Agenda item

To receive questions submitted under Procedure Rule 9.2 (if any).

The Leader responded to three questions submitted in accordance with Procedure Rule 9.2 from Councillors Tom Baker-Price, Jane Potter and Paul Swansborough.  One further question, which had been submitted for consideration by Councillor Juliet Brunner, was withdrawn in her absence and Members were advised that this would be re-submitted for consideration at the following meeting of the Council.

 

a)        Council Expenditure on Consultants

 

Councillor Tom Baker-Price asked the following question:

 

Would the Leader of the Council inform Council how much money has been spent on consultants since May 2012 in

i)       planning

ii)      leisure

iii)     transformation / systems thinking/Vanguard

iv)     revenues and benefits

v)      finance

vi)     community centres

 

The Leader replied as follows:

 

Thank you for your question.  I can confirm that the costs I am presenting are within budget and only relate to pure consultancy costs as opposed to use of temporary resources to cover staff vacancies which should be identified as interim rather than consultants.

 

i)          Planning

 

Nothing

 

ii)         Leisure

 

£4,202 (shared but mainly for the Leisure Appraisal for Redditch Borough Council).

 

iii)       Transformation / Systems Thinking / Vanguard

 

£209,362 for Redditch Borough Council only.

 

The Council has been working towards transforming services by considering customer need and systemically changing the way we work for the last four years (and for years before that).  During that time we have developed “locality working” for a number of our teams including Housing, Benefits, Environmental Services and more recently bringing together a number of different stakeholders within the Connecting Families team to deliver support to our residents.  We have required some external support over those years to ensure we develop radical solutions to fix problems in our Borough.

 

Whilst there has been a cost associated with this of £209,000 we have made significant savings of £800,000 over the last two years and have made other changes to our services (for example Benefits Officers working in locality offices) which may not have made savings but have improved access and quality of service to the most vulnerable members of our communities.  This will equate to £1.6 million over the four year planning period excluding any other savings that may be realised from future transformational work.

 

iv)       Revenues and Benefits

 

£29,883 (partly single system costs).

 

This relates to the project management of the unified revenues and benefits system.  Savings will be realised well in excess of this as a result of reduced waste and improved services to the public.  The costs are contained within the reserves and not against revenue budgets.  No bid for new money has been required.

 

v)         Finance

 

£37,000 shared across both Redditch Borough Council and Bromsgrove District Council with the charge to Redditch being £18,000.

 

This spend relates to the use of specialist risk and system advisors to improve Risk Governance arrangements and to enable automated use of the ledger system.  The savings with the financial service review in 2013 offset all associated costs.

 

      vi) Community centres

     

£0

 

A supplementary question was subsequently raised by Councillor Baker-Price asking the Leader whether there had been a change in policy since 2012 when Council had been informed that budget consultants would no longer be required.

 

The Leader responded by explaining that there had been no change in policy as expenditure on the consultants detailed in his answer had been built into the budget.

 

b)        Consultant’s Work – Leisure Services

 

Councillor Jane Potter asked the following question:

 

With a particular focus on Leisure, will the Leader inform this Council of the cost of the consultant's work in preparing a report on options for Leisure?

 

The Leader replied as follows:

 

The cost of £4,202, as detailed in answer to Councillor Baker-Price’s question, relates to the previous production of an independent high level overview of the options that could be available to Council, and the potential savings that could be achieved if one of these options was progressed.

 

A supplementary question was subsequently raised by Councillor Potter who asked the Leader whether the Council would be arranging for a trust to manage Leisure Services in order to achieve financial savings and an increase in participation in leisure activities.

 

The Leader responded by explaining that, in line with a recommendation from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Officers were in the process of investigating all options in detail.  The Executive Committee would wait for these investigations to be completed and would consider the data arising from this process before making any decisions on this subject.

 

c)         West Midlands Combined Authority

 

Councillor Paul Swansborough asked the following question:

 

In view of the fact that Greater Manchester Combined Authority (WMCA) has to date borrowed a total of £1billion alone from the European Investment Bank to secure match funding from HM Treasury and private investors, can the Leader confirm how the West Midlands Combined Authority intends to raise its capital and revenue funding post Brexit and whether the cost of non-constituent membership will increase due to the loss of support from the European Union?

The Leader responded as follows:

 

Thank you for your question.  I have contacted the WMCA and have been advised as follows:

 

WMCA is developing a major programme of investment across the West Midlands region.  This is expected to include funding from a wide range of courses, which includes prudential borrowing by WMCA and some of its member authorities; major government capital grants (for transportation and HS2 growth strategy, for example); and investment by the private sector and by our public sector partners.  WMCA will seek to source its borrowing from the lenders who provide the best value.  The PWLB is available to fund all WMCA’s borrowing proposals whether before or after Brexit, but the European Investment Bank (EIB) is currently a cheaper source of borrowing for eligible projects.

 

WMCA treasury officers are in discussion with the EIB about a potential loan for projects which are sufficiently advanced, for the EIB’s consideration.  Match funding for any EIB loan would come from the other sources of finance outlined above.

 

At this stage we are not certain as to whether Brexit will affect the progress of these discussions.  Reports will be brought to the WMCA Board once officers are in a position to make recommendations.

 

The cost of non-constituent membership is not directly linked to the Investment Plan and therefore not linked to the funding of the programme; however, WMCA Officers are preparing papers around the possible budget for 2017/18 for discussion at forthcoming WMCA meetings.

 

A supplementary question was subsequently raised by Councillor Swansborough who asked the Leader whether in the current challenging financial circumstances facing local government, including Redditch Borough Council, the local authority remained committed to being a non-constituent member of the WMCA.

 

The Leader responded by confirming that the Council remained committed to membership of the WMCA.