Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Hallchurch (Councillor Lilly substituting)

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The report (which is to be considered by each of the Scrutiny Committees on 10 January 2013) forms part of a series relating to the Service and Resource Planning process for 2013/14 to 2016/17.

Each Committee will meet in turn to consider the Business Strategies and savings proposed for their service areas. Comments from each Committee will then be considered by Strategy & Partnerships Scrutiny Committee on 17 January 2013 prior to being fed back to Cabinet in order that they can take the comments into consideration in proposing their budget and Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) at the end of January 2013. Council will meet to agree the budget and MTFP on 19 February 2013.

The following annexes are attached:

The Director together with the Cabinet Member for the relevant Directorate will be available to respond to questions.

Sue Scane, Assistant Chief Executive & Chief Finance Officer gave an introductory presentation on the overall financial position and overview of the savings that are required from the budget.

Huw Jones, Director for Environment and Economy gave an overview of the changes to the Environment and Economy directorate in the past year. The directorate is now organised into three divisions; Strategy & Infrastructure, Commercial Services and Oxfordshire Customer Services. Deputy Directors Graham Shaw and Martin Tugwell presented the key savings proposals for their services relating to the committee.

Members were interested in the development of the Customer Service Centre (CSC) and the savings related to it. It was agreed that a more substantial discussion would be had at the next committee meeting where a paper on the next phase of the CSC would be presented.

Huw Jones confirmed that there is no intention to externalise the CSC but that the Directorate is looking at the potential for (other) ‘back office’ services such as HR or Finance to be externalised. Options will need to be considered in detail over the period of the medium term financial plan.

Members expressed a desire for locally based services even if they were to be externalised.

The committee noted that BT is improving broadband provision in the county so many of the Council’s buildings are already benefitting from this. It was noted that the Better Broadband programme is still in the procurement phase but members were keen that parishes should be made aware of the planned phasing for the roll out.

Members noted that the corporate landlord approach is now embedded and that the Council is looking for opportunities to work with partners to join up with on estates. Energy usage reduced by 15% last year but unfortunately this is not reflected in cost reductions as prices are increasing.

Sue Scane told the committee that the majority of savings in the Chief Executive’s Office had already been achieved in earlier years. The efficiency reserve has been built up to pump prime activities so it is appropriate to remove the change fund at this time.

The committee was disappointed at the loss of the Big Society Fund base budget and the Area Stewardship Fund and urged Cabinet to reinstate this funding (on a one-off basis) if additional funding becomes available. The committee were also keen to ensure that sufficient staffing was maintained to support the fund and more broadly the whole back office function of the council.

Sue Scane  undertook to provide members with details of the overall organisational development budget and what proportion of it will be given in savings.

Members thanked Sue Scane and Lorna Baxter for their support to the scrutiny committees.

The committee was happy to support the proposed pressures and savings.

The members noted that, in the main, the savings proposed were on the basis of the reduced size of the council overall.

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