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AGREED – That the work programme be agreed subject to the aforementioned amendments.
AGREED – That the Committee: i. Thank Officers for all the hard work in mitigating the budget savings and reporting on the impacts; and ii. Request a further report be submitted to the Committee in October 2024 to include exception reporting on mitigations in the Equality Impact Assessments.
AGREED:- That the committee i. Thank the Lead Member and Officers for the report; and ii. Request that the budget pressures in School Transport and Social Care be referred to the Lifelong Learning and Safeguarding, Communities & Well-being Scrutiny Committees respectively.
AGREED - That the Committee request that the Lead Member and Officers investigate a way for the Committee to discuss the next Change Programme report prior to the Executive Board.
AGREED – That the Committee: i. Thank Officers for the report; and Request that union representatives be invited to attend for the next Workforce Monitoring Report.
Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Bryan Apsley, Claire Lovett and Alison Tynan.
AGREED – To sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 21 March 2024.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED – That the work programme be agreed subject to the aforementioned amendments.
The Chief Officer Governance and Customer submitted a report (COGC/32/24s) asking Members to consider the Committee’s Work Programme. The Scrutiny Facilitator introduced the report and drew Members’ attention to the Work Programme as attached at Appendix 1. The following proposed changes were agreed: · Impact of Budget Mitigation Measures 2023/24 – further report scheduled for October 2024. · Quarter 4 Performance Report – deferred from July to September 2024 to enable the report to be considered at Senior Leadership Team in July. · Revenue Budget Monitoring – Q1 and Q3 Revenue Budget Monitoring Reports (which are submitted to Executive Board) - to be considered each year in July and February. · Change Programme – Pre-decision scrutiny of next report to Executive Board in October 2024. · Customer Service Review – Phase 2 – Deferred to January 2025. AGREED – That the work programme be agreed subject to the aforementioned amendments.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED – That the Committee: i. Thank Officers for all the hard work in mitigating the budget savings and reporting on the impacts; and ii. Request a further report be submitted to the Committee in October 2024 to include exception reporting on mitigations in the Equality Impact Assessments.
The Lead Member Finance and Performance submitted a report COFI/29/24 which allowed Members to consider the impact of the budget mitigations applied in 2023/24 and to address the forecast in-year budget pressure on the Council Plan performance framework. In introducing his report the Lead Member thanked the Chief Finance and ICT Officer and his colleagues for the work they had carried out as detailed in the report. He also thanked all Lead Members and Councillors for their participation in the journey of budget mitigation to date. Thereafter, he responded to Members questions accordingly with input from the relevant officers. During the debate a number of issues were highlighted, including: · Recognition that many of the issues and trends noted in the report were not unique to Wrexham and were being experienced throughout the Country. · Concern around delays in the development of the Anti-Poverty Strategy and recruitment. · Officers advised that mitigation would result in changing aspirations and targets for the forthcoming year but these changes were not significant in term of the overall plan and wider financial context. · It was noted that reductions of particular external grant streams could have a greater impact going forward than some of the budget mitigation measures. However, corporate measures were taken throughout the year to ensure grant maximisation. · The need to consider the long term impact outside of the Council Plan and how these changes would affect the people of Wrexham and service users. · Suggestion that the measure to develop a trauma informed Children’s Social Care Department be fed into the work of the Change Programme. · A Member raised his concern in respect of non-urgent but important issues and requested that these were dealt with in a timely manner. · The need for consistency of approach across all departments. · The need to update Equality Impact Assessments on the mitigation measures. AGREED – That the Committee: i. Thank Officers for all the hard work in mitigating the budget savings and reporting on the impacts; and ii. Request a further report be submitted to the Committee in October 2024 to include exception reporting on mitigations in the Equality Impact Assessments.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED:- That the committee i. Thank the Lead Member and Officers for the report; and ii. Request that the budget pressures in School Transport and Social Care be referred to the Lifelong Learning and Safeguarding, Communities & Well-being Scrutiny Committees respectively.
The Lead Member Finance and Performance COFI/27/24 submitted a report which detailed the current budgetary position for the first quarter of the 2024/25 financial year, including the Housing Revenue Account (HRA). The Lead Member introduced his report and responded to Members questions accordingly thereafter with input from relevant Chief Officers. During the ensuing debate a number of issues were referred to, including: · Confirmation that the budget demands faced by Wrexham were not unique and were in large part a reflection of the national financial picture. · The revenue budget process was a demand led process and it was not possible to predict the future, particularly in respect of increasing demands in social care, education and school transport. · The need for consistent processes across each department. · The Chief Officer Finance and ICT explained the budget forecast process. He advised that part of the process involved consideration of activity from previous years to inform assumptions about future direction. There was also a need to manage risk in the community and consider likely trends. · It was not possible to be totally accurate when predicting budget revenue and adult and children’s services in particular could present challenging cases. · Clarification was provided that a significant proportion of the forecasted surplus in Senior Management & Support in Adult Social Care related to fairer charging income. All senior managers were now in place. · More detail was requested around the variances for the Quarter 3 Revenue Budget Update report. AGREED:- That the committee i. Thank the Lead Member and Officers for the report; and ii. Request that the budget pressures in School Transport and Social Care be referred to the Lifelong Learning and Safeguarding, Communities & Well-being Scrutiny Committees respectively.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED - That the Committee request that the Lead Member and Officers investigate a way for the Committee to discuss the next Change Programme report prior to the Executive Board.
The Lead Member for Finance and Performance submitted a report COFI/28/24 which allowed Members to consider the objectives and scope of the Council change programme to support service delivery and financial sustainability over the next two years. The Chief Officer Finance and ICT introduced the report on behalf of the Lead Member who had to leave the meeting at this point. He advised the Medium Term Financial Plan forecasted a budget gap of £28m over the next two years. During the debate, the following issues were highlighted in particular: · An external partner had been commissioned to support and challenge the process which was being led by the Chief Executive and the Section 151 Officer. · The sustainable delivery model could be viewed in a number of different ways and officers sought to provide an explanation. · A number of staff workshops had already taken place as part of the engagement journey and open lines of communication were critical to the process. · Following a Member request Officers provided an explanation of the Change Model and the Service Transformation theme. · It was noted that hundreds of ideas had been gathered to date and some of these may progress into proposals. · An initial grouping of ideas under different services had been put together and this would be shared imminently with relevant stakeholders and departments. · Part of the initial consideration process involved filtering out those proposals which were, for a number of different reasons, not deemed viable for implementation e.g. legal implications. · As the process progressed ideas would be developed into individual business cases and these would require the completion of an accompanying impact assessment. · A Member advised that as elected Members, Councillors had a responsibility to be involved in the change programme process and to understand how these potential changes would affect services in the future. In response to Member request, Chief Officer Finance & ICT agreed to include All Member Workshops, Scrutiny and Council in the timetable for consideration of proposals. AGREED - That the Committee request that the Lead Member and Officers investigate a way for the Committee to discuss the next Change Programme report prior to the Executive Board.
Y penderfyniad fel y'i cofnodwyd
AGREED – That the Committee: i. Thank Officers for the report; and Request that union representatives be invited to attend for the next Workforce Monitoring Report.
The Lead Member Corporate Service submitted a report COGC/75/24 which provided Members with the annual Workforce Monitoring Information Report for the period of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The report also provided the agreed new baseline figures effective 1 April 2022 for performance monitoring post pandemic. The Lead Member introduced her report and responded to Members questions accordingly thereafter with input from the Interim Head of Service Human Resources. She advised that the authority’s sickness absence rate of 12.7 days lost per employee in 2022/23 placed the authority mid-range performance and just below the Wales average of 12.7. The Chief Officer Economy and Planning and Chief Officer Social Care were also present to provide further detail around workforce monitoring in their respective departments and to respond to Member questions. During the debate, a number of issues were referred to, including: · Acknowledgment of the further work that needed to be carried out around the various data sets as set out in the report. It was suggested that a 12 month period was required in order to complete this. Consideration could then be given to the most appropriate way of presenting the data to Members from the new reporting system. · The ‘Grow our Own’ scheme was progressing and was having a positive impact on the workforce. · It was important to acknowledge that not all individuals were suited to the academic environment and trainee apprenticeships were important in terms of allowing individuals to develop and use their practical skills within the work force. · The PRDS system was currently subject to inaccurate reporting figures due to record duplication. This occurred when an employee changed jobs and records remained unclosed. It was noted that new starters and employees on long term sick leave were also unable to complete the PRD. · The need to present more accurate information around the percentage of staff who had completed all of mandatory e-learning modules. · Technical issues had been experienced during the on line employee survey. Some early data had been extracted and would be examined although it would not be as comprehensive due to lower participation (700 employees compared to 1000 previously). Officers advised that the survey may be re-opened later in the year. · Officers responded to questions around the number of occupational health referrals. Workshops had taken place around areas where there was a high level of referrals and this was helping officers to understand some of the issues around absence. It was felt that Managers should be able to ask employees open questions around health before the occupational health referral was made. · The Chief Officer Economy and Planning and Chief Officer Social Care gave detailed accounts of the difficulties they faced in terms of both vacancy management and sickness and absence within their respective departments and the mitigation processes that they had in place. · Although staff exit interviews were not mandatory, work was being undertaken to improve understanding of reasons for staff leaving, eg possible introduction of an online system with a QR code. · Members requested further information on the breakdown of corporate apprentices by Department for September 2023 and 2024. AGREED – That the Committee: i. Thank Officers for the report; and Request that union representatives be invited to attend for the next Workforce Monitoring Report.
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