Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from:

·         Mr Paul Carter CBE, Leader Kent County Council (Chairman).  Deputy Leader & Cabinet Member Mr John Simmonds MBE took the Chair in his absence.

·         Mr Bryan Sweetland, Cabinet Member for Commercial and Traded Services

·         Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director of Education Learning and Skills who was substituted by Sue Rogers, Director of Education, Quality and Standards.

Cabinet was also informed that Ms Susan Carey, Deputy Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement was in attendance to talk to the Budget item in place of Mr Simmonds, Chairman for the meeting.

No declarations of interest were received.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record and sign accordinlgy

The minutes of the meeting held on 7 July 2014 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman accordingly.

To receive a report of the Deputy Leader & Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement providing for consideration the monitoring position for both the revenue and capital budget, for Quarter 1 of 2014-15 and seeking agreement to various amendments to the Capital Programme.

FinancialMonitoring Report- Quarter1

(Item5 –Report oftheCabinetMemberfor FinanceandProcurement,Mr John

SimmondsOBE and CorporateDirector forFinanceand Procurement,AndyWood)

Cabinetreceiveda reportsetting outthe budgetmonitoringposition forJune2014 and seeking agreementto necessaryre-alignmentsandamendments to the Revenue and CapitalBudgets respectively.

MissCarey,Deputy CabinetMemberfor Financeand Procurementintroducedthe itemforCabinet.In particularshe referred to the following:

Revenue Budget

      i.        Thatalthoughit wasnot unusualtoreportan overspendat thispoint inthe financialyear, thecurrentforecastwas causefor someconcern.  Evenafter deductionspredictedformanagementactionwork wouldstill beneededifa balancedbudget wereto be reportedat the end of thefinancial year.

    ii.        Thatin 2013-14the Councilhadbeenableto recordanunderspendwhich was allocatedto the2014-15budgetand thatthis wasunlikely tobe possible in2014-15as thecumulativeeffectofsavings imposedby budgetcuts was beingrealised.

   iii.        Thecurrent forecastoverspend,beforemanagementaction,was £12.4milion.  It was expected,butnotassured,that followingscheduledmanagement action the overspendwould bereducedto £5.3million.  Thiswas unacceptableand further management actionwould beneededin ordertoreducethatfigure further.

   iv.        Themain areasofoverspend reportedwere currentlywithin Adult SocialCare and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77.

To receive a report of the Leader & Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Audit & Transformationsetting out for information the Council’s performance, as assessed against 40 Key Performance Indicators, for Quarter 1 of the 2014-15 financial year.

(Item6 –Reportof theLeader& CabinetMemberfor BusinessStrategy,Auditand Transformation)

Cabinetreceived areportsettingoutperformanceagainst agreedtargets forkey performance indicatorsforQuarter1 of2014-15.

Richard Fitzgerald,Performance Manager  introduced  the  report  to  Cabinet,  in particularhe referred to thefollowing:

      i.        Thatthereportwas largely positiveshowingthat 23ofthe KeyPerformance Indicatorsreport hadshown apositive directionoftravel withonly12 falling and  reporting  62.5%  as  ‘Green’  meaning  that  they  were  achieving  or surpassingtargets.

    ii.        That    the      report  also     detailed          activity            indicators, corporate            risks    and organisationaldevelopmentinformation.

   iii.        Issues ofparticularnote wereas follows:

a.    CustomerServices

                                          i.    Digitaltake upfigures wereshown for the firsttime andincluded keytransactions completedon lineby residents.

                                        ii.    Callersatisfactionwith theContactPoint remainedhigh despite somerecentdifficultiesreaching performancetargets relatedto thenumberofcalls answered.  In relationto callanswering, new staffhadnowbeen recruited andthetrendfor quarter2 was expectedto bemuch improved.

b.    GrowthEnvironment andTransport

                                          i.    Theactivity figuresshowedsigns  ofeconomicrecovery inthe County.

                                        ii.    Thereas goodoutflowofRegional GrowthFundloanapprovals to supportlocalbusinesses

                                       iii.    Highwayshad recordedhigh levelsof ‘workin progress’at the endoflast year,largely as resultoffloodingandthishadbeen reducedsignificantlyin the quarterto June.

                                       iv.    Onered wasrecordedin relation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 78.