Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Henry Caunce, Michael Davies, Keith Iddon, Kevin Joyce and Mick Muncaster. 

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any personal interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda. If the interest arises only as result of your membership of another public body or one to which you have been appointed by the Council then you only need to declare it if you intend to speak.

If the personal interest is a prejudicial interest, you must withdraw from the meeting. Normally you should leave the room before the business starts to be discussed. You do, however, have the same right to speak as a member of the public and may remain in the room to enable you to exercise that right and then leave immediately. In either case you must not seek to improperly influence a decision on the matter.

There were no declarations of interest by Members relating to the items on the agenda.

Members of the public who have requested the opportunity to ask a question(s) on an item(s) on the agenda will be asked to put their question(s) to the Panel. Each member of the public will be allowed to ask one supplementary question within his/her allocated 3 minutes.  

No member of the public requested to speak at the meeting.

Report of the Director of Finance (enclosed)

The Sub-Group received the report of the Director of Finance outlining the background picture of the national efficiency agenda and the progress made to date at Chorley on achieving the targets set by the Government.  The report highlighted the challenges ahead with the forthcoming comprehensive spending review 2007.

So far

Chorley have already exceeded the 2004 Spending review target, however, there is a need to look forward to what will come out of the 2007 spending review. The current expectation is that this will be a requirement to achieve fully cashable savings of 3% oer annum for the 3 year period 2008-11 and it was stressed that this presented a considerable challenge to the council. 

The efficiency gains claimed have to be evidenced. Calculating efficiencies is not an exact science however the council has a robust process in place to ensure that whilst efficiency gains submitted are maximised any gains made can be justified under scrutiny.  Achievement of our efficiency targets is clearly an important factor in external assessments of the council such as CPA and VFM and our continued good performance will be essential to a favourable CPA recategorisation.  

Identification and monitoring of efficency gains is now carried out through a corporate process which involves all directorates and senior management.  The key focus is achieving Value For Money (VFM). Although major savings to the council can be shown in service transfers such as the Housing Stock Transfer these could not be claimed as efficiency savings as the service would be run by another public body.  The outsourcing of Property Services can be claimed as an efficiency gain as here we are reducing the cost of the service through an externalised contract.  The Group noted that other services were provided externally, such as payroll (via Blackpool Council), management of the Leisure Centre (via CLS) and the Golf Course (Glendale).

Chorley had been well ahead of the game with using technology to make efficiency savings and work smarter, this had reduced the number of support services staff required. 

The process of integrating services into the Contact Centre results in efficiency savings that can be claimed and quantified.  In light of the Varney Report which sets our a requirement for a 25% reduction in the cost of contact centres in council’s by 2011, this is an issue which we need to begin tackling now.

Procurement was another area where substantial savings had been made both through corporately facilitated contracts and major service procurements such as the Contact Centre. The key reason for this success was the establishment of a corporate procurement team charged with implementation of the National Procurement Strategy and the council’s Procurement Strategy which will be presented to a future meeting of the Group. Additionally substantial efficiency gains have been made through implementation of the new Financial system which made the procure to pay system electronic enabling the reduction of staff numbers engaged in the manual processing of orders and invoices.

Members queried what the budget was for procurement. Officers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Sub-Group are asked to consider the enclosed draft Scoping document, project plan, information checklist and witness checklist.  

The Sub-Group considered the Inquiry documentation and updated the scooping document and witness checklist.  

The Sub-Group will agree the dates for the future meetings.  

The proposed future dates of the Sub-Group were agreed as

·                    Wed 26 Sept at 6.30

·                    Mon 22 Oct at 2.00

·                    Wed 28 Nov at 6.30

·                    Wed 12 Dec at 6.30

·                    Wed 30 Jan at 6.30

·                    Wed 27 Feb at 6.30