Agenda item

Report by the Chief Executive.

5.1       The Chief Finance Officer introduced the report which is the start of the Committee’s work on the Reconciling Policy, Performance and Resources (RPPR) process and sets out how that Committee can contribute to the process. The report contains the State of the County report which provides an overview of the current operating environment for the Council. The Committee is invited to identify any areas of interest for inclusion in the work programme or further information for presentation at subsequent meetings. The Committee is also recommended to establish an RPPR Board which will submit comments on behalf of the Committee to Cabinet on the budget for 2024/25.

5.2       The Committee made a number of comments and asked questions based on the report which are summarised below.

5.3       Emergency Active Travel Fund – The Committee commented on the £0.6 million underspend in the capital programme and asked whether ‘shovel ready’ projects could be developed including those linked to Rights of Way, to ensure future funding is fully spent. The Director of Communities, Economy and Transport (CET) responded that the delivery of projects under the Emergency Active Travel Fund were challenging due to the funding conditions and very tight timescales. The funding is being used to support the safe routes to school project, which also supports Active Travel. In future it will be important to build consensus on planned projects in advance of funding becoming available.

Hastings Bexhill Movement Access Programme

5.4       The Committee noted the slippage on the delivery of this package of schemes with £1 million being spent. As such, cost inflation pressures present a risk to delivery and the Committee asked what could be done to speed up the delivery of the schemes. The Director of CET acknowledged that inflation risk is a challenge to project delivery. Schemes can take time to deliver as some are controversial and require consultation before they can be delivered. Delays have also been experienced in the design and feasibility stages. The new highways maintenance contractor, Balfour Beatty Living Partnerships, has a new designer for schemes who is reviewing the current projects to see if they can be speeded up. Also, reducing the number of projects would improve delivery. The challenge is having the revenue funding to develop projects and a pipeline of projects is slowly being built within existing capacity.

Home to School Transport

5.5       The Committee noted current overspend and planned investment in home to school transport and asked if more information could be provided about the nature of this expenditure. The Director of CET explained that the demand for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) home to school transport had increased expenditure. Work has been undertaken to optimise routes and share vehicles and chaperones where possible, but there are a number of individuals where it is not possible to share a vehicle due to their needs. The Chief Finance Officer clarified that £4 million out of the £8.9 million planned investment is for Home to School Transport. The Director of CET offered to provide more detail on the planned investment after the meeting.

Climate Emergency Works

5.6       The Committee asked about the re-profiling of the budget and the use of retentions. The Director of CET clarified that the retentions are the contractual payment of sums of money that are retained until the end of an agreed defects period for the projects, which then become due for payment at a later date.

School Decarbonisation Projects

5.7       The Committee asked when the council is likely to see the savings in energy use and carbon emissions from these projects. The Director of CET agreed to provide further information on the energy and carbon emission savings made by the heat decarbonisation and solar PV projects in schools.

Disposal of Key Assets

5.8       The Committee asked if the Property Team had enough resources to support this area of work. The Chief Operating Officer outlined that the work on asset disposal is challenging due to the limits on staff resources, especially recruiting qualified surveyors. The work in this area has been rigorously prioritized within the resources available, but it would be possible to do more if the team had more staff.

5.9       The Committee commented that it would like cover the following items as part of the RPPR work:

• How the Council’s property portfolio can help fund front line services and in particular maximising opportunities from County Hall to use it in a different way or dispose of it as it is used less intensively than before Covid. The Chief Operating Officer responded that County Hall is one of the assets that the Team is looking at, along with other assets, in order to declare assets as surplus and either dispose of them for a capital receipt or use them in alternative ways where utilisation levels are low. For example, staff were moved out of Ocean House in Hastings to offices in Cavendish House and Murial Matters House with a 39% smaller office space footprint.
• Road safety and Killed and Seriously Injured collisions (KSIs). Over the years the Council has worked hard to reduce the number of KSIs on the County’s roads, but they remain stubbornly high. The Committee, through the RPPR Board, should look at the safety measures the Council has brought in to identify those that have had the greatest reduction in KSIs for the money spent.
• Looking at the economic impact that changes to the transport network can bring to our communities in terms of economic development benefits.
• KPI’s on smoking and whether together with the People Scrutiny Committee, place setting can help reduce smoking e.g. the difference between Eastbourne and Hastings in the number of people smoking where twice as many people smoke in Hastings compared with Eastbourne.
• Air quality, in particular fine particulates such as the PM2.5, and the differences in air quality in different parts of the County to look at what the Council may be able to learn from those areas with lower levels of air pollution to reduce contaminate levels where they are high.
• Performance targets. The Committee noted that there are good examples of where the Council is exceeding targets and asked whether more ambitious, stretch targets could be set in some areas.
• Road safety. There appeared to be a reduction in the deliverability of road safety schemes and the Committee would like to explore how the Council could rectify this.
• There appeared to be a drop in employability between 16 and 17 year olds and it would be good to have more information on why there is a drop.
• Installation of solar PV in schools. Some Committee members commented that there are a number of solar energy co-operatives in East Sussex that could help with this. So rather than market testing, could the Council not simply proceed with installing solar PV in schools.
• Contact Centre solutions. The Committee asked for assurance that contact centres are not being out-sourced and that there will be alternative options for members of the community who are not online to contact the Council.

State of the County report.

5.10     The Committee commented that the housing affordability statistic might be mis-leading as East Sussex has a relatively elderly population who may own their own homes, and asked if there is a better ratio we could use (e.g. income and affordability for first time buyers might be more meaningful). The report also states that Lewes, Rother, and Wealden have net negative land use emissions. Could this be explained and clarified as to whether the balancing out of emissions is permanent of transitory. The report also mentions the use of coal and oil, but the Committee doubted whether coal is used very much in East Sussex. The Director of CET responded that he would pass on the comments to the data analysts who produce the report.

Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP)

5.11     It was clarified that the estimate of the budget deficit of around £40 million in 2025/26 has been updated to include another year in the MTFP (which covers the next three financial years). So the forecast deficit would rise to around £55.5 million in 2026/27, not taking into account the funding the Council may receive for Adult Social Care (ASC) which was a two year settlement. If ASC funding were to continue at the same level, then the forecast deficit would reduce by £28.2 million. The forecasts aim to set out the range of the possible deficit, without knowing in detail the future funding settlements. The forecast deficit is a continuing deficit unless funding levels change, or it is possible to achieve a balanced budget.

5.12     The Committee RESOLVED to:

1) Note the information within the 2022/23 end of year Council monitoring report and State of the County 2023 report relevant to the remit of the Committee;

2) Agreed the areas of interest for scrutiny as outlined in paragraph 5.9 above for consideration in the committee’s future work programme, future RPPR reports or meetings and at the Committee’s autumn away day; and

3) Establish a RPPR scrutiny board to consider the developing Portfolio Plans and financial plans and to submit scrutiny’s final comments on them to Cabinet in January 2024