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Agenda and minutes

Venue: This meeting will be held remotely. View directions

Contact: Simon Trevaskis
0208 7266000  Email: simon.trevaskis@croydon.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

5/22

Minutes of the Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 149 KB

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 7 December 2021 as an accurate record (to follow).

 

Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 7 December 2021 were agreed as a correct record.

6/22

Disclosure of Interests

Members and co-opted Members of the Council are reminded that, in accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory provisions of the Localism Act, they are required to consider in advance of each meeting whether they have a disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI), an other registrable interest (ORI) or a non-registrable interest (NRI) in relation to any matter on the agenda.  If advice is needed, Members should contact the Monitoring Officer in good time before the meeting.  

If any Member or co-opted Member of the Council identifies a DPI or ORI which they have not already registered on the Council’s register of interests or which requires updating, they should complete the disclosure form which can be obtained from Democratic Services at any time, copies of which will be available at the meeting for return to the Monitoring Officer.

Members and co-opted Members are required to disclose any DPIs and ORIs at the meeting.  

·      Where the matter relates to a DPI they may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must not stay in the meeting unless granted a dispensation.  

·      Where the matter relates to an ORI they may not vote on the matter unless granted a dispensation.   

·      Where a Member or co-opted Member has an NRI which directly relates to their financial interest or wellbeing, or that of a relative or close associate, they must disclose the interest at the meeting, may not take part in any discussion or vote on the matter and must not stay in the meeting unless granted a dispensation.  Where a matter affects the NRI of a Member or co-opted Member, section 9 of Appendix B of the Code of Conduct sets out the test which must be applied by the Member to decide whether disclosure is required.

The Chair will invite Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda item 3, to be recorded in the minutes.

 

Minutes:

There were no disclosure of interest made at the meeting.

7/22

Urgent Business (if any)

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.

 

Minutes:

There were no urgent items of business for consideration by the Scrutiny & Overview Committee at this meeting.

8/22

Community Fund - Community Infrastructure Levy Local Meaningful Proportion Assignment 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 132 KB

The purpose of the report is to provide the Scrutiny & Overview Committee with sufficient information to decide whether it is reassured by decision making behind the creation of the Community Fund and the decision to use Community Infrastructure Levy (Local Meaningful Proportion) funds to help meet the associated budget challenge

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report set out on pages 5 to 10 of the agenda, which following a request made at the previous Committee meeting held on 7 December 2021, provided further information on the use of funds from the local meaningful proportion (LMP) of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) for the Community Fund.

An introduction to the report was provided by the Council’s Head of Spatial Planning and Interim Head of Growth Zone & Regeneration, Steve Dennington and Community & Voluntary Sector Manager, Simon Bashford. During the introduction the following was noted:-

·         The Council had been collecting CIL income since 2013. 15% of the income raised through CIL was allocated as the LMP, which could be used for anything that addressed the demand development places on an area.

·         Government guidance advised that in an area where there were no parish or town councils, the borough needed to demonstrate that it had engaged with the community on the use of LMP.

·         A bid was submitted by the Communities team to allocate £400,000 from the LMP for the Community Fund, which was considered as part of the budget setting process. Following consideration it was decided that this use of funds would reflected the demand new development places upon an area, and as such was considered an appropriate use.

·         The Council was required to produce an annual statement on the use of CIL funding.

·         The next commissioning cycle of the Community Fund would begin in the summer, with engagement starting in the spring. The outcome from the bidding process would be reported to Cabinet in November for final determination.

Following the introduction, the Chair commended the full response provided by officers to the questions raised by the Committee, noting that reassurance could be taken from the information given.

Further explanation was requested to explain how applications from community groups were submitted. It was confirmed that the Council created a prospectus to set out what it wanted to commission.  This was then disseminated to local groups, with workshops held with the community and voluntary sector across the borough to spread the message. The four local community and voluntary sector coordination groups in the borough helped to raise awareness of the Community Fund.

It was agreed that sufficient assurance had been provided on the legality of using the LMP for the Community Fund. However it was questioned whether consideration had been given to the small grants fund. It was confirmed that the grants element for funding under £15,000 did not feature in the request for £400,000 as it was outside the timescale for this fund. It was highlighted that many small groups had still been able to access the larger sums, with groups encouraged to use the London Tender Portal as this would provide access to other funding sources.

Following discussion of this item, the Chair thanked the officers for the extensive information that had been provided to the Committee.

Conclusions

Following discussion of this item the Scrutiny & Overview Committee reached the following conclusions:-

1.    From  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8/22

9/22

2022-23 Budget pdf icon PDF 132 KB

The Scrutiny and Overview Committee is asked to consider the information to be provided with a view to, as part of the wider budget scrutiny process, forming conclusions on the deliverability and sustainability of the 2022-23 budget, as well as ensuring there is an understanding of the key risks.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report set out on pages 11 to 12 of the agenda, together with three Cabinet reports provided in the supplemental agenda. The three report provided were:-

-       Financial Performance Report – Month 8

-       Medium Term Financial Strategy 2022/23 to 2024/25 – Update on Position

-       Updated 2021/22 and

-       Forecast General Fund Capital Programme 2022/23 to 2024/25

These reports were due to be considered by the Cabinet on 24 January 2022 and had been provided for the Committee to inform the budget scrutiny process.

An introduction to the information provided was given by the Council’s Section 151 Officer, Richard Ennis, during which the following was noted:-

·         The Council continued to deliver this year’s budget. The Government had not yet provided confirmation on the £50m capitalisation direction, but feedback from the Improvement and Assurance Panel had been positive.

·         The level of capital spend against the budget was still low, with an in-depth review planned to test the year end position.

·         The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) continued to be overspent, which could mainly be attributed to pressures on maintenance.

·         Good progress had been made on the 2022/23 budget to ensure it was robust, deliverable and sustainable.

·         The grant settlement from Government had been better than expected, but it was important to continue with cross party lobbying for more support in light of the unique challenges Croydon faced.

·         The cost of the concessionary fares scheme had reduced by £4m, which helped to reduce the budget gap.

·         There was concern about the possible impact of inflation, with additional allowance added to the budget. The Council would take a robust position when dealing with contractors trying to pass the cost of inflation onto the Council.

·         There was currently a gap of £11m in the 2022/23 budget, with work continuing to identify options for closing this gap. There was confidence that a balanced budget would be delivered.

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Hamida Ali, also provided an introduction to this item, during which the following was highlighted:-

·         The Council was in a very different place to last year, which was the product of a lot of focussed work over the past 15 months on the Croydon Renewal Plan delivering improvements in the Council’s governance and culture.

·         Work continued on recruiting a new Corporate Management Team with Jane West being appointed as the new Corporate Director for Resources and Annette McPartland appointed as the permanent Corporate Director for Adult Social Care and Health.

·         There had been difficult choices made in the budget, but this reflected the determination of the Administration to get to grips with the challenging nature of the financial environment for local government.

·         Despite the scale of savings required, the Council still had approximately £300m in controllable spend. Choices made on this controllable spend had meant that the Council was able to maintain services for residents including fortnightly bin collections, keeping all libraries open, continuing community grants and maintaining the Domestic Abuse Centre.

Following the introduction to this item  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9/22

10/22

Scrutiny - Budget Challenge pdf icon PDF 121 KB

As part of the budget scrutiny process, the Scrutiny and Overview Committee has identified two specific areas of the budget it would like to scrutinise in more detail. The areas identified are detailed in the relevant sub-items.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered two separate reports set out between pages 13 to 40 of the agenda which provided a response to the two budget areas chosen by the Committee as a focus for a deep dive.

The first area was the Corporate, Resources and Assistant Chief Executive areas, from which the Committee was looking for reassurance that it was resourced at the right level to support the improvement journey of the Council. The second area looked at the preparations for the move to the mayoral model of governance and ongoing support for Members, to ensure that these areas were also appropriately resources.

Corporate, Resources and Assistant Chief Executive areas

In reviewing the information provided in the report on the budget for the Corporate, Resources and Assistant Chief Executive service areas, the Committee agreed that it would focus on how the budget would enable the services to support the organisation to deliver cultural change and system improvement.

The first question asked for more information on how the expectation of increasing digital revenue (as set out in the budget report) was estimated. It was confirmed that it had been anticipated that there would be an income from digital advertising once the new digital bus stops had been rolled out. As the full roll out would not be completed in the next year, the estimated income had been reduced.

As the need to change the culture of the Council had been highlighted in both the Report in the Public Interest and the Ark report on Regina Road, particularly the need to improve financial discipline and customer service, it was questioned how the budget would help to deliver this.  It was advised that the Beyond Business School had been commissioned, following a procurement exercise, to deliver a key piece of work on cultural change. This work would take a Train the Trainer approach, upskilling Council staff to roll out the change across the organisation. This work would focus on embedding improved customer services skills and improving resident engagement. Once the results had been analysed, the recently completed staff survey would also help to inform the cultural change work. There was also work with the digital team to ensure that staff were aligned to the digital world.

It was questioned whether there was sufficient resource in the Human Resources team to be able to support the improvement of the Council, particularly as there were savings for the team in the budget. The Interim Chief People Officer, Dean Shoesmith, advised that when he join the Council in the autumn, he had undertaken a HR Maturity Index of the service, which had identified a number of opportunities for efficiencies and improvements through business process reengineering using the Lean process.

Along a similar vein, it was also questioned whether Croydon Digital Service was able to deliver the system improvement of the Council. The Interim Head of Corporate Technology, Paul Golland, advised that the work of the service had been reviewed to ensure that the projects being delivered  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10/22

11/22

Exclusion of the Press and Public

The following motion is to be moved and seconded where it is proposed to exclude the press and public from the remainder of a meeting:

 

“That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended.”

 

 

Minutes:

This motion was not required.