Agenda item

Cllr Chapman introduced the report, and invited the officer to offer any comments on it.  David Skinner began by offering his apologies for arriving later than expected; he wanted to draw the Committee to a number of key items; he said that there was continued success from the previous financial year, a lot of the same areas that were delivering surplus income continued to forecast surplus income. D Skinner went onto highlight a number of key points that were set out in full within the report. The Chairman also asked Cllr Elliot if he wished to add any comments at portfolio holder; he confirmed that he did not.

Cllr Tindall noted 1.13 of pg 8, that there was a pressure on the budget for the Parking Enforcement contract. He asked what this pressure was. D Skinner said that when they were setting the budget for 2017/2018, a review had been conducted by consultants who identified that there was scope for some savings in the parking contract. However, following detailed negotiations with Watford Council about the parking contract, it became apparent that these savings were not available. However, savings had been identified elsewhere; these savings, along with the surplus income meant that the overall net position is what had been planned, however the detail behind this had slightly changed. D Skinner added that DBC were currently out to tender to renew the parking contract, so he hoped that further savings could be made with the assistance of technology, although this may require some capital expenditure to enable this.

Cllr Douris noted 1.14 of pg 8, that parking income was forecast to exceed budget by £125k. He asked the following three part question in relation to this point: (a) How much of this was generated by tickets, and how much was generated by Penalty Charge Notices; (b) what was the percentage of appeals upheld by the Traffic penalty tribunal; and (c) is the parking contract a stand-alone contract, or were DBC partnering with another authority?

B Hosier said (a) that the revenue generated from PCN’s was on a downward trend. The available information indicated that the number of sessions were the same, but the income had increased – the assumption was that people were paying to stay longer in car parks; 

(b) he confirmed that he would return to the Committee with information to this question; and (c) B Hosier also confirmed that the parking contract was solely DBC contract; there was no partnering with other organisation.

Action Point: B Hosier to confirm the percentage of appeals to PCN’s upheld by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal

Leading on from this, Cllr Tindall asked if with the new contract, the intention was to have more ‘smart’ machines’ that would be able to analyse trends more effectively; if this was the case, Cllr Tindall asked if consideration would be given to return to free parking on Sundays (if analysis demonstrated that the enforcement costs were greater than the revenue generated). B Hosier said that they would be utilising more up to date technology within the tender process, this would enable far greater analysis of the ongoing parking trends.

Cllr Tindall noted point 4.13 of pg 12, specifically the overspend of £184k on the Water Gardens. He asked if this was the final sum, or was there likely to be more over spend in the forthcoming months. D Skinner said that although he would like to say that this was the final figure, a meeting recently took place between DBC and the contractor, and as a result, that figure would be reported in the next quarterly report.

Cllr Adeleke noted 4.10 of pg 11, specifically the expected underspends in salaries due to vacancies within the Housing Cleaning Service (£60k) and Supporting People (£80k).He asked if these vacancies were going to be filled; he also asked if these vacancies were affecting the service provided? D Skinner said that the vacancy levels were similar to last year; his understanding was that they were looking to fill these vacancies during the year, but he confirmed would clarify this with a representative from Housing. In terms of the impact on service, Housing were able to provide the service with similar levels. Cllr Adeleke asked why it was recorded as an underspend if DBC were looking to fill these vacancies. D Skinner explained that if there was a vacancy, it meant that there was a salary that was unspent.

Action Point: D Skinner to confirm if Housing intended to fill the vacancies in Housing Cleaning Service and Supporting People.

Cllr Douris noted the final paragraph 4.3 of pg 10, which stated “Under-achievement of income of £90k – A pressure of £90k has been identified in the Commercial Waste service. The decline previously seen in the number of customers has not improved, and a deficit in income is forecast. Work is ongoing to understand why customers have left the service. The pressure is offset slightly by a reduction in disposal fees of £20k, to give a net pressure of £70k”. He was disappointed to read this again, and believed that this was the third occasion that the Committee had been provided with a near identical explanation of this situation. He asked how long it would take for them to understand why customers had left the service. Cllr Chapman concurred with this, and said that he also intended to ask this question; he wanted to know if we were competitive on costs against other businesses. D Skinner said that a lot of work had gone into understanding why customer had left; he said that part of the reason were that other companies were offering initial free fee period, which encouraged customers to move; they had looked at cost base in terms of the competiveness of the rates, however there did not appear to any great discrepancies. He knew that the service had looked at other ways to mitigate the impact of the deficit. He said that if members wished, he would ask a member of Waste Services Management to attend the Committee, and explain in the more detail the work that they were doing. Cllr Douris re-iterated his disappointment that the report did not contain more detail on what was the outcome from looking into this matter, and what steps they were taking to gain more business; He also felt that it would have been appropriate foe a representative to attend this meeting to provide the Committee with this information.

Action Point: D Skinner to ensure that a representative from Commercial Waste Services attend the next quarterly meeting, and provide the Committee with a more detailed explanation why customers had left the service and what they were doing to address this.

Cllr Douris noted Line 97 at pg 13 “…Due to recruitment challenges, a portion of the budget will be required in 2017/18 with the balance being in 2018/19”. He noted that this related to the CRM in house solution; He asked that if recruitment was so fragile, could DBC be ‘left in the lurch’ part way through the operation of this, if a member/s of staff were to leave?  B Trueman said that the initial recruitment approach, of recruiting a developer on a fixed term contract, had not worked. He said that they had been unable to people on the rate that DBC could offer. As a result, a new approach had been taken, which was to use agency staff. However they were more expensive, and so were only able to be used for less time. B Trueman said that there were benefits with this; there were a selection of strong candidates to choose from, that they were then able to ‘hit the ground running’ and less time spent on training, and in the event that they were to leave, DBC could be supplied immediately with another candidate. B Trueman said that it was a more resilient approach, albeit at less value for money.

Cllr Tindall noted the figure of £35,875 contained at line 186 in Appendix C (pg 20 of the report); he went on to note that this figure did not appear in the current budget for projected – he asked why this had not been included. D Skinner accepted that there appeared to be an issue with this figure. He confirmed that he would look into this.

Action Point: D Skinner to investigate and provide clarification regarding line 186 of Appendix C.

Cllr Tindall also went onto note the figures contained in line 169 of Appendix C (pg 19 pf the report) outlining the costs for The Bury. Again, he asked for some clarification regarding these. D Skinner said that he would.

Action Point: D Skinner to provide a more detailed explanation of the finances relating to The Bury, line 169 of Appendix C.

Outcome: At the invitation of the Chairman, the Committee agreed the contents and recommendations of Budget Monitoring report for Quarter 1 2017/2018.