To elect a new Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Panel.

Mark Beeley, Democratic Services Officer, explained that the Panel needed to elect a Chairman and Vice Chairman for the municipal year 2022/23.

Councillor Story proposed that Councillor Clark was Chairman of the Panel. This was seconded by Councillor Sharpe.

Councillor Werner proposed that Councillor Price was Chairman of the Panel. This was seconded by Councillor Bond.

As two nominations were received, a named vote was taken.

RESOLVED: That Councillor Clark was elected Chairman of the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Panel for the 2022/23 municipal year.

The Panel then elected a Vice Chairman for the municipal year.

Councillor Price proposed that Councillor L Jones was Vice Chairman of the Panel. This was seconded by Councillor Werner.

Councillor Clark proposed that Councillor Story was Vice Chairman of the Panel. This was seconded by Councillor Sharpe.

As two nominations were received, a named vote was taken.

The motion fell.

RESOLVED: That Councillor Story was elected as Vice Chairman of the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Panel for the 2022/23 municipal year.

To receive any apologies for absence.

An apology for absence was received from Councillor L Jones. Councillor Hill was attending the meeting as substitute.

Councillor Price asked the Chairman how the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Panel would be conducted in relation to the updated constitution. She felt that scrutiny was failing and said that things needed to be changed.

The Chairman said that there was a remit that the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Panel could consider, all corners of the council wanted to have a working scrutiny function. The work programme linked with the Cabinet Forward Plan, he invited Councillor Price to inform him how the Panel could be improved.

Councillor Price said that her experience had been with the previous Communities Overview & Scrutiny Panel. She suggested that there was an agenda item at each meeting which considered what had gone well and what could be improved as the Panel considered how it had performed.

The Chairman said that the business of the Panel was what needed to be held publicly. A discussion amongst Members on how the Panel was conducted could take place outside of the meeting.

Councillor Hill felt the issue was that the Conservative group was scrutinising itself, with each Panel chaired by Conservative Members. This was a failure of scrutiny, he commented that the election of the Chairman and Vice Chairman at the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel the previous evening had been a disgrace.

The Chairman said that Councillor Hill was able to bring items to scrutiny, make comments and ask questions of officers and Cabinet Members. Any comments about the conduction of business could be taken offline and discussed with the Chairman and officers.

Councillor Sharpe said that there were opportunities for discussion and a consideration of views at scrutiny, he did not agree with the comments made by Councillor Hill.

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest received.

To note the minutes of the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 4^th April 2022.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 4^th April 2022 were noted and approved as a true and accurate record.

Councillor Price noted a comment made by the Chairman at the last meeting, that the Communities Overview & Scrutiny Panel was the best place for the waste contract to be considered and scrutinised. During her time on the Panel, they had been unable to look at contractual or financial issues and therefore the item had not been dealt with by the Panel. Councillor Price did not want this to become lost between two Panels.

The Chairman felt that there were two elements of the waste contract, the financial side and the delivery side, which could include value for money. He would need to take advice on how the waste contract should be taken forward, this would be noted as an action and dealt with outside of the meeting.

ACTION – The Chairman to investigate what the best way to scrutinise the waste contract was after the meeting.

Councillor Sharpe suggested dealing with the issue as part of the work programme.

To consider the update.

Councillor Hilton, Cabinet Member for Asset Management & Commercialisation, Finance and Ascot, said that there had previously been discussion at scrutiny about the role that Cabinet Members played. It was important for the Panel to hear from officers and ask questions of the experts, Cabinet Members were there to answer any questions if required.

Councillor Werner thanked Councillor Hilton for his comments.

Andrew Vallance, Head of Finance, reported that the council had an underspend of £2.35 million. As a result, the general reserves had been increased to £8.75 million, which was above the minimum level required. The final outturn on the schools budget was an overspend of £257,000, the final capital outturn was expenditure of £26 million with slippage of £42 million. There was movement of £2 million from the month 10 monitoring report, the reasons for this had been outlined in the report.

Julian McGowan, Senior Finance Business Partner, talked through the revenue budget outturn. For each service area:

·         The Chief Executive service area had underspent by £1.6 million.

·         Law and Governance had underspent by £700,000.

·         Children’s Services had overspent by £200,000.

·         Adults, Health and Housing had underspent by £139,000.

·         Resources had underspent by £743,000.

·         Place had overspent by £662,000.

A member of the public, Mr Andrew Hill, addressed the Panel. The report showed a pleasing underspend and Mr Hill thanked all Members for limiting their special responsibility allowances in the public interest. He had noted that remote meetings and remote working were saving the council large sums of money, for example over £100,000 had been saved from printing and stationary costs, while the use of Zoom meetings had saved £55,000 on petrol claims. Mr Hill asked officers if they thought that there needed to be an even bigger push towards entrenching and expanding home and remote working in RBWM. Mr Hill continued by commenting on the £487,000 underspend on libraries and resident services. He asked if there were plans to use this underspend to reverse the decision to reduce library opening hours.

Mr Hill asked a number of further questions:

·         There had been a transfer into the reserves of £140,000 for art funding, did this represent potentially new money which could be available to organisations like Norden Farm?

·         The Vicus Way car park was mentioned and had some new cladding, was this scheme projected to come in on the original budget that had been set for the project?

·         Was the delay mentioned in 15.3 in the report due to the contractual termination date of 2025 for Maidenhead Golf Club?

·         It was noted that there was an adverse variance of £500,000 on the train station forecourt. Who covered this cost, was it the Local Enterprise Partnership or the residents and RBWM, and what had caused this loss?

·         Why was the council paying for 106 Westborough Road when it had been transferred to the RBWM Property Company?

Andrew Vallance said that the council was in an established position of hybrid working. The Town Hall office space was available for staff to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To consider the report.

Andrew Vallance said that this was the first look at the budget process for next year. The strategy and the plan would be considered by Cabinet in July, before it came back to the Panel at its next meeting a few days later. The report would then go to Full Council in September for approval. The strategy was a high level look at long term savings, with the main aim this year being to align the strategy with the areas set out in the Corporate Plan. Health and wellbeing and the climate were not included as they were difficult areas to achieve savings, but all other areas were included. The Medium Term Financial Plan would look to identify any gaps and there was a starting point of £4.8 million deficit which was identified as part of the budget process from February. Officers would be testing all of the assumptions that had been made as part of the plan, with particular emphasis on inflation, interest rates, pay and government funding. The report would feed into the budget process and would help to identify the savings gap. This savings gap would then be filled as part of the draft budget at the end of the year.

There was one registered public speaker on this item, Mr Andrew Hill. He had noted in the report that ‘RBWM had moved up the financial risk curve’, the council was not a commercial company and he asked what officers had meant by this. Considering the current financial position of RBWM, Mr Hill questioned whether this was the time for the council to be ‘moving up the financial risk curve’. He felt that there should be policies in place to ensure that the council moved down the curve to avoid bankruptcy. On the Property Company, Mr Hill said that the business plan had been discussed entirely in Part II which meant that members of the public were unable to view the report or see what had been discussed. Officers had been unable to answer his earlier question on the train station forecourt loss of £500,000, he felt that officers and the Cabinet Member should be aware of this sum. Mr Hill continued by asking what the inflation assumptions were for the report, he asked if the £15 million over five years saving figure took into account inflation at or above 10%, or would the council need to make in excess of £15 million of savings. Mr Hill concluded by asking if officers were planning for that eventuality.

Andrew Vallance said that the comments on the financial risk curve was an acknowledgement that the council was undertaking more commercial activities and was therefore more reliant on income generation, this was the same for most other councils. On the train station forecourt, there was one capital accountant at the council, she had been on leave and therefore an answer could not be provided at the meeting. The budget for this year had been made on an assumed inflation figure  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To consider the Panel’s work programme for upcoming municipal year.

To include consideration of items scheduled on the Cabinet Forward Plan.

Councillor Werner said that there had been discussion at a previous meeting about having the transformation programme on the work programme, the report could consider the progress of the transformation programme and to check that things were on track.

Councillor Bond commented on the peer review which had been undertaken by the council a couple of months ago. Specific recommendations had been made as part of the review and an action plan had been developed by officers, with some strategic aims identified.

Emma Duncan said that the corporate peer review team would visit the council again virtually to follow up in October 2022, the Panel currently had an item based on the corporate peer review for the October meeting. The action plan and any further recommendations could be considered at this meeting.

Councillor Davies questioned which of the three scrutiny panels the climate and environment strategy could be considered by.

Emma Duncan said that a number of the key performance indicators from the strategy would be included as part of the performance management reports. The Panel would have oversight of how the strategy had been implemented and progress that had been made. The Panel could do a deep dive and refer pieces of work to the other Panels, for example the climate strategy could be considered in further detail by the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel.

Councillor Werner said that he was happy with this approach.

Councillor Price was cautious about duplicating workloads, she suggested that the Chairman of the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny discussed the topic with the Chairman of the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel, particularly as the remits of the various scrutiny panels had been altered.

Councillor Sharpe said that climate change and sustainability was part of every area of the council. Task and finish groups could be used, this could be an appropriate method to consider any deep dives that the Panel wanted to investigate. Councillor Sharpe suggested that a joint task and finish group could be established with the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel, which could also be an option to spread the workload.

Councillor Shelim was also a Member of the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel and said that climate change formed part of the Panel’s work programme.

Councillor Werner said that the Corporate Plan was primarily the responsibility of the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Panel and the climate strategy had more targets in the plan than any other area.

Mark Beeley said that there had been a suggestion made by Councillor Price in advance of the meeting about equality, diversity and inclusion in the council and community. This had been discussed with officers and could be discussed by the Panel to see if it was something that they would like to add to the work programme.

Councillor Price added that it was critical for Members to have an understanding of the work that was taking place in this area. She wanted to investigate how the Panel could support officers with this work.

Ellen McManus-Fry, Equalities Officer, gave a presentation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.