Agenda item

Report by the Chief Executive.

9.1       The Chief Executive introduced the report and outlined that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) has a robust business planning process. There has been a change in approach to finding the savings required this year by setting out a Core Offer of services that the Council will provide, as outlined in the State of the County report. Work is taking place to look at what those services are, together with costings of the minimum service. More detailed information on the Core Offer will be presented to the Committee later in the year.

9.2       The Chief Executive emphasised that ESCC is in a very different position from Northamptonshire County Council, whose financial position has been linked to that of ESCC in recent media reports. This occurred because Northamptonshire County Council thought ESCC’s budget setting approach was coherent and adopted ESCC’s approach. The situation has had the effect of raising ESCC’s profile with central Government, and the Council has taken the opportunity to make the case to Government that more funding is needed for East Sussex.

9.3 The Committee discussed the content of the report and the appendices. The Committee made the following comments on the report and RPPR process.

Core Offer

9.4       The Committee noted the information provided in the Portfolio Plans, the Council Monitoring reports and the State of the County report. However, the Committee considered that it was difficult to know what is going to be different without further detail on what services are to be included in the Core Offer and what was not going to be included. The Committee asked if it would be possible to have this further detail by the next meeting in November.

9.5       The Chief Executive responded that the work on the Core Offer had already looked at all the statutory services that the Council provides and is currently considering the preventative work the Council should continue to provide, which is more difficult to define. This is a bigger and more challenging task than the Council has undertaken previously, and therefore it is taking longer to detail the savings proposals. This work needs to be completed before it will be possible to provide further information to answer the Committee’s questions. The Chief Executive outlined that the Committee will have the opportunity to have a proper discussion of the savings proposals and comment on them.

Information required by Scrutiny

9.6       The Committee commented that the focus of the RPPR discussion should be on the sort of cuts that the Council might have to make in the future. Where the Committee can add value is by looking at the impacts and analysing the implications of the services it is proposed to provide as part of the Core Offer. It is difficult to start this process without more detailed information.  Also, it would have been helpful to have the current year savings figures as a starting point, to enable the Committee to develop lines of questioning.

9.7       The Chief Executive responded that the information in the report is a reminder of the base the Council is starting from and would welcome any guidance on what additional information the Committee would like to see. It would be helpful if the Scrutiny Committee could highlight any areas that it thinks should be considered for savings, and any feedback would be welcomed if the Committee has concerns about the services described in the Core Offer.

Current financial year

9.8       The Committee asked how the Council was performing against the current savings plan. The Chief Executive outlined that the Quarter 1 Council Monitoring report (covering April, May and June 2018) will have the full impact of the savings plan in the report going to the September Cabinet meeting. The current prediction for the year end is that the revenue budget will come in on budget, with the exception of Children’s Services which may be slightly over budget. Overall the planned savings are being delivered, and where appropriate only part year savings figures have been included in the budget.

Portfolios

9.9       The Committee commented that it did not have much experience of Orbis (Business Services) and Governance Services, as none of the Committee members had previously been on the Audit, Best Value and Community Services Scrutiny. Consequently, it was more difficult for the current Committee to identify the information it needed and to develop lines of enquiry for these corporate services.

9.10     The Chief Executive outlined that a briefing had been arranged for the Committee on Tuesday 16 October to cover the services provided by Orbis and Governance Services. This will cover the services areas that the Committee wishes to understand better. However, some services such as the Coroner’s Office are areas where ESCC pays for the service but does not have much control over the costs.

RPPR Process

9.11     The Chair outlined that the report was not as helpful as could have been. It places the Committee at a disadvantage, as it needs to know the budget possibilities and what might be done at a much earlier stage. The Chair was not sure that the Committee is able to participate early enough in the process to be helpful.

9.12     The Chief Executive outlined that the Council has a very strong record in identifying the cuts and savings that have the least worse impact on services and residents. The way the RPPR process works overall means that as an authority the Council it is very good at delivering value for money. The Chief Executive acknowledged the tension that Members have in needing sufficient knowledge of what is a very big business operation, and being given more information than would be useful. It would be helpful if the Committee could describe what detailed information it wants, in order to make the best use of the Committee’s time.

Performance Measures

9.13     The Committee discussed the performance measures relating to the percentage of residents satisfied or very satisfied with the way the County Council runs local services, and the percentage of residents informed or very informed about County Council services and benefits (on page 75 of the report). Councillor Godfrey Daniel questioned whether it makes sense to continue to ask these questions in the light of reductions in Council spending, and stated that he does not believe the satisfaction levels are realistic. Residents frequently talk about their dissatisfaction with services such as potholes, grass cutting etc. and consequently the residents’ survey results appear to be counter intuitive.

9.14     The Chief Executive responded that the performance figures are based on the results of a statistically balanced survey. This is one measure of satisfaction with the Council’s services and the Assistant Director Communities is leading on the Customer Experience project that is examining other measures of customer satisfaction.  The Head of Communications added that the residents’ survey is a telephone survey carried out twice a year (but will reduce to once a year in future) by an external professional company, which uses a sample of 1000 people weighted to reflect the population of East Sussex. So the results are statistically representative and reliable.

9.15     The Assistant Director Communities explained that the Customer Experience project is trying to get a whole range of feedback from customers when they are engaging with the Council. During the phase one pilot of the feedback, a total of 3,970 individual pieces of feedback were received. The feedback showed that 63% of customers thought the service was either ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ and the remaining 37% of customers felt that the service was either ‘ok’ (10%) or ‘poor’ (27%).  The Committee asked if the feedback has helped the Council improve Services. The Assistant Director responded that it had, and in particular it has helped to improve web based services. Further details can be found in the report to the Governance Committee on the 18 September 2018.

9.16     The Committee RESOLVED to:

1) note the recommendations of the report;

2) request further, more detailed information on the Core Offer at the November Place Scrutiny Committee meeting; and

3) request that the current financial year savings plans be provided to the Committee.

 (Post meeting note: An RPPR Board comprised of the whole Committee will meet on Monday 17 December 2018 at 2.00pm).