Agenda item

Nigel Howcutt introduced the report to members and ran through the report highlights.

Headline figures

The general fund for this year as of period 6 is showing revenue pressure of £3.1 million of which £3 million is linked to Covid over and above the funding received to date or believe we will receive. In terms of HRA, they are showing a surplus of £0.1 million in year with a few variances particularly around maintenance which they will talk about in more detail. He said the high level position on the capital perspective, the general fund is showing a small overspend of £100k which is less than 1% of the capital budget and is showing slippage in year of less than 10% which considering Covid has slowed or stopped projects entirely he said it’s a fairly good performance to date. The HRA capital is showing a £1 million slippage which is about 5% of the HRA capital program which is within the realms of what they would expect, he said they don’t like to see any slippage greater than 10% so at present they are performing well under difficult circumstances. There is an underspend in the HRA capital program, this is predominantly due to the maintenance they do in the properties, of £1.65 million as they’ve not been able to access peoples properties. He said, to be able to engage with that in terms of high level figures from a government funding perspective, the government income scheme is reimbursement for the income losses, they will be receiving a projected £1.3 million for expenditure incurred throughout the year. In terms of overall expenditure incurred there are now four tranches that have been announced and in total Dacorum will be receiving £2 million of government funding to cover those expenses. So net £3 million is made up of various expenditure areas that is over and above the £2 million that is being funded by central government. He said there is under the very large income stream of investment property which isn’t covered by the government income reimbursement scheme which they are absorbing also the 30% of other income streams. He concluded that that’s a high level summary, however this was produced prior to the new lockdown measures, the new lockdown will impact the projections. He said they will update them and feed in assumptions into the Cabinet report which is due for publication next week.

Councillor Tindall referred to page 13 item 4.1 which mentions £60k pressure within neighbourhood delivery due to interim resource to support delivery of new initiatives within the service and asked what it was.

Nigel Howcutt explained that was for the short term cover of Officer Bill Buckley to support neighbourhood services.

Councillor Tindall asked, on page 16 point 5.1 on waste service, the 1st paragraph states this is due to over 20 staff having to self-isolate for 12 week, he said he assumed we didn’t have 20 staff off for the full 12 weeks and could anyone explain what the maximum absenteeism were that had to be covered by agency staff.

Nigel Howcutt said he doesn’t have the exact number of people absent at any one time however confirmed Councillor Tindall was correct in saying there were 20 staff that were absent at different time frames that needed to be covered, he said the service now has a different way of working going forward meaning they are less impacted by future decisions.

Councillor Tindall also asked about another point on page 16 where it mentions £50k in planning where staffing levels had been higher than budgeted, he asked if they have an offsetting income stream for that because if they have more staffing than then potentially they have more income coming in, he asked if this is correct.

Nigel Howcutt explained that this was partly due to work overlaying from the last financial year, he said Councillor Tindall was correct in saying that having more planning staff is because we have a busy planning team but the income was a benefit from last year where we exceeded our income. He said they are also exceeding their income levels this year on planning and if you don’t take into consideration Covid as they are performing very well compared to normal.

Councillor Tindall referred to page 28 and the refurbishment of the car park and that there was plan to put in additional electric vehicle charging points, he said he understands that things may be delayed however wondered if the additional chargers were going to go in when the water gardens car park is refurbished.

Ben Hosier confirmed that they are reviewing the electric vehicle charging points in a number of our car parks and the best time do them, however he said there are some issues with Distribution Network Operator (DNO) costs and that there currently isn’t the capacity with the electrical supply to put in new or upgraded electric vehicle charging points without first upgrading the supply. He said the DNO costs are considerable so there will be a paper produced and this will be circulated to members at some stage in the not too distant future. Ideally he said they would be looking at putting them in at an opportune moment, an opportune moment for the water gardens would be during the car park refurbishment.

Councillor Adeleke referred to page 13, he said it mentioned some new burdens grants, he asked how much these grants were. He also referred to the bottom of page 13 where is mentions an under spend of 50k in the cemeteries provision, he said he thought during this situation spending should go up and not down.

Nigel Howcutt explained that they have received just short of £110k for the new burdens funding to cover the not insignificant costs of rebilling for business rates and the reissuing of hardship funds and council tax which has required a lot of system changes also. He said the funding they have received just about covers the costs they are incurring, to give the members for foresight he said the annual billing costs us around £45k in postage. He said that they did expect an increase in costs from the cemeteries provision however they saw a reduction in burials, and there had been a reduction in memorials due to no mass gatherings. He said that during the summer they didn’t require as many agency staff and they were carrying a vacancy which they have now filled.

Councillor Guest referred to the £540k used for agency staff for waste services and asked if it would have been possible to recruit in house staff on short term contracts, would this have been more cost effective, she also asked if the temp staff require the same level of training and qualifications as permanent staff.

Nigel Howcutt responded that there are a number of elements to this, firstly he said that due to the time frame they were given for lockdown and the instruction for people to shield meant they had a week’s notice to cover these. Nigel Howcutt explained that they first took staff from the Clean, Safe & Green team who were already trained, they then went to agencies, and they have a relationship with agencies who have a pool of staff to meet their requirements and are trained to use their vehicles so there was no health and safety issue. He concluded that the time did not allow for wholesale internal recruitment. Although that is done where possible.

Councillor Claughton referred to page 17 section 5.3 2nd paragraph and that an additional budget of £300k was required for the strategic planning service. He said whilst he understand the challenges around the local plan, withdrawing and then resubmitting however he said presumably they know beforehand the stages that have to be gone through, he said he didn’t quite understand the need for extra expenditure.

Nigel Howcutt explained that whilst they do have an annualized average budget many factors can affect this this process, such as the changes in government policy and plans, changes to the set time frames, he said that the local plan that they currently have out for consultation is 12 months later than planned, this was due to government changes on how the plan would be submitted and reviewed and they had to change their approach. He said they do have the local development framework reserve to cover the peaks and troughs of the local plan and the revenue is smoothed out however they always make sure they’ve got the reserve. He stated that in 2021 they hadn’t expected the local plan to continue with the same workforce that they have had, hence the reason for the increase in costs.

Councillor Claughton feels the wording in the reports could be clearer to help the councillors understand the reasons and help answer their questions.

Councillor Symington explained she looked at this report and it seemed to her that a large proportion of shortfall and differences come from staff. With the costs from finance and costs from strategic planning were talking just short of £1 Million difference from what was originally budgeted. She asked if collectively they could have a better approach to how they deal with staff, she believes that something were know and could there be a contingency when planning so the costs are not an extra. She said that this is possibly something that HR maybe better able to answer.

Councillor Townsend referred to 5.1 on page 16, the employer’s costs for waste management. He believed they were told of the Covid implications so this isn’t new to them however wanted to clarify the 20 staff for 12 weeks, he asked if there was a material waste element here, possibly an increase of waste driving the increase costs in waste services.

Nigel Howcutt confirmed that the £545k were solely staffing costs relating to the waste service and that costs for additional waste disposal come later in the report. He said he can provide greater details however that those costs were a result of what’s happened between April and September as well as ongoing. He said this report covers what they project for the whole financial year.

Councillor Mahmood asked how much of these pressures are Covid related and how may are normal pressures.

Nigel Howcutt said if they take the waste service, it’s normally extremely easy to monitor to manage with the set routes and set staff, then when Covid came along they had to make changes to the number of staff in a vehicle due to Covid rules. He explained there is little mitigation in this service, this proves to be a costly service.

Councillor Mahmood asked if some of these pressures due to some staff working from home and not coming into the office.

Linda Roberts responded that she feels there is no material changes to the pressures from working from home. She said whilst some services have been affected, such as environmental services as they cannot go to premises and housing as were prevented from entering properties to undertake repairs, taking those out of the equation they can absolutely deliver the service from home, and example of this is Nigel Howcutt and the financial team have delivered all the yearend reports from home with no delays.

Outcome:

The report was noted.