there had been some issues around capacity and the launch of the Local Information System (LIS) in September 2011;

·                     the Ward Profiles in the LIS would contain live data to ensure this information was useful to Councillors and invited Members of the Sub-Committee to meetings of the focus group which would be evaluating the effectiveness of the LIS.

The Divisional Director stated that a further report would be submitted to the Sub-Committee in 6 months’ time.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.

Report of the Divisional Director Planning.

The Sub-Committee received a report of the Divisional Director Planning which set out the basis for under performance of the Planning Service against the published 6 week target determination period for householder planning applications and outlined the actions being undertaken by the service to respond to the performance issues raised.

The Divisional Director Planning stated that the 6 week performance indicator target, which was not a statutory target, had been set up to evaluate whether behaviours could be changed.  He advised that research carried out between 3-4 years ago had revealed high performance against national targets but poor performance in terms of the relationship with the Planning Committee.

The current performance had been due to staffing levels and workloads arising from current budget challenges.  Future focus has been directed towards outcomes as there were indirect costs associated with refusal rates. However, the Council had not incurred any financial penalties in terms of its underperformance against the 6 week target.  The main issue had been around consistent validation of the time taken to validate registration and the ability to consistently apply target timelines of decisions for the reasons above.

The Divisional Director stated that a LEAN project was now underway to target key areas of delay in the process and improve process efficiency, alongside reducing error rates at first submission.  In addition, measures including recruitment of skilled planning staff, who did not need to refer applications on to senior officers and the introduction of a pool car to improve journey times during site visits were also underway.

The feedback from local planning agents about the non-amendment policy and charging had been that more information should be provided to householders about expected outcomes and timescales for planning applications.

A Member asked if the Planning service was adequately staffed and resourced to manage its current workload and challenges.  The Divisional Director stated that research carried out 5 years ago suggested that the staff ratio to cases should be between 150-200 cases per officer, per year.  He added that this ratio allowed staff to complete 90% of cases, however, some planning officers at Harrow had up to 230 cases, while others had fewer.  The number of staff required also depended on variables such as which IT/Software system was being used.  Planning officers were working hard with a system that was under pressure.  The Planning Department were in the process of enhancing processes and systems and implementing software solutions which would allow officers to improve their capacity to support the objective of enabling them to manage larger caseloads (over 200 cases each per annum). This would improve productivity.  There were staffing issues related to staff retention and ensuring that officers had the appropriate skills base. 

A Member challenged that some planning officers breached the upper limit significantly in terms of caseload, which, in his view, was alarming.  He asked what the global financing requirement for the planning service was and added that if the service was below the required threshold then it was important  ...  view the full minutes text for item 82.

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:

Presentation by the Interim Head of Procurement.

An[M1]  officer gave a presentation which set out a summary of the Council’s major contracts and procurement activity for the period 2010/12.  The officer stated that in the future, a report detailing this information would be submitted to the Sub-Committee on a six monthly basis.

A Member requested a briefing on SAP [HLS2] and the Chair agreed that this could be addressed initially at a future Chair’s briefing. 

In response to a question from a Member and officer suggested that the Sub-Committee be briefed on the adults’ service quality assurance[HLS3]  arrangements to better understand how standards of care are safeguarded through the commissioning process. 

A Member requested an update on take up of the website for personalised[HLS4] budgets. 

RESOLVED: That the presentation be noted.