Agenda and minutes

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interest they may have in any matter which is to be considered at this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

Agreed.

Received a report from the Corporate Director of Resources on performance information from across the Council to October 2009, the aim being to assess how well the Council’s services are being delivered and what needs to change or adjust in order to further improve these services.

Agreed to the actions as set out in the report in order to assist the Council to achieve all its Community Priorities and to note:

(i)  The areas of good performance and areas for improvement across the Council with regard to National Indicators;

(ii)  The Audit Commission will provide feedback to the Council on its Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) within the next month: and,

(iii)  Improvements made in regard to customer contact / response times and the information on complaints.

Received a report from the Corporate Director of Resources providing an update on the Council’s revenue and capital position for the period April to August of the 2009/10 financial year.

The current forecast for revenue expenditure across the Council has identified that all departments are projecting in-year pressures amounting to £4m (Adults and Community Services £1m, Children’s Services £1.1m, Customer Services £0.8m and Resources £1.1 m).  The most significant areas of pressures relate to expenditure on transition arrangements within the Adult Services Learning Disability, transport services for children with Special Educational Needs (SEN), Looked after Children Placements and in meeting the Council’s Leaving Care responsibilities, the Barking and Dagenham Direct service and income generation.

A recovery plan has been compiled with a view to eliminating these projected overspends and, following consideration by the Corporate Management Team, the agreed actions will be reported back to the Executive. 

Agreed, in order to assist the Council to achieve all of its Community Priorities and as a matter of good financial practice, to:

(i)  Note the current position of the Council’s revenue and capital budget as at 31 August 2009;

(ii)  Note the position for the Housing Revenue Account;

(iii)  The use of contingency budget to fund the pressures within the Resources department as set out in the report;

(iv)  The virement within the Resources department’s budget to increase Employees and Supplies budgets by £300,000 and £100,000 respectively and increase the Income budget by £400,000; and,

(v)  A budget adjustment of £250,000 from the set aside IT reserve to fund the systems development work within the Finance service. 

Agreed to exclude the public and press for the remainder of the meeting by reason of the nature of the business to be discussed which included information exempt from publication by virtue of paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

Concerns individual employees (paragraph 1)

Received a report from the Chief Executive in respect ofthe Council’s vacant statutory Chief Financial Officer post.

Agreed to assist the Council in its preparations for meeting the public sector expenditure challenges in the years ahead, to:

(i)  The post of the Council’s Chief Financial Officer being recruited to at chief officer level;

(ii)  Authorise the Chief Executive, subject to appropriate consultations, to finalise arrangements such as post title prior to recruitment;

(iii)  Note the costs associated with this proposal will be £20,000 and met from existing budgets;

(iv)  Note the general comments relating to the Council’s organisational structure.

(* The Chair agreed that this issue could be considered at the meeting under the provisions of section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972.)