Agenda item

That the current position on the Finance Recovery Plan be noted and that the report be recommended to Council.

The Director of Finance introduced a progress report on the work being undertaken to improve all aspects of the Council’s financial position and underlying financial and governance processes.  The Cabinet was requested to refer the report to full Council on 23^rd November 2021.

The report included a detailed set of appendices outlining progress on various matters including the statement of accounts and year-end close; budget setting; companies; internal audit action tracking; financial systems; the finance team; revenues and benefits and the PFI review.  The report also included the responses and progress tracking on the CIPFA Review, DLUHC governance review, Grant Thornton recommendations and further DLUHC recommendations.

Lead Members welcomed the comprehensive update and discussed the report in detail.  The Director of Finance and his team was thanked for the significant progress they had made in identifying the extent of financial issues and practice and a query was raised about whether there was sufficient capacity to carry out the substantial amount of work to be done in future.  In response the Director of Finance confirmed that additional resources had been provided to bring in the necessary expertise in the short to medium term and that a full restructure of the finance team would be carried out to put in place the capacity and capability required in the longer term.  There was a discussion about the review of the PFI contract with schools and clarification would be sought on the on the number of years left to run.  A query was raised about the cost of commissioners, which would be borne by the Council, and it was estimated to be in excess of £1m over a three year period, based on two commissioners being appointed.

Speaking under Rule 30, Councillor Strutton expressed views on several aspects of the report, including why the savings previously promised by bringing customer services and environmental services back in house had not been achieved.  The Leader and Executive Director of Place & Community responded to the points raised and explained the work done to stabilise environmental services and seek out both savings and income generating opportunities since it came back in house in December 2017.  Councillor Strutton asked about the timing of any change to the electoral cycle.  The Leader highlighted that the working group set up in 2020 had agreed to consult on the proposal to move to whole council elections and that consultation was currently underway with residents.  It would not be realistic to implement any change, if agreed, for the borough elections in 2022, but it could be changed by 2023 subject to the response to consultation, views of the commissioners and decisions of full Council.  Councillor Strutton had also commented on the PFI review of schools and it was responded that the external reviews had stated the contracts were generally well managed but the issue was addressing the historic financial gap from when the contracts had originally been agreed in 2007. 

The Cabinet discussed a number of other issues including the work being done on companies governance and on the Dedicated Schools Grant.  At the conclusion of the discussion the Cabinet noted the updates and agreed to recommend the comprehensive report to full Council on 23^rd November 2021.

Resolved –  That the current position on the Finance Recovery Plan be noted and that the report be recommended to Council.