Up to 15 minutes are allowed for public participation.  Participants are restricted to 3 minutes each.

There was no public participation.

To confirm as a correct record the Minutes of the previous meeting.

The minutes of the meeting held on 15 April 2021 were approved and signed as a correct record.

The minutes of the Joint Staff Consultative Committee meeting held on 25 March 2021 were noted.

Members may make declarations of Interest at this point or may make them at any point in the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

Setting out current position of previously agreed actions as at 9 June 2021

The schedule of matters arising setting out the position of previously agreed actions as at 9 June 2021 was NOTED.

The Committee gave consideration to a report presented by the Corporate Systems Development & ICT Manager, seeking to gain approval to spend up to £70,000 from reserves for the implementation costs of the Document Management System (DMS). She explained that the replacement DMS being considered was an extension of the functionality of the new OneCouncil Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to include a document management system, which would meet all current and future requirements. The capital programme 2021/22 included for the replacement of the current Idox Document Management System and the report requested the drawdown of £70k from ICT Reserve to fund the implementation of the OneCouncil document management system (DMS). In addition, it was prudent to allow a further £5,000 for additional consultancy days, if required, to be funded from General Fund balances.

There would be a slight increase in annual maintenance costs, of £900 per annum, which would be met within existing budgets, and there would be efficiency savings of approximately £44k a year, as the new DMS would not incur in house support and maintenance cost from the IT team (of which a small amount was in staff resources and the remainder were savings from not having an on-premise server with licences). This saving would only be realised when the server portfolio was refreshed and this server was removed from the network and therefore future costs would not be incurred. It was highlighted that the specification for the new DMS system had been developed in consultation with all services currently using the Idox DMS, which would be replaced.

A Member of the Committee enquired as to what consultancy would be required, in order to need the £5000 from general funds. He also questioned how it was possible to state that the system would meet ‘all future requirements’ and whether there was any cause for concern in that the system had not been tried in the UK up to this point.

In response to these questions, the Corporate Systems Development & ICT Manager explained that the £5000 was a contingency plan should there be any further consultancy work required on the system, however it was not anticipated that this would be required. The contract had been made to the specific requirements of the council and had integrated the ‘best bits’ of other systems as well as planning in the specifications of what was already in the pipeline for future ICT developments. She confirmed that the system had not been used in the UK previously, however, this gave additional scope for building the system to the exact requirements of the council. West Lindsey had previously been the first Local Authority in the country to use a certain system, that had proved successful and long-lasting and there were no concerns regarding being the first to go live on this occasion.

In response to a question regarding the use of reserves and general funds, it was explained that the £70k from reserves had been set aside specifically for this project, however the additional  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Committee heard from the Business Support Team Leader regarding a report setting out the final budget outturn position for revenue and capital 2020/2021, and requesting approval for transfer to General Fund working balances. She explained that Council approved a revenue budget, including Council Tax charges, for 2020/2021 of £14.357m at its meeting in March 2020 (£14.783m 2019/2020). There was no requirement to utilise the General Fund Balance to provide a balanced budget. The budget was revised in November 2020 to £20.525m to reflect the significant impact Covid-19 was having on both income and expenditure. The actual outturn had realised a surplus of £2.783m, £1.414m of which related to one off budget provision for the delivery of projects which spanned financial years and would therefore be carried forward. This left a remaining surplus budget of £1.369m (7% of the Revised Revenue Budget) to be transferred to the General Fund Working Balance, which now stood at £7.338m. The total amount of the General Fund Reserves was £26.546m (£20.020m 2019/2020).

It was explained that the forecast outturn position for 2020/2021 was presented to this Committee on 15 April 2021 as part of the Budget and Treasury Management Monitoring report for Quarter 4 2020/2021. The forecast outturn position at that time, for Business as Usual activity, was a net contribution to reserves of £0.540m. It was reiterated that the purpose of this report was to present to Members the final outturn position for the year, following the closure of accounts. The final outturn position was a net contribution to reserves of £1.389m, an increase of £0.849m from the previous forecast.

With regard to Capital, it was explained that the capital outturn position for 2020/2021 had moved since the Quarter 4 reporting. The outturn was £9.034m variance against revised budget of £14.113m. Final net carry forwards totalled £4.955m (£5.442m Quarter 4). The main scheme variation related to the Depot, due to the pace of construction being faster than anticipated, therefore Work in Progress accruals were higher than forecast. £0.124m was the final net underspend position on scheme budgets.

The Chairman thanked the Business Support Team Leader for her summary and invited questions from the Committee. There was discussion regarding the reduction in the credit loss provision for Housing Benefit debt, which was explained to be in relation to the way in which calculations had been undertaken in previous years, as well as there being a 95% subsidy on housing benefit. With regards to the capital grants figures, it was explained that the grant funding agreement for the Sun Inn expired in August 2022 and the business case had included expenditure of selling the property.

Members enquired as to the impact of fuel prices, which was explained to be reflected in the quarter one report for the current financial year, as well as the details around the planning fee income. It was stated that it had been anticipated for this to have reduced, as a result of the pandemic, however that had not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Members gave consideration to the final quarterly report for Progress and Delivery for 2020/21. The Assistant Director for Finance, Business Support & Property Services provided a summary of each section, with Members invited to ask questions per portfolio.

Members heard the following summary.

Executive Summary

• Report presented performance for quarter 4 (Jan-Mar)
• Summary of year-end performance was attached as Appendix A for information
• 59% of KPIs were on or above target for quarter 4
• 38% of KPIs were below target
• The remaining 3% were within agreed tolerance levels

Corporate Health

• Customer satisfaction had improved and was now back on target. The number of complaints had also reduced by 16%.
• Calls answered within 21 seconds remained below target. This was a combination of higher than usual demand, call handling staff being affected by closure of schools and the team temporarily taking on responsibility for administering Land Charges calls and payments. The Customer Experience Strategy was currently being reviewed and this would include call handling times to ensure performance improvements.

Finance and Property Services

• No performance concerns within this portfolio

Homes and Communities

• Demand for homelessness support continued to increase during quarter 4. The Protect Plus and cold weather initiatives, designed to end rough sleeping led to an increased use of B&B accommodation to ensure that nobody slept rough in the district.
• The Council’s partners (P3), were releasing 6 new accommodation units in quarter one to support people with a history of street homelessness as part of the Next Steps Accommodation Programme. This was in addition to the Council’s Viable Housing Solution and should lead to a reduction in the need for B&B accommodation. Following queries raised at Prosperous Communities Committee, the Change and Performance Officer would circulate additional information to members following the conclusion of this committee meeting. 
• As detailed in previous P&D reports, DFG completion times remained impacted by the initial lockdown in March 2020, which added 90 days to the average completion time. This was due to a combination of not being able to access customers’ homes to complete the work in the first lockdown, plus a national shortage of building materials. Larger and more complex cases had now been completed and, as of the meeting date, there were 115 DFGs ongoing which was comparable to pre-COVID levels. The service therefore had high confidence that completion times would improve significantly by the end of quarter two. In future, P&D reports would include data on the average number of days from receipt of a completed DFG application until completion of works, which was the period of time that West Lindsey had full control over performance. This would be provided in addition to existing KPIs.

Operational and Commercial Services

• Building Control market share was now back above target, having been below target in the previous quarter. Market share was also up 8% on the same period last year.
• Garden waste had had a strong start to its new year with a 4.7% increase in subscription take-up on last  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Committee gave consideration to the work plan for upcoming meetings. Councillor J. McNeill informed the Committee that, following a meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee, it had been recommended that the CP&R and JSC Committees receive a report regarding whistleblowing, this would be on the work plan for the Committee before the end of the Civic Year.

With no further comments the workplan was duly NOTED.