Agenda and minutes

The Minutes of the meeting held on 16 July 2007 were agreed as a true record.

(Report by Mr Nick Chard, Cabinet Member for Finance and Ms Lynda McMullan, Director of Finance)

(1)     Mr Chard said that management action on the Revenue Budget was expected to substantially reduce the current projected overspend.  Directorates were currently working up actions plans and details of these would be reported next month.  Some £3m of the overspend on the Revenue Budget was due to asylum costs and the County Council was still rigorously pursuing these with the Government.  On the Capital Budget, the “underspend” was the result of re-phasing of projects into future years.  Work was being undertaken with Directorates in order to move the Capital Programme forward as quickly as possible.

(2)     With regard to asylum costs, Mr Gilroy said this was a serious matter for the Council and he reported on meetings which had taken place with Senior Civil Servants.  Mr Carter said that representatives from the County Council would be meeting with other authorities to discuss ways of moving this matter forward.

(3)     Cabinet agreed to:-

(a)     note the latest monitoring position on both the Revenue and Capital Budgets;

(b)     note the changes to the Capital Programme as detailed in Section 4.1 of the Cabinet report; and

(c)      the virement of £2.45m from the re-phasing of the Kent Highways Services Co-location Project to the projects listed in Section 4.2 of the Cabinet report with the corresponding reduction of £2.45m in the Kent Highways Services Co-location Budget being reinstated in the 2008-11 Medium Term Financial Plan.

(Report by Mr Paul Carter, Leader of the Council, Mr Nick Chard, Cabinet Member for Finance, Mr Peter Gilroy, Chief Executive and Ms Lynda McMullan, Director of Finance)

(1)     This report set out the context of both national and local level within which the County Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan would be framed over the next three years.

(2)     Mr Chard said that it was expected the delayed Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 would now be published by the Government on 15 October 2007.  The Review would inform the overall financial perimeters within which local authorities such as Kent would be able to work.  Mr Chard spoke about the critical issues facing local Government including the issue of how KCC was to balance increasing demands on its services at a time of nationally and locally constrained resources.

(3)     During the course of discussion, Mr Carter said that next year and beyond would be a major challenge for the County Council.  Its resource in spending assumptions were based on the Government’s expressed views about levels of council tax, increases in Government grant and funding for Kent schools.  However, the Council faced uncertainty over funding for both next year and the following years and these had to be taken into account as the Council strove to develop and strengthen its policy-led budgeting to ensure that it optimised the allocation of constrained resources to meet local priorities.

(4)     Cabinet then noted the report as follows:-

1.         National Context:

·      that the outcome of the delayed Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 will inform the overall financial parameters within which we will be able to work

·      that the subsequent local government finance settlement, which will be dependent upon CSR 07, will be the first full three year settlement for local government covering the period 2008-11

2.                  National Resources Position:

·       key driver of resources for local government in total will be CSR 07

·       pre-announcements for many central government departments include a raft of minus 5% in real terms per annum budget reductions  - the funding position will therefore be significantly constrained

·       awaiting spending announcements on the NHS, defence and local government amongst others

·       Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests there may be a little as 0.4% real terms spending available for all remaining services not yet announced, after allowing for expected increases for the NHS

·      currently there is a major consultation on reforms to the local government finance formula which will set the formula for the next three years

·      outcome of local government finance settlement remains extremely uncertain both at national level and individual authority level

3.         Kent – Local Resource Allocation

a)         the items on which KCC and partners are most concerned are:

·     the local impact of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007

·     the overall resources available to fund service pressures and inflation

·     regional disparities, in particular flowing from the Barnett formula and other regional comparisons

·     the funding of the Growth Agenda

·     the operation of the main funding formula and its inbuilt deficiencies which fail to adequately reflect Kent’s  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

(Mr R Bullock, Chairman of the Informal Member Group – Going Local was present for this item).

(1)     Before the commencement of discussion, the Chairman declared consideration of the further report circulated at the meeting to be urgent on the grounds that it contained a summary of the comments expressed during the debate which took place at the County Council meeting on 6 September 2007 and placed before Cabinet conclusions and recommendations for future action.

(2)     In his statement on this matter Mr Bullock said he felt it was important not to get the localism agenda and that related to the Kent Agreement to closely bound together.  He then referred to paragraph 20 in the supplementary report and said he felt that if the County Council was seeking to have District Council Scrutiny Committees augmented through co-option of KCC Members then equally KCC should consider augmenting its Scrutiny Committees with co-option of District Council Members. Mr Bullock also said that the Local Government and Public Involvement Health Bill would likely have implications for local government and he proposed that the Informal Member Group should hold at least one further meeting once the Bill had received Royal Ascent in order to look at its implications and understand what it would mean for Kent and to submit a report to Cabinet.  This was agreed.

(3)     Following discussion, Mr Carter proposed and Mr Chard seconded that the following amendments be made to the recommendations as set out in the Supplementary Report.

(a)       In No 7, the word “clear” be deleted and the words “closer and more integrated Member” be inserted; and

(b)       In No 20, the word “alternatively” be deleted.

(4)     Cabinet agreed:

(a)     the report of the “Going Local” Informal Member Group be welcomed and noted as a sound basis for taking forward the Localism Agenda in Kent;

(b)     that Members of the County Council be thanked for their contribution to the debate held on 6 September 2007;

(c)      that the Conclusions and Recommendations set out in paragraph 4, and table 1 of the Supplementary Report, as amended be agreed and form the basis for agreement on the way forward as set out in paragraph 5 of the Supplementary Cabinet report;

(d)     that further reports be presented to Cabinet and to the County Council as appropriate when the outcomes of the discussions referred to in paragraph 5 of the supplementary Cabinet report are known; and

(e)     that it be noted that the Informal Member Group will hold one further meeting to consider and report on the implications for the County Council of the Local Government and Public Health Improvement Act.

(Report by Mr Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Operations, Resources and Skills, Mr Chris Wells, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Educational Standards and Mr Graham Badman, Managing Director for Children, Families and Education)

(1)     This report set out the principle underpinning the Governance Arrangements for the Kent Children’s Trust and it sought Cabinet’s approval for these principles and the continued development of the Governance Framework.

(2)     Cabinet noted that the Children’s Trust Arrangements in Kent would be the focus of an all party Member briefing taking place on 26 September 2007.  This would be followed by an additional meeting of the Cabinet taking place on Monday 26 November 2007 when it will discuss the detail of the Kent Children’s Trust (County Board) Governance Framework.

(Presentation by Mr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Supporting Independence and Mr Adam Wilkinson, Managing Director, Environment and Regeneration)

Present for this item were Mr Michael Fallon MP as well as Mr Gary Herbert, Martine Munby and Sally Hopkins on behalf of the Post Office.  Also present was Liz Craven, Rural Regeneration Manager, KCC.

(1)     In introducing this item, Mr Gough said that whilst the precise nature and scale of the proposed closures that the Post Office was planning for Kent was unknown, the County Council had a number of concerns over how the network change process may be implemented.  These included concerns around the impact that the proposals would have on both rural and urban areas and the fact that the proposed six week public consultation period was too short and gave insufficient time for the communities of Kent to have their say or to develop alternative proposals.  Mr Gough also said that where post offices were proposed for closure, there had to be sufficient funding made available to enable appropriate outreach facilities to be put in place and it was far from clear what the overall effect of the changes would be on the business community, particularly in rural areas.  KCC was therefore undertaking a robust and proactive communication strategy aimed at raising awareness of Kent’s concerns about the way that the network change process was being implemented in Kent.

(2)     Liz Craven said that a major justification being put forward for the changes to the post office network was because current losses were running at some £4m per week.  Post Office Limited was part of Royal Mail Plc Holdings which last year made an operating profit of £22m.  However, Post Office Limited Group had made a loss of some £111m which was nonetheless 9.8% down on the previous year.  Looking at the published figures, it was not clear where the losses were coming from, but what was clear was that the 3% of the current network which was directly managed by Post Office Limited, accounted for some 45% of the losses, which equated to some £50m.  The official regulator Postcom had suggested that rural sub-post office losses of some £150m were being offset by Social Network payments.  These figures were based on those available to March 2006.  The urban network of sub-post offices had moved into profit showing a 7% margin for the year 2005/06.  The question remained however as to why a £4m per week loss in being forecast which was double the loss of the predicted £2m per week.  There are no audited accounts currently in the public domain to explain why that increase in losses may have occurred.

(3)     Mr Carter said that the County Council was deeply concerned at the effect on rural and urban communities that the proposals being put forward would have.  A key question was would these proposed closures really deliver the substantial financial savings on a scale which would make a difference to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

(Report by Mr Chris Wells, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Educational Standards, Mr Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Operations, Resources and Skills and Mr Graham Badman, Managing Director, Children Families and Education)  (Joanna Wainwright, Director, Commissioning (Specialist Services) was present for this item)

(IReport by Mr Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Operations, Resources and Skills, Mr Chris Wells, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Educational Standards and Mr Graham Badman, Managing Director, Children, Families and Education) (Joanna Wainwright, Director, Commissioning (Specialist Services) was present for this item)

(Report by Mr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Supporting Independence, Mr Adam Wilkinson, Managing Director, Environment and Regeneration) (Katherine Putnam, Environment and Regeneration Directorate was present for this item)

(Report by Mr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Supporting Independence and Mr Adam Wilkinson, Managing Director, Environment and Regeneration)

(1)     The County Council’s Towards 2010 document, incorporates a target (No 39) to bring back into use the large number of empty homes in Kent.  In order to achieve this, it is proposed that the current project – the East Kent Empty Property Initiative be rolled out to Kent District Councils.

(2)     During the course of the discussion, Mr Carter said that the success of this initiative had been based on the good collaborative work between the County Council and its district partners.  However, Mr Carter said and it was agreed, that the County Council should not commit at this stage to any further capital expenditure on the initiative until a wider review of the County Council’s Medium Term Capital Programme had been undertaken.

(Item 12 - Report by Mr Peter Gilroy, Chief Executive)

This report provided a summary of the outcomes and progress on matters arising from the most recent meeting of the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee.  The report also set out the work programme for Select Committee Topic Reviews as agreed by the Policy Overview Co-ordinating Committee and provided an update on the current status of each Topic Review.