Further to Minute RGSC/18/66, the Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive and the City Treasurer which provided a further update on the Council’s financial position and set out the next steps in the budget process. 

The Committee was invited to consider and make recommendations on the budget proposals which were within the remit of the Committee and to comment on the Directorate Business Plans, prior to their submission to the Executive on 13 February 2019.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources outlined the context of the reports, in particular the challenges presented by funding reductions from the national government.  The Leader commented that the cuts made to the Council’s budget were now £10million more than when the three year budget was first set in 2017/18, and what was clearly evident was that the impact of austerity was becoming ever more visible, particular in those areas of high deprivation.

In relation to the Corporate Core Business plan, some of the key points that arose from the Committees discussions were:-

·                With the uncertainty of Brexit, what would be the impact of the withdrawal of European Regional Development fund to the Council and what were the €3 million of approved grants that the Council currently had access to;

·                Further clarification was requested on the leadership role of the Core in influencing outside of the organisation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality and improve public transport and highways and make them more sustainable;

·                Why had staff absence levels increased within the Core;

·                There was concern that Council average days absence was 12.1 days when compared to the private sector absence average of 6.1 days;

·                Had the Age Friendly Board been involved in the arrangements to ensure residents were supported to live at home for as long as possible;

·                Was there a correlation between staff absence levels and efficiency savings;

·                Was the annual leave purchase scheme working well and if so was there any scope to achieve further savings than the identified £150,000;

·                Was it anticipated that the level of savings through ICT would be achievable; and

·                Reassurance was sought that the savings identified through the deletion of vacant posts was achievable and that these posts were not definitely not required.

The City Treasure advised that there had been a lot of work undertaken at a GM level on the impact assessment on the risk of withdrawal of European funding as a result of Brexit.  The removal of this funding would not impact directly on the Council’s core services, however, it would have some impact on programmes of work such as work with other European cities and climate change, were we would have reduced access to funding.  The Leader added that the removal of this funding was a bigger risk at a Greater Manchester than it was to just the Council.  The City Treasurer also agreed to provide a breakdown to Members of the €3million approved grants that was currently received.

In terms of the leadership role of the Core, the City Treasurer explained that this referred to work undertaken by the Council’s Policy Unit which provided information and support to these areas both in terms of bringing together the support from within the Council and links to where this work was carried out at a GM level.

The City Treasurer advised that sickness absence levels had remained at a similar level over the past one to two years, which reflected a considerable amount of work that had been undertaken to reduce this level and improve performance.

The Leader advised that in terms of enabling the MLCO to proactively triage, monitor and respond to residents’ circumstances in order to ensure they were supported to live at home for as long as possible, this was restating what was existing and long term policy, which the Age Friendly Board had been consulted on many times over a long period of time.

The Committee was advised that there was no direct correlation between staff absence levels and efficiency savings.  The Leader acknowledged that there would be some impact on the delivery of savings as there had been a 40% reduction in the workforce over the last nine years and Elected Members needed to be conscious of this.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources confirmed that the annual leave purchase scheme was working well and had been well received by staff.  He hoped that the policy could be enhanced further in the future.  He also commented the Council had a comprehensive ICT strategy that would help to achieve the identified savings.  In terms of staff vacancies, the Council’s Senior Management Team had reviewed all current vacant posts to identify whether these were still required.

In relation to the Strategic Development Business Plan, some of the key points that arose from the Committees discussions were:-

·                It was requested that that the word ‘solutions’, in reference to delivering housing for residents with additional needs, was removed from the Business Plan;

·                More information was needed on how many income generating interests were run by volunteers as part of the Investment Estate and would the strengthening of this performance impact on these organisations;

·                Why had there been a delay in the retendering of the repairs and maintenance contract and had this had any financial impact on the Council;

·                How much funding was contained within the regeneration reserve;

·                Could more be done in terms of the offer to apprentices from within the directorate; and

·                Why was the Adult Education Budget (AEB) being devolved to the GMCA in the 2019/20 financial year.

The Deputy Leader agreed to provide Members with more information on the number of income generating interests that were run by volunteers and advised that the Council was looking to increase its income from its commercial arm as opposed to its voluntary arm.  The Leader added that as part of the Council’s Estates rationalisation, where properties had no operational use to the Council, community asset transfers would be supported were possible.

The Committee was advised that the delay in retendering of the repairs and maintenance contracts had occurred due to an effort to try and synchronise the renewal of these contracts in order to gain the most efficiency form the contracts and to also see what other organisations could provide.  Existing contracts would continue until the bids for the new contracts had been received and evaluated.  The Leader advised that the extension of existing contracts and the delay in the retendering of these contrast had not incurred any additional costs to the council.

The Leader advised that the it was national government who was devolving the funding from the Adult Skills Board to a Greater Manchester level and not Manchester’s Adult Education budget that was being passed up to the GMCA.  He advised that there was approximately £15m in the regeneration reserve, a third of which would be used for revenue purposes, with the remainder to be used for investment in housing purposes.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources advised that excluding schools, the Council was exceeding its targets apprenticeship levy targets.  It was acknowledged that more needed to be done with the schools element of the levy and the Council’s social value policy aimed to provide more opportunities for apprentices.

Decision

The Committee

(1)       Notes that this is the final year of a three year budget;

(2)       Requests that the Executive take into account the comments made by the Committee;

(3)       Requests the City Treasurer to provide a briefing note on the €3million European approved grants that the Council currently had access to;

(4)       Agrees that a report is submitted to a future meeting of the HR Sub Group on the management of absence across the Council; and

(5)       Requests that the word ‘solutions’, in reference to delivering housing for residents with additional needs, is removed from the Strategic Development Business Plan

The Committee considered a report of the Strategic Director (Development) and Deputy Chief Executive, which set out the responses to a conversation and engagement exercise to support the development of a refreshed City Centre Transport Strategy. The report also described the proposed next steps in developing an updated transport strategy for the City Centre taking account of the plans for growth.

The Head of City Policy referred to the main points and themes within the report, which included:-

·                The rationale as to why it was necessary to review the City Centre Transport Strategy;

·                Highlights from the responses to the engagement exercise which included, but was not limited to:-

·                     A total of 3700 responses had been received;

·                     90% of respondents identified air quality as an important issue;

·                     80% agreed that improving cycling, walking and public transport infrastructure would be the best way to improve air quality;

·                     Congestion and traffic was identified as one of the biggest problems when travelling into and around the city centre;

·                     Expanding the public transport network, cheaper and discounted travel and more frequent and reliable services were highlighted as being needed to encourage more people to use public transport to access the city centre;

·                     Deansgate was highlighted as the main street in the city centre that had too little space for pedestrians; and

·                Next steps, which involved the production of a draft strategy document for consultation that drew on the responses and identified specific schemes that would be needed to support future growth.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committees discussions were:-

·                How representative were the findings of the engagement exercise in terms of the demographics of the city;

·                A Member felt that the issue with the space available on Deansgate was more to do with the volume of pedestrians rather than the physical width of the pavements;

·                There was concern about proposals to take traffic out of the city centre and the impact this could have on Wards on the periphery of the city centre;

·                There was concern that the pedestrianisation of roads could lead to increase in ground rents on local businesses;

·                There was concern that proposed alterations to networks were not being built with cyclists being taken into account;

·                How robust was the data collected from the survey of daily trips into the city centre in morning peak periods and did this data take into account journeys of those people who already lived in the city centre

·                A Ward by Ward breakdown of the consultation was requested for Committee Members; and

·                How was this strategy going to align with other emerging strategies;

The Leader acknowledged the need to consider the impact in areas surrounding the city centre and referenced that the report had identified that it would be important to consider the complementary measures required in areas surrounding the centre to ensure that any transport impacts that arose from the continuing growth of the city centre were effectively managed.  The Executive Member for Highways, Planning and Transport added that the Council was reviewing parking within the city centre and the impact of parking on the periphery of the city centre and agreed to share the findings of this with Members.

The Committee was advised that the main differences of the sample used in the engagement exercise compared to the representative of the city was a slight gender in-balance of responses from men compared to women and respondents aged 25-54 were overrepresented whereas respondents over 65 were underrepresented.  Aside from this, the representation of the responses to the engagement exercise was expected.

The Leader commented that rent levels tended to sit alongside the economic success of the city and there was evidence that if undertaken in the right way, pedestrianisation often improved access to businesses.  He also added that over the next planning period the dominant form of transport in the city centre should be walking.

The Head of City Policy advised that the survey of daily trips into the city centre in morning peak periods had been undertaken for a number of years now and was a consistent data set, which looked at all the crossing points of the inner ring road.  He added that this strategy was seen as a sub strategy of the 2040 Transport Strategy, which the Council was working alongside TFGM and Salford City Council on its development. The next stage would be to develop specific schemes and proposals.

Decision

The Committee:-

(1)       Notes the report and in particular the responses received to the City Centre Transport Strategy conversation and the proposed next steps in the development of a draft strategy document;

(2)       Welcomes the offer from the Executive Member for Highways, Planning and Transport to share the findings of the review of parking within the city centre and the impact of parking on the periphery of the city centre with Committee Members;

(3)       Requests that Officers provide a ward breakdown of the consultation responses with the relevant Ward Members; and

(4)       Agrees to receive a further report prior to the draft document for consultation being considered by the Executive.

The Group considered a report of the City Treasurer which provided information on the key performance indicators for the delivery of social value, which included who decided what the KPIs should be for social value in any given contract, how was the Council ensuring consistency across the organisation and whether there was there central resource that co-ordinated this.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:-

·                Central to the Council’s approach was ensuring that social value and its monitoring was explicitly covered at all stages of procurement, including the commissioning and pre-tender stages, tender, contract implementation, and contract monitoring;

·                The Integrated Commissioning team had taken stock of the use of Social Value KPIs in new and existing (including old) contracts, with particular focus on identifying good practice;

·                It was commissioners / contract managers who proposed what the KPIs should be for social value in any given contract, and the relevant Strategic Director (or delegated authority) who approved it;

·                The Council promoted consistency through governance and guidance in the shape of toolkits, templates and sharing best practice;

·                Individual departments were responsible for ensuring that there were robust KPIs in contracts;

·                Where contracts predated the introduction of social value there was mixed picture of suitable KPIs being in place; and

·                Currently there was no benchmarking across the Council as there was no common position on what appropriate level of social value should be based on contract value as each contract was done on a case by case basis, tailored to circumstance.

Some of the key points that arose from the Group’s discussion were:-

·                Had there been any work to develop informal best practice sharing across directorates;

·                How did the Council monitor contractors to ensure that they were adhering to the social value requirements of the contract;

·                Did the Council monitor how many of “Our Children” achieved employment opportunities across all Council contracts;

·                How was the Council monitoring the underlying structural change that the Council was looking to achieve from the delivery of social value;

·                Had any consideration been given to linking social value in kind received from small value contracts into the Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund or Community and Voluntary Sector; and

·                Why were there no KPI’s for the Housing and Residential Growth contract relating to Grove Village.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning advised that work was being undertaken around developing the understanding and experience of deriving social value amongst teams and services. There were also proposals to set up a practitioner network to allow individuals to share information and collaborate on ideas.  The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources added that best practice that was being shared across departments was also challenged by senior officers that sat on the SMT Social Value Group, as this provided a better understanding of what worked and also provided for learning opportunities for where improvements could be made.  It was also reported that Officers were looking at how suppliers who were looking for a social value partners could be joined up with the voluntary and community sector in order to deliver social value.

The Group was advised that in terms of monitoring contractors, this was built into each contract management arrangement, the methods of which would vary amongst contracts as to exactly how this was monitored, but would usually take place on a monthly basis.  An example was given as to how the Capital Programmes team monitored and tracked apprentices being employed on Manchester City Council contracts through the North West Construction Hub.  In terms of monitoring the opportunities for ‘Our Children’, the Head of Integrated Commissioning commented that ‘Our Children’ were a priority category in terms employment opportunities and although she didn’t have figures available, she advised that it would be possible to undertake an exercise to analyse this across contracts.

In terms of monitoring the underlying structural change that social value was to bring about, it was explained that this would happen over time.  The Head of Corporate Procurement sited an example of how this was happening with Barclays bank, who were providing financial guidance to Manchester care leavers and also providing opportunities for 15 Manchester young people from hard-to-reach groups to gain meaningful employment with one of their partners.  It was also explained that suppliers needed to be informed of what was expected of them in terms of delivering social value prior to the submission of tenders.  Reassurance was given that the majority of new contracts being awarded now covered these requirements and Strategic Directors were taking a more active role in monitoring the social value element of contracts within their Directorates.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources noted the suggestion of linking social value in kind from small value contracts into the Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund or Community and Voluntary Sector and agreed that this could be considered as there was a need to think imaginatively as to how social value could be delivered from small contracts.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning advised that there was a challenge in changing existing large contracts to deliver social value, with Grove Village being an example of this.  Officers with responsibility for monitoring this contract were aware of the need to improve the delivery of social value from this contract and would be looking at achieving this at each break point within the length of the contract.

Decision

The Group notes the report