Agenda item

The Director of Finance and Support Services submitted an exception report on finance and performance monitoring for the period July to September 2014/Quarter 2.

The Corporate Planning and Performance Manager provided a summary of the report now submitted. 

Councillor J Wyllie referred to on-going services in IT and Microsoft Licenses.  He also referred to Parking Services and residents’ and businesses’ wish to “pay on foot”.  The Director of Finance and Support Services explained the need to ensure information was secure and that Officers continued to consider any alternatives to Microsoft Licenses if they were appropriate.

Councillor M Pope referred to the time taken to process housing benefit claims.  The Director of Finance and Support Services stated that the Council had experienced difficulty in employing staff with housing benefit experience and that the service had been allocated additional resources to permanently employ more staff rather than use agency staff during peak periods.

In response to a query from Councillor J Mayes, the Director of Finance and Support Services explained expected variances against forecasted outturn.

Members also sought clarification on what was ‘usual/expected/manageable’ number of enforcement visits per month.  The Chairman stated that they would need to do 38 out of 51 to turn the Performance Indicator “green”. 

The Chairman queried how the numbers on the Development Management Committee correlated with the healthcheck figures.  The Corporate Planning and Performance Manager undertook to discuss this with the Head of Service and provide a written response.

Councillor J Wing raised the issue of the declining number of swims.  The Director of Finance and Support Services explained that gym users do not have to  swipe their membership cards a second time, to use the pool which could account for the declining figures.  She stated that SLM, the leisure providers, would be reporting to the next Community Scrutiny Committee.

Councillor J Ranger raised the issue of missing complaints data and why complaints could not be manually generated in the absence of a working IT system.  He stated that this must be a small and simple number to calculate.  The Director of Finance and Support Services undertook to write to the Member.

Councillor T Page queried the legal status of Bishop’s Stortford Car Park following the sale to Hendersons.  He asked for a definition of “consigned” in respect of the Council’s and Henderson’s responsibilities, particularly in relation to car park repairs.

Councillor T Page queried where the financial figures were reported in relation to enforcement (in terms of legal costs incurred by the Council) when the Council lost on appeal.  The Director of Finance and Support Services undertook to provide a written response to the Member.

The Chairman referred again to the level of underspends (£1.022 million) and queried what this could have been spent on.  The Director of Finance and Support Services stated that there had been some recent demands on the underspends figure which had not originally been predicted. 

The Committee received the report.

RESOLVED – that the report be received.