Agenda item

(Item B2 – Report by Mr M Hill, Cabinet Member and Ms A Honey, Managing Director) (Mr D Shipton, Head of Finance and Asset Management was present for this item to answer questions)

(1)          Mr Shipton advised that the timing of monitoring reports, to more closely align POCs and the quarterly reports to Cabinet was being addressed corporately.  He then highlighted four main areas of concern within the revenue budget for 2007/08 identified in the report,  as follows:- ;

(i)         Adult Education is still forecasting a £330k in-year deficit and would not be able to repay the loan of £500k granted to cover part of the 2006/7 deficit.  The latest MTP includes provision for this loan to be repaid over two years.  Mr Shipton advised that a paper on the Adult Education strategy to increase the yield from tuition feeds included in the MTP would be brought to the next Policy Overview Committee meeting on 2^nd June.

(ii)        The Coroner’s Service is another area of concern due to the overspend on costs related to investigations.  In the latest monitoring the overspend has been reduced to £206k following renegotiations on mortuary fees with hospital trusts and with Medway Council.  This is in spite of the Coroners’ pay award for this financial year which has added an additional £40k spend.  The net overspend of £200k has been covered by underspends elsewhere in the Directorate. 

(iii)       Mr Shipton advised that the Arts Unit has undergone a major restructure to deliver a more strategic role.  This new structure means the service can manage expenditure within the existing budget following the withdrawal of external grants.

(iv)       Mr Shipton advised that the fourth main area of concern relates to the Library Service and the loans of audio visual materials.  The Library Service has developed a new strategy to target its market resulting in a planned £120k reduction in the income budget.  The service is managing this planned reduction through reduced expenditure on consumables. 

(2)                 In order to balance the budget to cover overspends on Coroners, Arts and Youth Offending the Strategic Management Team had agreed a £500k reduction in spending on non essential non staffing budgets.  This would balance the overall portfolio budget other than Adult Education.

(3)                 In response to a question on whether the variances could be shown as an overall percentage, Mr Shipton advised that total variance for each unit and all variances over £100k were reported to Cabinet.  He agreed to look into adding a column in the table for each unit identifying the percentage variance.

(4)                 Mr Shipton explained that the in-year variance in Adult Education was due to the original 24,000 estimated enrolments not being achieved (only 17,000 students enrolled in quarter 2).  This appears to be a national trend arising from uncertain financial markets.  Members were reassured that the future strategy aims to increase the yield from fees and not the level of fees.

(5)                 In response to a question on why the County Council paid for the Coroners, Mr Shipton advised that this was a historical arrangement.  The County Council has written to Government suggesting the service should be funded by a specific grant.

(6)                 In response to a question regarding the restructuring of Adult Education, Mr Shipton advised that there had been some delays in implementing the new structure as consultation with staff had led to some changes to the original plans.

(7)                 In response to a question on the drop in income from the loan of audio visual materials and whether this could be made up, Mr Shipton advised that the service was expecting to be a further £130k down on the revised target.   The service had been able to carry out other merchandising in libraries e.g. through selling vouchers to get data from national census to cover the shortfall.

(8)                 A Member of the Committee suggested that a questionnaire be sent to all Members of the County Council requesting ideas on Adult Education and that members could ask their local communities for their ideas too.  This suggestion was acknowledged and will be taken into account during future planning. 

(9)                 In response to a question, Mr Shipton advised that Coroners were employed by the Crown.  Although Kent County Council held the budget it has no control over their pay award which is set by the JNC and linked to other members of the judiciary. The Committee was advised that Ms Honey had written to the government regarding the increase in expenditure but to date had received no response.  In reply to whether the Youth Service and KDATT budgets were protected Mr Shipton advised that each Unit had its own agreed budget but that, during the year, they had been set an appropriate target to reduce expenditure on  non-essential, non-staffing budgets in order to balance the budget at year-end.

(10)              Mr Shipton then spoke on the Capital Programme.  He advised that the programme published in the recent 2008/09-10/11 MTP was more realistic than in previous years and that, in order to overcome previous slippage, a feasibility study is carried out on each proposed scheme before it is included in the Capital Programme. He gave the example of the Edenbridge project that had been delayed due to planning issues and was part of the £400k slippage.

(11)              In response to a question on whether Directorates worked with each other when engaging in a project Mr Shipton confirmed that this was the case - citing the example of the Ashford Gateway where a number of services across the Authority are represented.  

(12)              In response to a question on the reduction of calls through Consumer Direct South East in 2007/08 compared to 2006/07, Mr Shipton advised that Consumer Direct operated through the Call Centre under a contract with Trading Standards South East Ltd based on the number of calls received. The number of calls was down this year thus reducing income and he advised that renegotiations had taken place to compensate for the reduction. Furthermore, a reserve had been set up when the service was first established in case of this eventuality and the service had also been awarded a quality bonus.   If the reduction in calls continues the Directorate would need to look to other authorities that may wish to join the scheme under the same contract. 

(13)     RESOLVED that:-

a)         The projected out-turn figures for the Directorate as at the third quarter be noted;

(b)       The questions asked by Members and the responses be noted.

(c)        A report on Adult Education yield from fee income be submitted to a future meeting of the Committee.