Agenda item

Report No: OAS/FH/18/006

[The Chairman of the Committee agreed for this agenda item to be brought forward]

The Committee was reminded that on 16 March 2017, it had received a presentation from the Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance, setting out responsibilities covered under his portfolio.

At this meeting, the Cabinet Member had been invited back to provide his annual update, and Report No: OAS/FH/18/006 set out the focus of the update.

The Cabinet Member was also provided in advance of the meeting with some key questions identified by Scrutiny members on areas they wished to be appraised on during the annual update, which were included in the report along with responses, specifically:

1)     Procurement: How does the Council’s procurement procedure protect us from doing business with companies like Carillon? (for example: if you require 3 quotes for someone big, then often there are very few companies that size that can quote, but how financially healthy are they?)

2)     ICT: Will members be consulted on what they would like to see in terms of ICT offerings in 2019, and when will that happen?

3)     ICT: What is the total IT budget, and what IT services does the council supply to each Department (ITIL Service Library List)?

4)     ICT: How much of each IT service, does each department consume?

5)     ICT: How much does it cost to provide each IT service?

Councillor Stephen Edwards opened his presentation by thanking the Committee for the invitation to address them on progress made within his Portfolio since March 2017. 

The Committee asked a number of follow-up questions relating to procurement and ICT, to which comprehensive responses were provided. 

In response to a question raised, the Assistant Director (Resources and Performance), explained that the current budget allowed for changes in IT which the Council was aware of, and took into account hardware technology changes such as an annual provision for ICT kit refresh.  However, if there was significant investment required for a software change or investment which was not budgeted for, then a Business Case would be developed to explore options.

Discussions were also held on Treasury Management, in particular the Solar Farm.  Members questioned whether the Council has had  to borrowed any money at this stage in relation to the Solar Farm.  In response the Cabinet Member advised that the Council had not yet borrowed any money externally, it was being funded internally.  The Solar Farm was generating an additional treasury benefit of £150k per annum, which was going into the Councils reserves to mitigate against future interest rate risk.  The Assistant Director (Resources and Performance) explained that Treasury Management reports would be changing in how there presented to the Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee to recognise the move towards a borrowing authority.

The Chairman of the Committee thanked the Cabinet Member for the level of detail provided to each of the questions provided by the Committee, in particular ICT, and suggested that the Council should maintain and update these figures on an annual basis, as it would help to plan for ICT costs in the future when we became one council.

There being no decision required, the Committee noted the contents of the annual Portfolio Holder update.