To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 6 May 2020.

Decision

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the Executive meeting on 6 May 2020.

The Leader commented how the events in the USA had struck a chord with the people of Manchester. He reminded the meeting of the Council’s long history of opposing racial discrimination. He said that the Lord Mayor had written to the Mayor on Minneapolis and the Governor of Minnesota and that Wythenshawe Hall had been illuminated by purple lighting, to show that the city supported the campaign for equalities. However, he also stressed the risks involved during the COVID-19 pandemic for large groups of people to gather to protest in the city centre, and the risks such protests created for others in the city.

The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer is enclosed.

The Council’s revenue budget outturn for 2019/20 was presented. The Council had overspent the revised 2019/20 budget by £0.527m. That was a much improved position compared to the forecast of a £2.790m overspend which had been the position in the last of the 2019/20 Revenue Budget Monitoring Reports (Minute Exe/20/10). That was mainly due to an improved position in Children’s Services spending.

The overall outturn position had been:

The report explained that on 19 March 2020 the Government had announced a total of £1.6bn of new funding for local government to help it respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the services provided by councils. The council’s allocation of that total had been £18.589m. Of that, some £389k of expenditure had been incurred in 2019/20, covering:

·         £322k in ICT to enable staff to work from home;

·         £54k Facilities Management for additional cleaning equipment and materials; and

·         £13k Adults Social Care for personal protective equipment.

The remaining allocated of £18.2m was available in 2020/21. On 18 April 2020 the Government had announced a second allocation of £1.6bn to local authorities, with the council’s allocation being a further £15.167m.

The report explained the 2019/20 financial performance in each of the council’s directorates and main service delivery functions, showing how overall spending and income compared to budget, and whether planned-for savings had been achieved during the year. The most significant underspends and overspends were outlined in each case. The large overspending in Children’s and Adult’s Services had been mitigated by understands in the corporate budgets and Neighbourhood Services, as seen in Table 1 above.

The report also addressed some end of year adjustments to the budgets and reserves from 2019/20, including the announcements of some additional grant funding.

Budgets to be Allocated

In setting the 2019/20 budget in February 2019 it had been agreed that some budgets were to be held back for future allocation. These remaining uses of the unallocated funds from 2019/20 were therefore proposed and agreed:

·         £0.586m from contingency funds to offset the price increases on placements of fostered children;

·         £476k from budgets to be allocated and £81k from contingency funds to Homecare help reduce the demand for hospital beds; and

·         £91k from contingency for inflationary increases on the Street Lighting PFI.

Use of and Transfer to Reserves  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer is enclosed.

A report submitted by the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer outlined the COVID-19 funding that has been provided by Central Government and the current forecast of additional expenditure and loss of income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The additional funding that had so far been announced by the Government was:

The report described the intended and actual use of each of these sources of extra funding. The Government had said that the two allocations of Emergency Funding had been provided to support these areas and services.

·         To meet the increased demand for adult social care and to enable councils to provide additional support to social care providers. The Government expected that the majority of this funding would need to be spent on providing the Adult Social Care services required to respond to the Coronavirus crisis.

·         Care Commissioning Groups (CCG) were being separately funding for the additional costs of discharging and keeping people out of hospital, including social care costs - commissioned by the local authority unless existing local arrangements suggest otherwise. It was essential that ‘boundary issues’ did not cause delays so it was expected the some of the council’s funding would be used in a pooled budget with the local CCG.

·         To meet the cost of extra demand and higher business-as-usual costs of providing children’s social care, including as a result of school closures and the need for increased accommodation to provide for isolation, including for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

·         To provide additional support for the homeless and rough sleepers, including where self-isolation is needed.

·         To support those at higher risk who were asked to shield and self-isolate in their homes for the duration of the pandemic.

·         To meet pressures across other services arising from reduced income, rising costs or increased demand.

However, at the meeting the Executive Member explained that the estimated cost to the Council was £160m, so the two allocations of Emergency Funding announced would not cover all the council’s expected costs and loss of income.

The report also explained the assumptions made for distribution of the Council Tax Hardship funding: £6.144m had been allocated to provide for residents in receipt of working-age Local Council Tax Support in 2020/21 to receive a further discount of £150. The remaining £1.314m was being used to support other welfare priorities including lunch time meals for children, discretionary Council tax Support, emergency food provision, for a fund to support unpaid carers, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63.

The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer was to follow and is now enclosed.

The Council’s capital budget outturn for 2019/20 was presented. The total capital expenditure in 2019/20 for the council’s capital programme had been £203.3m. The outturn of capital expenditure for 2019/20 on behalf of Greater Manchester had been £52.2m.

A summary of each part of the programme was included within the report, giving details on the major projects in each of those parts. Also presented was a summary of the outturn position and any changes to the budget that were recommended. It was explained that the COVID-19 pandemic had created significant uncertainty across the capital programme and that it was expected to create cost pressures through higher prolongation costs, increases to material costs and skilled labour shortages. This scale of these impacts were to be presented to a future meeting.

The report set out the details of all the recommended virements to move the allocation of funds between different capital projects within the overall programme. The size of some of those virements was beyond the normal limits of the Executive’s powers and so the procedure put in place by the Council on 25 March 2020 had been used, to enable these changes to be made by the Executive without having to be approved by the Council.

A full schedule of the proposed virements was appended to the report, and all those were approved.

Decisions

1.         To approve the virements over £0.5m between capital schemes to maximise use of funding resources available to the City Council set out in the appendix to these minutes, noting this has been subject to approval by a Scrutiny Chair under the provision of the Council decision on 25 March 2020 (minute CC/20/26)

2.         To note the outturn of capital expenditure 2019/20 for the Manchester City Council Programme was £203.3m, and that the outturn of capital expenditure 2019/20 for the Programme on behalf of Greater Manchester was £52.2m.

3.         To note the changes to the outturn attributable to movement in the programme that occurred after the previous monitoring report in February 2020.

4.         To approve virements under £0.5m within the capital programme as set out in the appendix to these minutes.

5.         To note the decisions of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer regarding the funding of capital expenditure in 2019/20.

The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer was to follow and is now enclosed.

A report concerning requests to increase the capital programme was submitted. It was agreed to make seven changes under delegated powers, three of those being under temporary powers delegated by the Council on 25 March 2020. These changes would increase the capital budget by £5.5m in 2020/21 and £1.5m in 2021/22, funded from grants, reserves and budgets.

The report also set out other changes to the programme that had been approved by the Deputy Chief Executive using delegated powers. They were:

£330,000 for the Mellands Project in Longsight

£164,000 for the Mellands Playing Fields in Levenshulme

£292,000 for a Gorton & Abbey Hey Section 106

£229,000 for Manchester Aquatics Car Park LED funded by an external contribution

£173,000 for Manchester Aquatics Car Park LED funded by the Invest to Save budget

£143,000 for Culvert Trash Screens

Decisions

1.         To approve, using temporary powers delegated by the Council (Minute CC/20/26) the following changes under to capital programme:

a) Highways Services - Planned Maintenance carriageway works 2020/21. A capital budget virement of £0.999m is requested, funded by Highways Project Delivery fund budget.

b) Children’s Services - Schools Capital Maintenance Programme for 2020/21. A capital budget virement of £5m is requested, funded by Unallocated Schools Capital Maintenance budget.

c) Growth and Development – The Factory. A capital budget virement of £10m is requested, funded by unallocated Inflation.

2.         To approve the following changes to the capital programme:

d) Children’s Services – Coop Academy North Expansion. A capital budget virement of £0.488m is requested, funded by Unallocated Education Basic Needs budget.

e) Growth and Development – Alexandra House Additional Funding. A capital budget virement of £0.200m is requested, funded by the Asset Management Programme budget.

f) Highways Services - Planned Maintenance carriageway works 2020/21. A capital budget increase of £5m is requested, funded by Department of Transportation Challenge Fund Grant.

g) Growth and Development - St Johns Public Realm. A capital budget increase of £2m is requested, funded from Business Rates Reserve.

3.         To note increases to the programme of £1.331m as a result of delegated approvals by the Deputy Chief Executive.

The report of the Chief Executive was to follow and is now enclosed.

(Councillor Midgely declared a prejudicial interest in this item of business and disconnected from the meeting while it was being considered.)

The Chief Executive submitted a report to inform the Executive of the outcome of recent review of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and the Arm’s Length Management Organisation (AMLO), Northwards Housing. Northwards looked after 13,300 of the council’s nearly 16,000 council homes.

The review had examined the sustainability of the HRA and how it could best be utilised to ensure a good housing service to tenants and provide for the investment required in the housing stock. The analysis of the business plan had shown that HRA reserves would fall below £60m in 2027/28, triggering increased interest charges on debt in 2027/28. The HRA reserves were forecast to be exhausted by the end of the 30-year business plan leaving a deficit of over £11m. In addition to that, the need to retro-fit the properties to achieve full zero-carbon was being estimated at an additional £213m. When that was added into the business plan the plan would go below the £60m level in 2025/26; into deficit in 2031/32, and end the 30-year business plan period with a deficit of £438m.

The review of the work of Northwards Housing had been undertaken by a combination of interviews, document review, attendance at relevant governance and management meetings, reflection on previous reviews and some level of benchmarking. It had sought to try and determine if the ALMO provided a service as good as, if not better, than that experienced by other social housing tenants in Manchester, and whether the ALMO provided good value for money. The outcome of the reviews was that weaknesses had been identified and action needed to be taken, and those were explained in the report, including interim arrangements for the appointment of a suitably qualified Interim Chair of the Board.

The review had also considered some initial modelling of three options on the future of the ALMO:

• taking the ALMO function back in-house into the Council; or
• making the ALMO work more efficiently; or
• transfer of the housing stock.

The efficiencies and savings from each of these options had not been fully modelled as there had not yet been a full analysis of expenditure under each of them. It was however explained that the transfer option was not considered to be feasible as it was estimated that using the stock transfer formula the stock had a negative value of -£140m and so would require a substantial dowry payment to be made. Making the ALMO work more efficiently would require a combination of much more efficient working on their part and a transfer of additional council services to the ALMO to gain a better level of economies of scale. Bringing the ALMO functions back into the Council was therefore the preferred option at this time.

It was therefore proposed and agreed that work be done to develop a detailed business case and undertake consultation with tenants, employees, trade unions and other  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66.

The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer was to follow and is now enclosed.

The Executive had considered a report in March 2020 on plans for the creation of a Housing Development and Management company (Minute Exe/20/53). This company would then provide direct delivery options for a range of new affordable homes utilising City Council land assets.

Two possible models for such a company were examined in the report: a joint venture company arrangement or a wholly-owned company with subsidiaries. The differences and the strength of each of these approaches were described in the report, as was the further work that now needed to be undertaken to fully evaluate them both. A budget of £1.5 to fund that extra work was requested and agreed.

It was proposed and agreed that subject to the outcome of that further work, that the authority to proceed with the setting up of a company of whatever form be delegated to senior officers.

Decisions

1.         To endorse the proposal to establish a Housing Delivery Corporate Structure and authorise the Deputy Chief Executive & City Treasurer, the City Solicitor and the Strategic Director - Growth & Development to finalise the detailed arrangements to establish the structure, in consultation with the Leader, Executive Member for Housing & Regeneration and the Executive Member for Finance & Human Resources.

2.         To delegate to each of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, the City Solicitor and the Strategic Director - Growth & Development the authority to determine the most appropriate structure and arrangements for providing any funding to facilitate the delivery of housing through the Housing Delivery Structure, in consultation with the Leader, Executive Member for Housing & Regeneration and the Executive Member for Finance & Human Resources.

3.         To note that the business plan and any associated financial matters associated with the establishment of the structure will be submitted to a future meeting.

4.         To approve an increase to the revenue budget of £1.5m, funded from the Housing Investment Reserve, to fund the next phase of development work, and delegate authority to the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, in consultation with the Executive Member for Finance & Human Resources, to spend this budget.

The report of the Chief Executive was to follow and is now enclosed.

The report on the work on COVID-19 in Manchester since the 6 may meeting was presented. It provided updates on public health and the number of known cases in the city. It also explained the on-going arrangements for the supply and distribution of personal protective equipment, support to vulnerable people and addressing homelessness.

The figures in the report were that there were currently 1,944 residents in care homes across the city. As of 28 May, 77 (3.99%) care home residents had tested positive for COVID-19 and 65 (3.4%) had COVID-19 symptoms. Work was underway to ensure the Manchester COVID-19 Test and Trace outbreak control plan would be able to respond effectively to outbreaks in care homes and all social care settings.

The report also recapped on the financial support and grant scheme that the council was now operating and on the anticipated impact the pandemic will have on the council’s own finances.

At the meeting it was explained that the Test, Track and Isolate scheme had been launched, although the Council’s allocation of funding was not yet know. The Council’s own outbreak response team was going to in place by the end of the week. An update on infection data was given at the meeting: there were 1587 cases in Manchester, with the rate of infection of 289.8 per 100,000 people.

The Leader provided an update on the meeting of the GM COVID-19 Emergency Committee early that day. The main issues there had been issues to do with antisocial behaviour problems; the Public Health England “COVID-19: review of disparities in risks and outcomes” report; and the Test and Trace arrangements.

Other updates were given on schools and the plans for schools to reopen for some children at the start of June. The council’s position statement on the reopening of schools had been published and publicised. On 1 June a minority of schools in the city had admitted more children, others were taking more time to ensure that safe arrangements would be in place before more children returned to the school.

On increasing levels of antisocial behaviour, there had large scale antisocial disturbances in Moston, Gorton and the City Centre. It was evident that social distancing was being relaxed or ignored by increasing numbers of people.

The Executive Member referred to the Public Health England disparity review, and the disproportionate impact on Black and Bangladeshi communities, and on the health inequalities that had existed before the pandemic. The Chief Executive explained that there was going to be work across Greater Manchester to do a more in-depth analysis on the health inequalities in the city-region. It was also explained that the council had launched individual risk assessments for all staff as part of the planning for a resumption of more normal working and greater number of staff returning to the place of work.

Decision

To note the report and the issues raised at the meeting.