Venue: Committee Room 5, Guildhall, Swansea. View directions
Contact: Scrutiny 637732
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Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests Minutes: None |
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Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: None |
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Additional documents:
Minutes: Agreed |
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Public Questions · Questions must relate to matters on the open part of the Agenda of the meeting, and will be dealt with within a 10 minute period Minutes: None |
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Review of Revenue Reserves PDF 809 KB ·
Jeff Dong –
Deputy Chief Finance and Deputy 151 Officer Additional documents: Minutes: The panel thanked the Deputy Chief Finance and Deputy 151 Officer for attending the meeting to present the report and answer questions. · The review and management of reserves (as outlined in the appendix to the report LAAP Bulletin 99) is a key tool to maintaining financial resilience. · The report shows the position as at 31 March 2019. · It is the responsibility of the Chief Financial Officers to advise Local Authorities about the level of reserves that should be held and to ensure that there are clear protocols to the establishment and use. Reserves should not be held without a clear purpose. · It is the duty of the Chief Finance Officer to regularly review the position regarding the available reserves held. · Reason for reserves is to act as a ‘buffer’ to spend. The Local Authority has many cost pressures and some of these are from unexpected quarters. · Insurance reserve – risks to Council broad and wide and liability is great. The Council largely self-insures unless it is over the councils excess and then the insurers step in. · A table of usable reserves showing a total £107,943m, it was explained that these are used to support expenditure. The panel felt that the wording around this could be confusing to the public and could be explained better but did understand that these are the formal wording for such financial aspects. Some other terms like sinking funds were used in the report, that for the public, could be better explained. · The panel heard that in addition the council holds a net £135,137m that are unusable which are arising purely from accounting technicalities. These cannot be used to support capital or revenue expenditure. · The Panel heard that all revenue reserves are actively managed in order to get the best returns but in line with the principles of security, liquidity, yield and return.
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Recycling and Landfill - Annual Performance Monitoring 2018/19 PDF 231 KB ·
Chris Howell – Head of Waste Management and
Parks ·
Cllr Mark Thomas – Cabinet Member for
Environment and Infrastructure Management Minutes: The Panel thanked the Cabinet Member and the Waste Services Manager for for presenting the report and answering their questions. ·
The Panel were pleased to hear that Swansea
Council was well on target to achieving the 64% recycling measure. This was
important because the council will not incur substantial fines if breached but also meaning less waste overall going to
landfill. ·
They heard that increase in recycling figure is
partly due to the ‘keep it out campaign’ where a stronger approach to enforcing
what is put out at the kerbside had been progressed. 90,000 properties
have had black bags checked and in this process, only two have required fixed
penalty notices. ·
One of the key reasons that we need plastic
collected to be ‘cleaner’ is we can get much better financial returns on
already sorted plastic waste. ·
It was heard how critical it is to change and
how it is the right thing to do. We much
improve our rates continuously, as the target for recycling in 2024/25 is 70%. ·
Next steps include looking for at ways of
working collaboratively with other councils to dispose of waste. We will have space in the Tir
John landfill site until 2022 when we need to move to a different option. The collaborative partnership with Bridgend
around food waste was discussed. ·
The panel asked why it takes so long to develop
collaborative options and did recognise the complexity of these options. Successful collaboration with Bridgend around
food waste but was a long a complex process before it came to fruition. ·
Council will move away from landfill
as Tir John will be filled by 2022. Options for the best way forward are being
looked at all. It was
recognised that the South West region needs a waste energy strategy,
with possibly a waste to energy plant and Welsh Government recognise this. We will need an answer for here in Swansea,
about what we are going to do after 2022, within the next 12 months. The
council is working on this. ·
Continuing to push with plastics segregation at
doorstep, so the public understand what is/isn’t recyclable. ·
Welsh Government is introducing waste targets
for private waste disposal contractors, which will put us all on a more even
playing field so may be able to compete better. ·
Panel congratulated team for work they are doing
in student areas to increase compliance. ·
Flats and ensuring sufficient space and facilities
to recycle was raised, it was recognised that this is
complex because every block is different and require different solutions. We are looking at individually to find
bespoke solutions but is time consuming.
Panel pleased to hear about this good work. · Panel would like to see a breakdown in cost of what we get for different recyclables. We recognise this will only be a snapshot in time as the markets vary massively. |
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Q1 2018/19 Performance Monitoring Report PDF 209 KB ·
Richard Rowlands – Corporate Performance Manager · Cllr Clive Lloyd – Cabinet Member for Business Transformation and Performance Additional documents: Minutes: The Councils Corporate Performance Manager attending the meeting to discuss the quarter 1, performance monitoring report. He said the overall picture was the majority of indicators have met the targets in Quarter 1. With 56 improved or staying the same compared to last year’s 67. Some of the individual indicators highlighted include: ·
AS13a – Number of carers (18+) who received a
carer’s assessment in their own right.
This has declined by 18.8% from this time last year. The panel were informed that assessments have
been offered but it is the carers right to decline. However, they are trying to
encourage carers to improve uptake. ·
Measure 19 - Delayed transfers of care - shows that there has been a
significant increase in the number of DTOCs when comparing with the same period
last year (nearly a 68% increase), which the comment attributes to a lack of
provider availability that should improve with the recommissioning work going
on, along with the regional work being done on hospital to home. ·
CFS2 – Number of Looked After Children at the
end of the period. This is declining
meaning more children in care up by 7% (36 children) on this time last year. However, the rate
of LAC as measured by CFS18 is showing improvement – it shows a second
consecutive fall in the rate of children becoming LAC. Numbers of children in
need and children on the CPR have fallen compared to the same period last year. ·
SAFE27 – Total number of staff who have
completed the corporate mandatory safeguarding awareness training. This fell short of the target, although it is
unclear if this is to do with non-compliance or ever diminishing returns as
more staff get trained. Work is
currently underway to reinforce the importance of completing this training. ·
SAFE28 – Percentage of Elected Members who have
received training in safeguarding vulnerable people. The panel where pleased to see this figure
was 100%. ·
POV07 -
training and employment weeks created by BBM. The target was missed and
there is nearly a 53% drop in performance compared to Q1 last year. The panel
heard about delays starting projects, which has affected the number of training
and employment weeks available. ·
EDU015b – Percentage of final statements of SEN
issued within 26 weeks. The panel heard
this has not met target but that only equates to only one statement. ·
POV6 – Average number of days all homeless
families with children spend in Bed and Breakfast. The panel heard that this is volatile
indicator than can have occasional spikes. ·
POV10 and POV11 – Swansea Working employment
gained and qualifications achieved - targets were missed and results were the
lowest achieved since results started being recorded at the beginning of last
year. The Panel heard about low engagement numbers and other factors affecting
performance due to the newness of the programme; this is expected to improve as
the programme matures. ·
HBCT01a and HBCT02a - the time taken to process
both Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit new claims has increased compared
to the same period last year. The panel will told that the report states that
it is expected that performance will improve as the year progresses. ·
EC2 – Percentage of all major applications
within an economic imperative that are approved. The panel heard that this target would have
been met but for two approvals refused due to policy. ·
CHR002 – Number of working days/shifts per full
time employee equivalent lost due to sickness absence. This figure high this quarter and highlighted
as Red on the RAG status. The panel
noted that the management of absence policy is being reviewed. Specific targets are to be included in
Directorate objectives and specific support provided to high absence sections. ·
FINA6 - Percentage of identified forecast
General Fund Revenue savings and income for the year compared to originally
approved budget – the panel were pointed to the comment, which reflects the
ongoing risks to balancing the budget.. |
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Minutes: The work plan was noted. The Panel were reminded by the Convener of the invitation for Panel members to attend the Development and Regeneration Scrutiny Panel on the 18 November 2019 where they will be looking at the FPR7 report. |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Delivery & Performance PDF 329 KB |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Environment & Infrastructure Management PDF 312 KB |