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ITEM CC8

COUNTY COUNCIL – 4 NOVEMBER 2003

MAXIMISING OUR RESOURCES

Report by the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council

 

  1. The Executive reported on its Budget Strategy ‘Maximising Our Resources’ to Council in June 2003. The report set out the Executive’s intention to have the initial planning work completed early in 2003/04, with a substantial review of the revenue budget in place for a report to Council in November 2003. This responded in part to the Council’s instruction, in determining the 2003/04 budget in February, that the Executive "continue to review the Council’s base budget in order to identify further significant economies that can be set against new demands on the budget" (Council Minute 21/03).

  2. This report sets out the progress to date on the review of the revenue budget.

    3. Progress on Base Budget Reviews and Efficiency Savings

  3. Each of the Directorates - excepting Community Safety, where it was felt that there were no fertile areas for review at the present time - was required to instigate up to two Base Budget Reviews. The reviews which have taken place or are in progress are set out in the table below:

    4. Directorate

    Subject of Review

    Size of Review £m

    Learning & Culture

    Resources

    9.8

    Social & Health Care

    Occupational Therapy

    2.5

    Environment, Roads & Transport

    Waste Management

    12.2

     

    Highway Management

    14.9

    Resources

    Telecommunications

    5.0

    Sub-total revenue only

    44.4

    Resources

    Property Review

    1bn

  4. The Reviews set out above cover 7% of the gross budget in 2003/04. Excluding schools’ delegated budgets £74.1m represents 10% of the gross budget.

  5. As well as Occupational Therapy, Social & Health Care also committed to a review of Learning Disabilities. However, work is concentrating on the Best Value Review of that area first. Learning & Culture were only able to identify one area for review within the timescale.

  6. In tandem with the Base Budget Review process a cross-Council exercise to secure efficiency savings has been carried out. This is in order to secure the efficiency savings targets set out in the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP): £3m this year and rising by £5m in each subsequent year of the Plan. The savings secured from the efficiencies exercise and the Base Budget Reviews total £1.581m and are set out below:

    7. Programme Area

    Efficiencies

    Base Budget Review

     

    £m

    £m

    Learning & Culture

    0. 255

    0.090

    Social & Health Care

    0. 200

    0.131

    Environment & Economy

    0. 490

    -

    Community Safety

    0. 215

    -

    Corporate Governance

    0. 297

    0.100

    One off in 2003/04 not repeated

    -0. 107

     

    Total

    1. 35

    0.321

  7. The Executive Lead Members for the respective Directorate areas chaired the review meetings. The Leader and Deputy Leader attended the review meetings where possible. The process and outcomes of the reviews undertaken so far are being reviewed by the Head of Finance, together with Business Managers and officers from the Performance Review Unit (who provided challenge during the reviews), to identify how future reviews might be improved. Some detail on the reviews is set out below.

    8. Learning & Culture

  8. For Learning & Culture, the Resources review has not yet been completed but so far miscellaneous savings amounting to £90,000 have been identified. The review has highlighted the need to review buy-back of central services by schools. If implemented, this would entail further delegation of services. The Director for Resources has pledged a review of all support services for 2004/05 which will give another, more in-depth, opportunity to review Resources both in Learning & Culture and cross-Council. This review would involve a Business Process Re-engineering approach, which would be more likely to identify savings.

    9. Social & Health Care

  9. Social & Health Care have identified savings of £0.366m in the Occupational Therapy (OT) Service (14% of the OT budget). Of this £0.131m will be achieved in 2004/05. The speed with which these substantial savings can be realised depends on a successful Invest to Save bid and/or partnership working with district councils (particularly Oxford City Council) to accelerate the level of adaptation to clients’ homes. Once realised, it would reduce the OT waiting list and therefore reduce the requirements of Home Care. The saving in 2004/05 is mostly accounted for by ending the service maintenance contracts for stair lifts, which are not a direct responsibility of the service.

    10. Environment & Economy

  10. The Highway Management Review was presented to the Environment Scrutiny Committee for comment in September. The Scrutiny Committee agreed that it would not wish to see any further cuts to the Budget and asked officers to investigate potential efficiency savings around value for money and quality of work.

  11. The Waste Management Budget Review concluded that the options for achieving savings would have an impact on the service in terms of service to the public and therefore needs political agreement to implement, or there is likely to be an adverse impact on the Council achieving its PSA targets. However, there do remain some options for savings that could still be usefully explored. Of more immediate importance is Waste Management’s need to bring in more funding to cope with the expected budget pressures from 2004/05 onwards.

    12. Corporate Governance

  12. Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee has received a report on the Telecommunications review. A project has been initiated to review overall administration and put into place the effective, Council-wide, management and governance of telecommunications. The goals of this initiative are to:

    • consolidate and improve the administration and control of our Telecommunications infrastructure;

    • seek to lower the overall cost of the delivery of Telephony (the target of a cost reduction of £100k for 2004/05 has been set which is included in the table above); and

    • in the longer-term, develop an integrated Telecommunications strategy.

  1. Such is the importance attached to this initiative that it is planned to have completed the initial stages of the project, in particular the consolidation of the BT billing issue, by the end of the present calendar year. It is anticipated that by the start of the financial year 2004/05, an effective and consolidated administration will be operational.

    2. Review of Property Assets

  2. The Review of Property Assets has been successfully launched. The business case and project definition were approved by the Executive on 8 July 2003. The project plan proposed that the outcome of the first stage of the Review be reported to the Executive on 27 January 2004.

  3. The Review is progressing in accordance with the programme established in the project plan. The first task has been to establish the current and future property needs of the County Council and to develop an understanding of the County Council plans and strategies. A database of relevant property information for all County Council property has also been developed. This includes information on outstanding maintenance, running costs, suitability for purpose and accessibility.

  4. The second major area of work is using the information collected to investigate possible ways of reorganising property to meet the success criteria of the project. For the purposes of this analysis the County has been divided into three areas – north, city and south. An analysis of the current property and property needs in these areas is currently taking place. This involves a detailed understanding of the locational requirements of different types of uses.

  5. A member and partners workshop was held on 20 October with the aim of gaining input from members and potential partners. The outcomes of the workshop are being analysed.

  6. Alongside the review the Learning Disability Strategy, where receipts are being generated and reinvested in new residential settings, continues.

    7. Other Efficiency Gains made Cross-Council

  7. On Highway Management, an 8% efficiency saving in total costs of delivering highway schemes (including Local Transport Plan non-maintenance schemes) has already been delivered through partnering action with our contractors, Isis Accord and Babtie. These efficiency savings have been achieved by: agreement to built in contract rates year on year; efficiency savings achieved through agreed changes to working practices; joint investment in specialist equipment; and recycling of materials.

  8. On Transport Development, over the past three years capital expenditure has increased by 285% against a revenue budget increase of less than 25%. The massively increased workload has been managed without a corresponding increase in staff or consultants’ fees.

  9. Looking at Business Support cross-Council; dealing with the extra work generated by the implementation of the SAP management information system, restructuring and job evaluation has been without any real increase in resources.

    10. Other Reviews

  10. There is a continuing programme of Best Value Reviews. Social & Health Care are carrying out a Best Value Review on Learning Disabilities, which reports to Social & Health Care Scrutiny Committee on 29 October and the Executive in January 2004. A Best Value Review of Customer Services has started in Environment & Economy.

  11. An external review of Communications across the Council is under way. This is looking at both the totality of resources spent on communications and how efficient and effective the present usage is. This review has been undertaken by consultants. It is due to report on 24 November.

  12. A group has been set up to implement the recommendations of the Property Services Best Value Review. Buro Happold are contributing to this, along with Vanguard Consulting and WS Atkins. Consultants for the Human Resources review are to be confirmed.

    13. Future Base Budget Reviews

  13. A programme of future reviews is being compiled by Business Managers, which takes into account Best Value Reviews. The next set of Base Budget Reviews will commence in February 2004. A further update will be given to the Council in July 2004.

    14. Improving Budget, Performance and Planning Information

  14. A series of member seminars was held over the summer, with the intention of "opening up the base budget". A new format has been adopted for the detailed budget book this year to provide performance information alongside the budgets, and information on capital investments as well as revenue spending. All budget information is now badged and should be filed in the green folders circulated to all members.

    15. RECOMMENDATION

  15. The Council is RECOMMENDED to note the report.

KEITH R MITCHELL
Leader of the Council

MARGARET GODDEN
Deputy Leader of the Council

October 2003

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