Finance & Resources Select Committee - Thursday 27 November 2025, 2:00pm - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

Finance & Resources Select Committee
Thursday, 27th November 2025 at 2:00pm 

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  1. Cllr John Chilver
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  1. Cllr Robert Carington
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  14. Cllr Stuart Wilson
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  30. Mr David Skinner
  31. Cllr John Chilver
  32. Cllr Christine Adali
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  35. Cllr Dev Dhillon
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  40. Mr David Skinner
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  44. Mr David Skinner
  45. Cllr John Chilver
  46. Cllr Christine Adali
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  49. Cllr Robert Carington
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  57. Cllr Christine Adali
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  61. Cllr John Chilver
  62. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  63. Mr David Skinner
  64. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  65. Mr David Skinner
  66. Cllr John Chilver
  67. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  68. Cllr Robert Carington
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  70. Mr David Skinner
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  11. Cllr Andy Huxley
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  13. Cllr John Chilver
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  16. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  17. Cllr Robert Carington
  18. Cllr John Chilver
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  21. Cllr John Chilver
  22. Cllr Nidhi Mehta
  23. Tanay Tank
  24. Cllr Nidhi Mehta
  25. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
  26. Cllr Nidhi Mehta
  27. Cllr Chris Poll
  28. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
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  31. Cllr John Chilver
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  7. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
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  9. Cllr Dev Dhillon
  10. Mr David Skinner
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  13. Cllr Christine Adali
  14. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
  15. Cllr Christine Adali
  16. Cllr Robert Carington
  17. Cllr John Chilver
  18. Cllr Chris Poll
  19. Cllr Robert Carington
  20. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
  21. Cllr Chris Poll
  22. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
  23. Cllr John Chilver
  24. Cllr Chris Poll
  25. Cllr John Chilver
  26. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
  27. Cllr John Chilver
  28. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  29. Cllr Martin Tett
  30. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
  31. Cllr Martin Tett
  32. Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman
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  34. Cllr Stuart Wilson
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  10. Cllr Dev Dhillon
  11. Mr David Skinner
  12. Cllr John Chilver
  13. Cllr Chris Poll
  14. Cllr John Chilver
  15. Cllr Martin Tett
  16. Mr David Skinner
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  18. Cllr Anna Crabtree
  19. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  20. Cllr John Chilver
  21. Cllr Martin Tett
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  24. Mr David Skinner
  25. Cllr John Chilver
  26. Cllr Dev Dhillon
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  1. Webcast Finished

Cllr John Chilver - 0:00:00
Cllr Anna Crabtree - 0:00:15
So I remind members to turn their microphones on every time they speak in order to ensure
Cllr John Chilver - 0:00:19
that the webcast picks up their comments.

1 Apologies for absence / Changes in membership

So we'll start with item one, which is apologies for absence and changes in membership.
Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:00:30
Cllr John Chilver - 0:00:32
and Katie our usual scrutiny officer is unaffordably away today so we're very
fortunate to have Sally who's stepped in from the scrutiny team so over to you
Sally any apologies? No we haven't had any apologies Councillor but Councillor
Sally Moore - 0:00:47
Cllr John Chilver - 0:00:51
Anna Crabtree may be late due to transport delays. Great next item is
Declarations of interest. Does anybody have any declarations? There were none.

2 Declarations of Interest

3 Minutes

Minutes of the previous meeting. You should have received those. Both the
public and the confidential minutes of the last meeting. The meeting held on the
9th of October. Can we agree those as a correct record? Any changes or amendments
needed. Those are agreed. Thank you. We're talking about the public minutes, yes. We'll
look at the confidential minutes later on the agenda.

4 Public Questions

And the next item is public questions but we haven't received any of those so I think

5 Budget Management Report Quarter 2

we can go straight on to the first substantive item which is the Budget Management Report
for quarter two. And we have with us Councillor Carrington, the Cabinet Member for Resources,
and also our Head of Finance, David Skinner. So, Councillor Carrington, are you able to
introduce this item? Thank you very much, Chair. And just before
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:02:04
I start, quick question. So it's really sort of an agenda item of Part 1A and Part 1B,
being we obviously have the main Budget Management Report, but then there's also the capital
or reprofiling section.
Just how do you want to do this?
Do you want me to do it all in one go or sort of split it in two?
Whichever you think is the most logical.
I'll probably split it in two so that will enable you to sort of properly hone your questions.
Wonderful.
Well, thank you very much for having me here today.
And so the report in front of you sets out the forecast financial position for the Councillor
as of Quarter 2, 25 -26. We're continuing to forecast a balanced revenue position
despite the ongoing financial pressures in our key services. Obviously the critical five of
adult social care, children's social care, temporary accommodation, home school transport
and high needs budget within the DSG grant. Obviously there was excitement yesterday but
this sort of looking back hasn't quite affected it that will be a conversation
for future committees. The position in portfolios is an adverse variance of 2 .1
million pounds which is 0 .4 percent of budgets and I would like to state that
this is an improvement from the quarter one position where there was a 5 .5
million pressure which was forecast. This is due to strong management and
political oversight with particular focus on the high demand high risk areas.
It is vital that the service site continues as we no longer hold corporate contingencies
which have previously been used to mitigate risks within the budget.
Quickly turning to pressures, the main pressures in the portfolio budgets are £2 .8 million
in children's social care.
This is mainly down to the high numbers of looked after children and high unit costs.
£1 .1 million in home to school transport from increase in cost and demand.
£0 .8 million in regards to parking income being lower due to a lower volume of people
using car parks.
And £0 .8 million for temporary accommodation due to the increase in the number of households
needing support.
This has been partially offset by favourable variances in parking staff, staffing budgets
and 0 .6 million pounds, 0 .7 million pounds in additional planning income and 0 .8 million
managed underspend from vacancies in resources and health and wellbeing portfolios.
Despite increases in demand, health and wellbeing portfolio is forecasting a balanced position.
Moving on to the corporate budgets, there is a favourable position of 2 .1 million pounds,
which is mainly down to additional interest income on cash balances from interest rates
remaining higher for longer than expected.
And we would have seen from the ABR report last week that while they are expecting those
to fall, they are expecting it to be slower than originally progressed at the beginning
of the year.
So we are also forecasting to set aside funding of £3 .9 million to fund investments in the
capital programme mitigate some of the risk of volatility in capital receipts.
Turning to the dedicated schools grant, so DSG budgets continues to be a high -risk area
for the council. I think there's one we've discussed multiple times in this room and
in other sort of committee sessions. The high -needs block budget was set with a deficit of £22 .9
million pounds and currently the forecast is in line with budget.
However, there is a continued high demand for education, health and care, needs
assessments and measures are being considered to address waiting times as
recently discussed last week in cabinet. I will have to highlight that there is a
risk that increases in demand could have a negative impact on the financial
position in the second half of the year.
So the overall position there is the reserve, the DSG reserve, stood at a deficit of £24 .5
million at the beginning of the year and is currently expected to close the year at a
deficit of £47 .4 million.
The statutory override, which legally allows councils to hold a negative reserve, is still
in place and has been extended to the 31st of March 2028 but just to remind you all this
is a temporary relief and after this date it is probable there will be councils will
be required to cover in your deficit so I know there was an announcement yesterday in
regard to send but I think we are still sort of going through the proposals to sort of
see what actually the impact that will have on the council and when I finish Dave might
want to say more on this if he is in a position to say any more without putting any pressure
on Dave there.
On savings, I think highlight that remains very important that our programme of savings
is closely monitored and delivered in full.
We have a challenging target of £70 .5 million at the moment for this financial year and
a further £6 .4 million in DSG budgets, giving an overall savings requirement of £76 .9 million.
The current position is strong with a forecast over delivery of £0 .7 million, which is 0 .9
percent.
This overachievement will help to manage the overall budget position against a backdrop
of challenging demand pressures.
I think the capital will do that later.
I mean, the only other areas I'd just like to bring to your attention is just quickly
focusing on debt, which is owed to the council.
Our very good performance continues for under cured debt over 90 days being well below the
targets of £12 million at £10 .1 million.
And I'd like to highlight that our total sundry debt is the lowest it has been since Q4 of
22 -23, reflecting the good performance of our team in collecting the debts owed to us
promptly.
Payment performance is consistently good and the target of 95 % has been exceeded with 97 .5 %
On that note, I will finish on the performance bit and particularly on the revenue and when
you want me to I will move on to capital and the re -profiling.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:08:49
Thank you very much indeed, Councillor. I was just wondering if our Head of Finance
and Section 151 Officer has anything to add on the revenue side.
Mr David Skinner - 0:08:59
I think probably just to add, Chairman, that in light of the announcements yesterday in
the budget, then much like the government has announced that ongoing SEND expenditure
will fall to central government with effect from 28, 29, there is a significant lack of
detail to allow us to forecast exactly what that will mean in practise and in particular
the area that was not covered was the cumulative deficit that would have accrued up until that
point has been excluded from any detail that's been released currently with an announcement
still postponed. They've indicated it may well come through in the provisional settlement which
is expected late in December but given that that has been put off three times now then I'm not
through at least this iteration of the medium -term financial plan but I will
Cllr John Chilver - 0:10:06
obviously update members in due course. Thank you I'll open the discussion to
members of the committee does anybody want to raise any questions Councillor
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:10:14
Tet. Yes thank you very much Chairman first of all just to congratulate the
portfolio holder and the section 15 .1 officer on the achievement so far to
date I think it's a notable achievement so thank you very much for that. Just to
a couple of questions. Paragraph 1 .3, you talk about one of the reasons you've managed
to bring in the budget so far on track is strong management action. That tends to be
euphemism for managers cutting back on planned expenditure or expenditure requested by their
teams. How would the committee be able to judge the risks associated with those particular
reductions. Is there anything significant being removed from the budget or not done
that this committee and other committees should be aware of? So that's my first question.
Secondly, you rely very much on the interest rates having been high for the interest accrued,
which was higher than that budgeted. Given that interest rates have been trending downwards,
what is the forecast for the year -end? Are you confident that given forecast cuts in
interest rates, that nice cushion corporately will be maintained.
And my last question, sorry Chairman if you'll indulge me, the $47 .4 million that's anticipated
on the statutory override, that's cash out the door, that still requires a reserve
effectively to be held against that, cash reserve to be held against it.
Can you inform the committee which reserve that money would be coming from? Thank you.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:11:51
Mr David Skinner - 0:11:56
So if I make a start, I'm sure that Councillor Carrington may well want to rise. So if I
can take them in reverse order, if I can. So in terms of the 47 and a bit million DSG
negative reserve will not be taken from any other reserve. In effect it's a standalone
reserve, it's an authorised overdraft. What it does is it suppresses the amount of overall
cash that we have available to us, as you say very correctly, it's cash out of the door,
but it doesn't deplete any other reserve, but ultimately it just is counted against
the general total that we hold, and it significantly reduces obviously the amount of cash that
we have available, which then takes me on to the next point in terms of the Treasury
management forecasts.
So we take a very prudent view in terms of our Treasury management forecast, we take
a very prudent view in terms of what we build into the budget for exactly the reasons that
outlined in terms of volatility within the interest rate environment is quite significant
at the moment and is generally trending down. The DSG has a significant impact on us, so
we take a very prudent view to make sure that we don't over -budget for those elements. Obviously,
if then there is any overperformance, either in terms of cash balances or interest rates
remain higher, then that gives us then a little bit of headroom that we can then utilise against
some of the risks that we know that will manifest themselves undoubtedly over the course of
year given our complex environment. So that is the approach that we have taken and understood
as in good stead for a number of years. So that's part of the reason for that. So we
are confident that the forecast that we've got in will hold true in terms of the rest
of the year to answer the actual question that you asked. But therefore then I think
we will continue with that approach into future years, obviously subject to due approvals
in course. And then the strong management actions, then there are no additional reductions
in services other than those that were set out in the MTFP document. But what we are
doing is we maintain our strong control environment. So for those members that have previously
been on the committee, then about two years ago, two and a half years ago or so, then
we initiated a stronger set of management approvals in terms of for expenditure. So
in effect we have raised the limits whereby I think everything over a thousand pounds
has to go to a service director in effect. Those controls have limited any additional
expenditure and that's the strong management action as well as obviously the regular scrutiny
by this committee, by cabinet formally in terms of quarterly in terms of the role and
obviously the role in terms of cabinet members in between times in terms of their role in
terms of through political oversight of those priorities.
So there are no additional reductions that are built in, but it's the strong management
action is holding under control.
And when we initiated them, we compared the controls that we were putting in place against
best practise and what would happen in other councils, and we discussed them with the external
auditor at the time and were confident that they were sufficiently robust.
And actually, he described them as akin to what you would put in place as if you were
in a 114 environment.
So that's definitely not the case for us, but they are the kinds of controls that you would expect to see.
So they're about as strong as we can get to.
I think they're the key points that I would like to make.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Tate, did you want to come back on that?
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:15:20
Yes, just very briefly. First of all, just to thank David Skinner again for that explanation, which I thought was very comprehensive.
Just so I'm really clear then, strong management action isn't a euphemism for any further reductions.
it's simply carrying on doing what management always do. There are no risks whatsoever involved
in that strong management action that the members of this committee should be aware of, which is
great to hear. So thank you very much for that. And also, something I hadn't fully realised in
the past was that the statutory override cash isn't actually ring -fenced in any way,
but rather like national pensions for civil servants is just a charge upon the overall,
if you like the overall cash within national government.
So there's no ring fencing as such.
There's simply an awareness that that 47 .4 has to be there to pay for it in the long term.
I just hope I've understood that correctly.
Yeah in cash terms. That's that's exactly what we hold it in this specific earmarked reserve,
Mr David Skinner - 0:16:21
but it's for the reserve itself.
So it is held in reserve.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:16:28
it doesn't deplete any other reserve, it's just its own negative DSG reserve.
That makes a lot more sense, to actually understand that it is in no reserve makes a lot more
sense to me. Thank you very much indeed.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:16:39
Just to clarify, it's not included in our statutory counting, is that correct?
Mr David Skinner - 0:16:46
So it's included in the accounts but it doesn't count against the usable reserves that we
can hold, so that's the impact of the statutory override means that we can discount it from
and the available reserves that we hold. Councillor Wilson.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:16:57
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:17:00
Thank you Chairman and again thank you to the Cabinet Member and officers. Good to see that
the quarter on quarter number has come down as well. Just following on from Councillor
Tett's question, will the same management controls be used therefore in the budget planning
as we look forward because obviously that's a forward looking question but obviously if
we've now implemented those then is that going to be the underlying assumption going forwards
not only for the balance of this financial year but looking forwards.
And then coming back to the report on paragraph 2 .3c it says on the favourable variance in
corporate budgets which is used to offset the portfolio budgets, an additional £3 .9
million has been forecast to allow for investment in the capital programme or wider political
priorities. And having scanned through the appendices, I couldn't see what those wider
political priorities might be. So perhaps an elaboration on that. And then in paragraph
3 .1, figure 2, it references the savings delivery which is on plan or slightly ahead of plan,
but also an additional 6 .42 million in DSG. And I wondered if we could get again, I couldn't
see any more detail on that, but what that was over and above the existing savings plan
and whether or not it had any relationship or implications from the recent decision to
put an additional 3 million into EHCP acceleration or the discussion went on with schools, schools,
whether or not funding could be moved from the general schools block into the high needs block but then wasn't pursued.
So perhaps a little bit of elaboration on those points, thank you.
Mr David Skinner - 0:19:02
So in terms of the 3 .9 million into capital or wider political priorities,
So I think members will be aware that obviously last week, then Cabinet approved release of
£3 million into, to fund the EHCP additional work that's going to be required to help address
some of the backlog issues.
Then of that £3 .9 million, then £3 million in effect has been released to go for that.
So that's an example of the kinds of things that would be there and it's the choice that
obviously that members can make and ultimately in terms of kind of going forwards.
In terms of the savings tracker and the 6 .4 million I think that's loaded against the
DSG and Education and Children's Services DSG agreement, then that was already loaded
as part of the budget in effect in terms of the assumed position with the negative, with
the deficit budget that was set for those things.
So that took account of the delivery of the six and a half million or so of savings that
were going to be required.
So that is an additionality that's going through and is not subject to the conversations that
occurred at schools forum in terms of any movements between the different blocks.
That was already taken into account of to get the deficit position in terms of that
was set for the DSG budget.
Sorry, that was my misunderstanding because it was reported almost as an additional savings,
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:20:33
so that was my, so it says total and then total including DSG. So it sort of gave me
the impression that we found some additional savings to be delivered as opposed to something
that was already baked in. So this was a request I think from the committee
Mr David Skinner - 0:20:47
previously to try and elaborate and make slightly more transparent the difference between what
was impacting on the general fund and then what was impacting in terms of the DSG budgets
rather than its additionality in total on the budget line.
Are you happy with those replies Councillor Wilson? Can I just ask about the additional
Cllr John Chilver - 0:21:08
three million on the EHCP acceleration. Has it been specified how that's going to be spent?
Mr David Skinner - 0:21:20
So the plan was considered at Cabinet and that set out a range of options in terms of
what was going to go through. In particular, we need to secure additional educational psychology
support in terms of going through and moving away from both the in -house and sort of agency
provision that we use now to a more contracted position to try and secure that at the scale
that's going to be required so that's one element but the the details of the
plan I think was set out in the cabinet report. Thank you.
Councillor Pole.
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:21:58
Thank You Chairman. Section 151 officer I wonder if you could help me. The budget I
understand as contained proposals to increase council tax on high -value
properties. I'm not aware of when this would come in but I'd be interested to
know if there's a risk to us by means of risk or benefit whether that money would
come to us or whether it would be sliced away directly to central government.
and secondly is that based on factual figures of high value properties within
the county or is it a desktop exercise of best guesses. Well thank you because
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:22:55
the section 151 officer has very kindly been answering questions directed at
myself I will answer a question directed at him as a return. So yes obviously
we're all still considering the budget yesterday and that was obviously one of
the most eye -catching measures in it. I mean from my understanding I think the
plan is it's going to come in in 2028. Unfortunately it looks very very clear
that the council is not going to see any of that. We are going to be responsible
for the collection of the money but that's the only sort of involvement with
it we're going to have. Obviously Dave and the team are looking into this but
this obviously is going to have big impacts.
We are going to be the ones getting the heat
and we are also going to be the ones having to chase
for payment if someone is unable or disagrees
with their increased bill of between 3 ,500 pounds
and 7 ,000 pounds depending on which of the four
sort of brackets they fall within to.
So not the most reassuring answer I'm afraid
but this is still a new world which we're looking at.
But I mean Dave, if you have any particular numbers
you've got off the top of your head so far?
Mr David Skinner - 0:24:10
I think just to add, as you said then,
there is still a lot of detail to work through,
but based on the Chancellor's announcements yesterday,
then what it very explicitly says is that that money
will be going through to the Treasury,
albeit that we'll be responsible for collecting it and billing it,
bit the detail of what exactly that means and mechanisms of how that plays
through then then aren't available currently.
I mean on this issue yes thank you very much I mean I've been following the
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:24:41
budget fairly extensively over the last 24 hours and my understanding is that
the the two million had category effectively two million plus for the
super tax or whatever you want to call it not to call it a mansion tax. I
understand that's going to follow a revaluation of the top three bands of
council tax is that correct now that seems to involve an enormous amount of
work by district valuers which will take quite frankly years to do otherwise I
don't see how you find out who has a house that's worth two million I mean
there are properties in East London that when they were valued originally in the
90s were almost you know pittance they're now worth millions simply
because the areas have come up in the world.
So is it true that we as a council will have to budget
for the staffing and the costs that are incurred
to effectively revalued three council tax bans
to establish who has a house of 2 million plus?
And if so, will that be recouped as a new burden effectively
from national government?
Or do we have to budget for it
during the remainder of this year
and potentially into the budget period.
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:26:00
So in, I say a lot of the detail of this is still to be announced.
Mr David Skinner - 0:26:02
We currently are not responsible for valuations.
That sits with the Valuation Office Agency, which is I think an arms length body now of
HMRC and the district values that you spoke of would report it to them.
They are the ones that are responsible for undertaking those valuations.
As you say, it's a significant exercise to be able to do that in the timeframe.
So I'd imagine that what they will be doing, and this is not definitive by any means, they
are using the top three bands, bands F, G and H, as a kind of proxy for the available
information to then start doing a desktop exercise, I would have thought, before they
then start to narrow down the searches in terms of then establishing those properties
that will then fall into the four bands starting from two million and rising up through to
the five million that was set out yesterday.
all the detail of exactly how, when and what will be derived is yet to be released.
But the expectation I think is that we will be responsible then for the billing and then
the collection of that money and that will definitely be a new burden that will fall
on us. I would expect therefore then that we should receive funding for that, whether
that funding is adequate for the level of work that will actually be required. We'll
Cllr John Chilver - 0:27:21
Councillor Wilson was your question on this issue as well?
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:27:25
It was merely Mr. Skinner's just related a conversation he and I had yesterday about
this exact point and perhaps the cabinet member could take away that we should be lobbying
through the LGA that local authorities should get an administrative charge to be doing this.
Absolutely right.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:27:45
Can I ask, will this tax have any impact on the Council's own properties?
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:27:50
Mr David Skinner - 0:27:54
Yes. So any domestic property that Council tax is levied on, this would be attributable
to. And based on the, as I say, all of this is based on the information that's available
currently then any property that is valued at 2026 prices at more than two
million pounds domestic property are you liable to council tax would therefore
come into purview of the I think what is called the high value council tax
Cllr John Chilver - 0:28:24
surcharge very catchily title Thank You councillor Dali I think you're next
Cllr Christine Adali - 0:28:28
thank you chair my question was actually going back to the DSG because I tried to
getting earlier. I'm very happy that there is the additional funding for the tackle the
AHCP backlog, but I couldn't find any information in the documents on any mitigation on the
knock on cost from actually getting through the backlog of EHCPs because they usually
entail costs on the education and on the transport side quite often. So is there what is the
Mr David Skinner - 0:29:08
mitigation for that? So in terms of obviously then as we work our way
through then the backlog then more children will be assessed and therefore
there will be associated costs those costs we will then have to build into
the budget going forwards and that will come through in the budget setting
papers in terms of kind of what we think that impact will be but there will be
it's reasonable to assume there'll be significant additional costs both in
terms of on the DSG and then also potentially in terms of on the general
fund in terms of through the home school transport implications as well but I
think you've got to to see that in light of the fact that these are costs that
would have already been incurred naturally if we'd have got through that
work so this isn't a decision to to incur those costs this is just actually
the timing of those costs being realised
Cllr John Chilver - 0:29:53
Cllr Dev Dhillon - 0:29:59
much um councillor Dylan Thank You chairman and thank you for a really good
report and appendix. One of my concern is that since COVID we have seen housing
and regulatory portfolio really growing up in revenue. Although we are in this
year doing very well but I have just a couple of days to go listen to the news
that a lot of people are running behind with their mortgage and their credit
card payments. Are you, how sure are you that in coming year we will be on budget
Although we have some moves that we have planned on 1 .7 to mitigate that effect, if not high,
do you think we can end up on a budget because it's already gone to nearly 16 million from
nowhere over the years?
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:30:58
I'm not going to commit to anything because as you quite rightly highlighted that this
is a very difficult area and there are a number of factors which are having significant impact.
We know there's another matter which was mentioned yesterday by the cabinet member in his report,
I mean, you've got the Renters' Rights Act,
that's going to be coming into law,
that yes, while it brings in strong protections for renters,
there are, unfortunately, as being mentioned by industry,
there are going to be a lot of unexpected repercussions
with the impact it might have on landlord behaviour
and on tenancy.
So there are a lot of pressures coming on this,
but I mean, Dave, if you want to highlight more on that.
I think probably just to add that we have set out a range of measures in the report
Mr David Skinner - 0:31:46
and there are a range of considerations that are ongoing that will play out to try and
take account of any forecast growth in terms of going through.
As you said, Councillor Dinn, it's been an area of growth and that reflects the national
trend in this area.
You will have seen potentially some announcements from the minister over the past few months
in terms of looking at the amount of funding that is provided through housing benefit in
terms of things like on the local housing allowance rates that are going through and
that is being considered but we get to see the detail of those.
I guess the question in terms of what we will see in future years, then we will have to
question as we go through budget scrutiny as well and there'll be a bit
more detail hopefully available then but it is an area of volatility it's one of
our critical five areas in terms of kind of going through and it's an area that
the council is definitely looking at but it is is subject to a lot of external
forces
Cllr John Chilver - 0:33:02
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:33:09
Yes, just a brief one. As home school transport was raised, will the imposition of VAT have
any impact on the service bearing in mind that some people receive a grant to organise
their own homeschool transport even if it's just administration cost to this
Mr David Skinner - 0:33:33
council. So if if that is applied on on taxi fares then we'll be able to recover
the VAT since there'll be no bottom line impact in terms of on our budgets and
it will just get added to the the VAT return so there would be relatively
minor administrative impact but it will come through.
Sorry, on those that receive a grant to organise their own home school transport, am I correct
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:33:58
in putting it that way, that we give some people a grant and they organise their own?
Mr David Skinner - 0:34:09
Yes, so we award personal transport budgets in terms of going through, so I haven't seen
as of the day after the budget any any proposals in terms of
Changing that bunch will that be an area that the team will consider?
Sorry again would that have a risk to us if that scenario were to be so I
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:34:26
Mr David Skinner - 0:34:28
Think we need to look and see what the policy objectives are
Cllr John Chilver - 0:34:33
Thank you very much councillor poll are there any more questions on the revenue forecast
If not, I think we can move on to Councillor Dali.
Cllr Christine Adali - 0:34:47
Thank you. I'm so sorry.
Given that the key savings for 25 -26 is 24 .7 for children's education which also relies
on the 10 new in -house children's homes or is it only for part of them given that we
know that home 9 and 10 will definitely not open this year and some are awaiting still
approval. So is there a risk of more slippage on that saving?
So the delivery was based on the existing profile as you have seen in the capital report
Mr David Skinner - 0:35:34
that follows on, and there has been a little bit of movement in terms of within that, but
ultimately we're still able to deliver the same value savings, partly by looking at some
of the occupancy rates within the existing homes that are already up and running, and
also then looking at the staffing model as well that we've got within those homes.
So we're still delivering the same value savings, albeit in a slightly different configuration.
Thank you very much.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:35:58
I think we can now move on to capital.
So back to you, Councillor Carrington, to introduce this.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:36:07
So I'll move you to page 39.
So on the capital reprofiling,
so this was a report which I took to Cameron it two weeks ago.
So really it's sort of divided into four real sections.
So really the first point is, so there's expected 2 .6 million pounds of additions to the capital
programme, which was funded from developer section 106 contributions to progress the
number of sports and leisure works and bus stop improvements.
The next bit was the removal of just under £6 million from the capital programme.
This was to remove the project that had not yet started, which was to develop a site in
High Wycombe for a blue light partner, which was originally to be funded from borrowing,
but this is no longer viable.
The third sort of section of it was the general sort of re -profiling of the
programme to significant figure of £56 million pushing into future years.
This is including £22 million across the the HIF programme, mainly on
CELAR as the spend profile has been realigned ahead of the programme
Bridge lift which is scheduled for December. The other major figure adding
into that 56 million is 16 million pounds on children in education projects
including 4 .3 million pounds on Kingsborough secondary expansion which
has moved into next year as costings are being finalised ahead of construction.
The fourth and final section of it is in regard to a release of 7 .8 million pounds of funding
on existing projects which are now ready for delivery including significant investment
in the Better Bus Capital programme. Dave, is there anything more you want to add on
the re -profiling point?
Nothing to add for me.
Mr David Skinner - 0:38:18
Thank you very much indeed.
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:38:22
Any questions from members?
Councillor Tett.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:38:24
I just had one simple one.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:38:28
On the re -profiling on the environment climate change and waste budget, 1 .7 relates to Buckingham
HRC.
Does that mean the Buckingham HRC programme is in delay?
what actually has caused that delay and what the risks associated with that delay.
Mr David Skinner - 0:38:58
So from memory then I don't think it means that overall the anticipated
programme is delayed there's just some slight change in terms of the expected
expenditure. I would probably say like some of the other projects and we are
we are working on improving it. There's a degree of optimism bias in terms of the
kind of activity that we can that we try to bring forward but actually probably
where we're ending up is a slightly more realistic achievement on that.
Jeremy, can I just cheque? I mean I completely understand there's optimism bias and so on.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:39:30
This particular proposal has been in the budget for many years and
therefore just looking for confirmation that there are no risks associated with
that or consequences as a result of the 1 .7 slippage. I'm quite happy to take a written
response if the officer isn't conversant with all of the facts at the moment.
Mr David Skinner - 0:39:55
Cllr Christine Adali - 0:39:57
Councillor Dali. Just two small questions. On Figure 3 within
the capital budgets, the actual for culture and leisure says 1 .834 million and the forecast
is 1 .739 million. Is there some income budgeted that wasn't mentioned in the, usually the
actual should at least be the same if not lower than the forecast and not higher, so
that confused me a bit.
Sorry, which page are we on? It's page 15 on the capital, figure 3, so
the first thing. On the culture and leisure, if you look at the actuals, it says 1 .834
million, but the forecast is still the budget total. So the actual is higher than the forecast.
Is there some reserves being transferred or some additional income or usually the actual
should be lower or at least the same? So I'm just a bit surprised.
I'll need to take that away and look at it. Thank you. And the second question is just
Mr David Skinner - 0:41:07
Cllr Christine Adali - 0:41:08
more of a comment on the capital programme on Kingsbrook Secondary School. The finish
date is November, which is just a bit of an odd date for a school to open and also on
primary schools that are planned in the same programme. They have opening dates in September,
which I imagine that the school leadership and the teaching staff won't be happy about,
because what do you do if that slips? Where do you put the children? Do they stay at home
or are they in different settings? What is the plan there? With a school opening in November,
I just can't see that being very practical. Or will it be empty for a year?
Mr David Skinner - 0:41:50
So school completion dates do vary over the course of the year, they don't necessarily
always align either with school years or school term dates in terms of going through. The
exact detail for those schools I'd need to take away but it's not unusual for schools
to open on those different dates. Some of them are that pupils will come and be accommodated
elsewhere and come in part way through the year in terms of going through because some
of them aren't complete schools so in particular I think Kingsbrook is a number of additional
forms that are being put in not the complete school but the exact details
Cllr John Chilver - 0:42:24
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:42:28
need to get back to you. Thank you. Councillor Wilson. Thank you. On the
Orchard House project my question to that is if we won't be hosting the
public sector tenant is there a option for us to find an alternative location
within our properties? Or will we be having a loss of income associated with that? Maybe
not in this financial year, but presumably if we were fitting it out, then I presume
this is the communities project that was planned for that centre. So is there an alternative
that we can take advantage of from the public realm? And or will we have to be booking a
no income wearers we might have planned some income on that is my first question.
Mr David Skinner - 0:43:24
So in terms of there's no detriment in terms of the MTFP in terms of kind of going through
in terms of revenue loss and obviously then we'd look in terms of utilising that land
and as far as I'm aware then the prospective tenant hasn't come back to suggest that there
are other sites that work but for this project then for a whole variety of different reasons
not least financial viability for the prospective tenant then it didn't work out for them.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:43:57
So we put the capital cost in but no income associated with rental in the MTFP is that
correct?
Mr David Skinner - 0:44:04
Cllr John Chilver - 0:44:06
Thank you. Second question, Chairman.
Yes. Yes.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:44:11
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:44:20
Just to highlight as a reminder that a cabinet on the 11th of November on Agenda Item 14,
it was voted for Orchard House was one of its it's called the Seattle surplus
Council sites in High Wycombe Orchard House is one of those surplus sites
which is they started the programme we all start the process of marketing for
disposal okay thank you I should have remembered that and second question is
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:44:48
when you look at the capital reprofiling and the previous conversation about the
the ESG deficit, what's the net cash position
at quarter two versus where we had anticipated to be
because I'm coming back to the earlier question from Councillor Tett about
interest income, does this give us a slight
advantage as to where we thought we were going to be on potential interest income
from treasury management and is that included in the
outlook?
Mr David Skinner - 0:45:25
So I don't know the exact net cash position off the top of my head at the end of Q2. What
I would say is that the forecast position takes account of the latest cash flow forecasts.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:45:39
The point is, are you referring to capital receipts?
No, I was referring to capital re -profiling. It's obviously going to potentially free up
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:45:51
some cash. So you would anticipate that there will be more cash and for as long as interest
rates are attractive then there may be a net impact on the corporate line in
terms of the Treasury management so and whether that was included or not.
So just to reiterate then so that the latest forecast will take account of the
Mr David Skinner - 0:46:16
net cash position because in particular then the largest significant items
moving are things like the HIF funded elements and therefore then it's the
related to those as well. So it's the net position, not just the expenditure position,
but the latest forecast that we've got for the Treasury management forecast takes account
of all of those elements.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:46:44
Thank you. Any other questions? If not, Committee has asked to note the report. Are we content
to do that?
We do.
Thank you very much indeed. So we can move on to the next item on the agenda, which is

6 ICT and AURA Programme

on the ICT and Aura programme and as well as the cabinet member for resources. We are joined
by Sarah Murphy -Brookman, the Corporate Director of Resources and also Tanay Tank, who is the
head of IT. Councillor Carrington, are you interested in using this paper?
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:47:18
Thank you very much. And this, I'll give a very, very quick overview. So I know it comes
annually to the committee and it's a two -parter. I mean the first part of it
is the ICT one programme which we all remember was the programme of when we had
moving from the legacy councils to Buckinghamshire Council of doing the very
glamorous work of putting all our ICT systems, basically putting five
systems into one and we are, I'm glad you say, very nearly at the end of it and we are
in the process of drafting a new IT strategy for the next five years or so.
We, TANE, still have a fantastic job on that.
So the strategy has yet to be finalised.
It hasn't been to cabinet yet.
I mean, as you'll see in the paper, the date it is expected to come to this committee is
in April next year.
And then the next sort of part of this general item is the Aura programme, in regards to our
SNAP improvement.
As you see, we've done a lot of work on this, on professionalising everything and sort of
getting it in track and this will be another one
which will be ending next year
and will then transition to a new sort of programme of work
of what our future needs will look like.
I mean that work is already underway
but they will have more information to share
on that next year.
So Sarah, do you wanna go or?
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 0:49:07
And just to, as a reminder for the committee,
so these are one of the reports that you get annually
and it brings you up to date on the activity in the previous year.
Because you're a new committee of members,
it's probably worth just reflecting on the five -year journey that we've had.
So from the point of vesting day, the IT ONE programme was set up,
as the name suggests, to move on to single instances,
whether it is a single instance in terms of our physical assets,
such as our networks,
or single instances in terms of our systems and applications.
And this document, this report sets out what's happened over those five years.
And it has been a really significant body of work,
which all of the IT team have really put their shoulder to the wheel on.
And when we talk to other councils and in fact other private sector organisations,
What always happens when you have what's essentially a merger is the merger happens,
the organisation is brought together, people are working in their new teams,
but when you look under the hood of the car, so to speak, there's a lot of spaghetti wiring
in order to make sure all of the systems hang together and talk to each other.
So whilst we put all of that ad hoc wiring in place to be able to make us work on day one,
there's been a programme of work to unpick that, as I say,
and move on to those single instances.
And that has been a very, very significant amount of work,
but very pleased to say that we're nearly there.
In terms of the remaining systems,
the major systems that we've got
where we have multiple instances,
probably the one that's noteworthy
is the uniform, one uniform programme,
which is our planning teams use.
That has been a really complex programme of work,
but we think that that should complete mid next year,
so that will be really, really good news.
So that is an overview, if you like,
the history of the WAN programme.
With regard to the Aura programme,
we were very aware from the point of vesting day
that this was one of the systems where actually
we brought it all together,
so we were ready on the 1st of April.
So we didn't have multiple financial and HR systems
and payroll systems, it was all moved on to SAP,
which is our RERP.
That was very good news,
because obviously we then went straight into the pandemic.
So we didn't have the problem of having our finances
across multiple systems and our HR and payroll processes
across multiple systems.
That said, it was still complicated to bring all of that together to consolidate county
council functions and district council functions.
So we set up a programme of work which was called the Aura Programme, which was looking
at making sure that SAP was more customer focused, where we could, that we simplified
to be able to reduce costs and that we made best use of the systems.
And this has been really, really important because we knew from the outset of that piece
of work that the SAP was an old system and it was heavily customised and we perhaps had
lost some of our knowledge about it.
So working through this we have process mapped our primary processes, really understood them,
understood the issues that were facing managers and the subject matter experts within finance
and HR to look at what we could change in order to simplify and to recognise the things that we
can't simplify within the current system but we wouldn't want to replicate if we were moving
onto something else. So it's been a really extensive programme and has increased our
organisational knowledge and maturity and the knowledge and the understanding that we've
gained from this is really important as we move into thinking about and what might we replace it
with because unless you understand your as is, you can't specify your to be. And we spent
a lot of time as well understanding the lessons learned from other councils. So those are
well documented of some of the difficulties that have occurred. And the primary reason
why that is, is because those councils haven't understood their as is landscape. So we now
have a good understanding of that. This isn't to say that this isn't a challenge, going
be a challenging piece of work, but we move into this with a really good foundation level
of knowledge. And we will obviously bring back to this committee in the future once
it has been through all of the business case processes and been through Cabinet and so
on, what our recommendations are and our decisions on the next steps on that. But I think it
to assure this committee that the work that has been done
has been incredibly important.
And as important is the fact that we have now supported
the business through all of the movement
onto their single instances of systems.
So we've now created bandwidth and capacity
within the business to be able to now focus
on this ERP programme, which again will be,
it will touch everybody one way or another
in the organisation, not least because everybody
books their annual leave using it.
So it will require a big organisational buy -in.
I think I will pause there.
Tanae, is there anything that you want to say?
Tanay Tank - 0:54:52
Thanks, Sarah.
So I've been with the organisation for eight months now.
The team have done a fantastic job
to take four organisations, bring it together
in regards to technology point of view,
but also a change point of view
from a people point of view.
So I feel we're in a very good place right now
to take us to the next five years is,
as Sarah has mentioned,
it's gonna be around this ERP programme,
but also how do we continue to leverage
existing applications that we have?
How do we use it to drive value creation,
not just for internal workforce, but for our residents?
So I think we've got an exciting next five years to go,
which we'll come back and present in April.
Cllr John Chilver - 0:55:41
Thank you very much indeed. So I'm opening the discussion up to the floor. Councillor
Ted.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:55:45
Thank you. First of all, just to congratulate the team really on the work they've done.
I know how horrendous it was trying to bring together not just five, but actually more
than five very disparate IT systems in the time that they have done. And I think a lot
of credit quite frankly goes to, with respect to Tene's predecessor, who really was momentum
on making this all happen and all credit to him at the time.
I think that my observation is,
eight, it's been fantastic what you've done.
In the last five years since all the councils came together,
two things have emerged that perhaps
were less high profile at the time.
One obviously is artificial intelligence,
and I'm aware that this council has been a leader
nationally in local government on that.
And the second is cyber security.
And I'm aware that there appears to have been
a major security leak, apparently lunchtime yesterday.
Some important information apparently got out
into the public domain.
I'm not sure what it was, but I've heard that rumour.
I just wonder if you could tell us and through us also
the members of the public who may be watching this,
a little bit about your learning from that
and how you're incorporating that learning
into the new programme going forward
on both artificial intelligence and on the cyber security side.
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 0:57:09
Can I, so just on the cyber security side, I think probably the thing just to say to
the committee given that this is an open forum is clearly we won't be talking about the controls
and the processes that we have in place. But that said, we are absolutely vigilant about
it and I think Councillor Carricone. Just to be clear, I wasn't asking for the
details of the cyber security. I'm talking about the general principles of learning.
Cllr Robert Carington - 0:57:30
Yeah, no, thank you very much, Councillor Tarr, and I, like you, have no idea what sort
of leak you could be referring to at all. But on a serious note, I think as I
announced at Council last night, there has recently been a cyber, this week, a
cyber attack on a number of London councils who has integrated systems and
I know there are outages and in some cases,
I think they're back online,
but it took a long time on that.
So I mean, obviously we've been monitoring that
very, very closely and it comes as a very timely reminder
not to lower our vigilance.
I obviously won't get into full detail
of sort of what we've been doing to rectify that,
I mean, to sort of our measures,
but I mean, I would just once again urge vigilance.
I mean, it comes down to,
as we all know that the weak link in any organisation
is the individuals, so it does come down to training and just getting the message out
that if there is any message which looks dodgy, it probably is, so leave it alone and report
it to IT and please do your training.
Sorry, AI.
Yes, sorry.
Sorry.
Yeah, so AI is one, is obviously a very fast moving area
and is one the council, I mean,
the previous administration is put into the MTFP.
There is a half a million that baked in,
which is going into a number of things,
which we've been looking at mainly chat boxes
for a number of particular items.
I think Fix My Street being one of those.
I know some people don't have the best experience with that
but I mean there's obviously a constantly evolving area.
AI is one, we also have a number of tests in other areas.
I mean, minute taking is another one
and there are obviously some other ones
but I don't want to go into too much detail again
but Sarah, is there any more on the AI?
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 0:59:41
On the AI, so like as you say, Councillor Tett, we've been really proactive on this,
but we've been proportionate as well. We don't want to be swept along by the sort
of the hyperbole, so we've assessed and the market is moving so fast, so we've
been really careful to assess and make sure that we get a proper ROI out of any
purchase that we made. So things that we have, we've invested into, so we were part
of the Microsoft Early Adopter Programme in terms of co -pilot.
And that's been incredibly useful to be part of that.
One, because we led a working group
across all of local government in terms
of assessing the capabilities of co -pilot, which
have matured as that program's gone underway.
and so we were able to share learnings and so on.
So that, we've formed really great networks from that.
We've actually decided at this point not to roll out the full co -pilot into the whole council
because we don't think that it's necessary.
We have co -pilot chat within the Microsoft 365 suite that we already buy as standard.
We think for most people that that is sufficient, but where there is a business case,
So we do have some areas, so our EAs, for example,
where we're doing a lot of transcription of meetings,
et cetera, then there is a clear ROI there.
So those people will have a full co -pilot licence.
So we're quite, well, not quite, we are very careful on that
to make sure there is a return on that investment.
Other things that we've invested into already are Magic Notes.
So this is well documented in terms of the transcription
and summarisation for social workers.
Those social workers talk about it as being absolutely transformative
in terms of the administrative work that they have to do.
Quite honestly, if you don't have magic notes,
you'll be lagging behind the market as an employer.
So that is now almost a must -have, a bit like Microsoft 365.
We're doing a similar tool, an agility tool for Ed Psych,
So for the HCPs, again, a slightly different tool
and more tailored to their requirements.
So we're seeing staff reduction in terms of the administration there.
I think that there was a really lovely example,
so less about AI particularly, but about automation.
So we're looking at all of the automation tools
that we already have within our Microsoft suite.
And there was, and I always forget, but Councillor Teck, you will know,
whether it's Ruffwood or Brushwood Lane, the permit.
Ruffwood Lane.
Ruffwood Lane, that's the one.
And the highways team have built,
using our internal tools already,
that we already had a permit scheme.
And they got that up and running within,
I think it was something like two weeks.
They saved something in the order of,
they reckon about 10 ,000 pounds, possibly more,
in terms of having to bring somebody in to build this.
And they were able to, they've been able to issue
thousands and thousands of permits.
And that has worked really, really positively.
So people could apply, they had people applying
at like three o 'clock in the morning for them
and they were able to get their permit back
within 10 minutes.
So, you know, the power of this in terms of
better accessibility for our residents,
a better service is really, really powerful.
Other things that we're doing, we've just launched
something that we call the innovation hub.
So we're encouraging everybody across the council
to come forward with ideas
of how we can improve our processes.
Those are then triaged and we look at what IT
and or AI that we have in house already can be deployed
to be able to service that.
But Tanay, do you want to say a little bit about that?
Because that is, we're sharing this with councils
as an idea and this is really groundbreaking.
Tanay Tank - 1:03:48
Yeah, definitely. So two parts of it. First is trying to leverage existing technologies
that we have that we're paying for. Two is really getting our services, the organisations
engaged around opportunity, around automation and savings. And three, what we've done is
stand up a team internally within IT to allow to fast track this throughout the organisation
to get the value. And the last thing that we've actually done is we've created a profile
called Citizen Developer, where we're training our employees
to be able to leverage and use these tools properly
to take advantage of this.
So a number of good things there.
And just on another note, just on the co -pilot,
the reason we've decided to not go with the full version
of Microsoft Co -pilot is things are continuing to change
and advance daily, and the free version of Co -pilot
is really at a position where it's almost for the value
of the paid co -pilot version. So things continue to evolve.
Thank you very much. That all sounds very positive to me.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:04:51
Cllr Andy Huxley - 1:04:55
Councillor Huxley, I think you were next. Thank you, Chairman. We talk about AORA already
giving a savings of 2 .6 million by 31st of March 2026 and it says the programme goes
through to 30. Is there a projected figure of what it might save us to the end of that
period and can somebody tell me what the single email system for the council is?
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:05:33
So the 2 .6 million, just so it's really clear, that is, it supported the delivery of 2 .6.
So it hasn't directly, but it's been a key enabler. So there will have been savings that
needed to be made in terms of improving our accounts payable or accounts receivable. The
AURA programme will have done all of the work in terms of process mapping and so on to allow
us to then make the savings. So it's a contributor too. The 2030 is actually the new IT strategy.
So AURA will end at the end of this financial year, so the 31st of March 2026. The 2030
I think is the new IT strategy you're talking about or maybe confused if you want to point
me to the paragraph. It is. So that will be, that we'll come back in April to present that
Cllr John Chilver - 1:06:27
to you. Okay, thank you. And single email system? Oh sorry, single email system. So
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:06:30
that was a must have for day one in the, for the new council so that we all had a bukimeshare .gov .uk
otherwise if we hadn't have had that we'd have had our legacy emails of Buckinghamshire
County Council and so on which would have been looked a bit ridiculous.
All right, thank you. Thank you. Councillor Wilson I think you're next.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:06:54
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:06:57
Thank you. As I'm aware of two data leaks yesterday, because I got notification from one from OpenAI
one of their front -end suppliers has an issue which shows that OpenAI and AI in
general is problematic. On the cyber, there's a short paragraph here about Boxfish and we've
introduced mandatory training for members. Could you please give us an update on how
that is going because I sometimes get the odd reminder that I need to give members of
my group a little bit of encouragement to complete their training and I do think we
need to be transparent for both staff and members in terms of how we do?
Well, thank you for that and yes, no, we're currently, I can very happily say for
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:07:49
quarter one, we are at 100 % plans for the second tranche, we're at 81 % but we
still have I think two weeks to go and I would urge everyone to do it because
to show the seriousness of this, that if people are unable to do it, well do not do it, they
will lose access to their emails, some of their systems, because we cannot have people
who are not properly sort of clued up and trained on it having access, because as I
said, the individual is the weak link, so we need to be strict on that.
So I would again urge everyone you know and yourself, if everyone here would have done
but everyone you know, please do your training so we can get to 100.
Always happy to help, Rob.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:08:40
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:08:47
Second point which I've been aware of is that I think Town and Parish Councils will be required to issue email addresses, .gov .uk email addresses to all their councillors, I think by the end of this year.
and I think for those members
and probably about 50 % of councillors are members of
Town and Parish Councils, they're going to be shifting between
two .gov .uk email addresses
and I just wonder whether or not the
team are aware of that and the
potential implications that might create
because people you know may well be navigating. I think it's really helpful that we all have the same
some members are potentially going to be having two .gov .uk email addresses.
And I think that could be causing some challenges and I wonder whether that's something you
might want to take away and think about.
Thank you for raising that and looking around the table, I think quite a few people have
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:09:47
that problem and I think you will take that away and look into that.
Thank you for raising that.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:09:53
Is that a statutory requirement?
Right.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Nidhi Mehta - 1:10:06
The transition looks really good.
The report is quite positive.
But my question is, what are the biggest legacy risks from the one programme that could follow
us into the next five years?
Do we have any?
or it's like done and dusted, we have moved on?
The risks, I would say, are low.
I think there's more opportunity than risk
Tanay Tank - 1:10:35
around how do we now leverage the systems that we have
and take the most use out of it
to standardise our processes across the organisation.
So I think that's the biggest opportunity
that we have going into the next five years.
and as Sarah mentioned there's the one programme, the uniform programme that we need to complete,
that's the final one.
Are you happy with that, Councillor Maita?
Cllr Nidhi Mehta - 1:11:06
If I may ask one more question, though I think some of the parts have been answered already.
How is the ORRA programme measuring the productivity gains, not just delivering the milestones?
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:11:24
So the productivity gains are, so the savings occur within resources and resources as a
directorate is probably 90 % of its budget is headcount. So the savings that we make
are through headcount reductions but it's no good just taking out headcount without
changing the processes. So we're getting, we're improving our processes which allow us to take out
the headcount and retain efficiency and therefore productivity because it's done off a lower headcount.
So correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just assuming. So when Councillor Huxley asked about the 2 .1 million
Cllr Nidhi Mehta - 1:12:01
saving by the Oura programme, does that not have the headcount or does it include the headcount?
That will include the headcount. Okay, thank you. Great, thank you. Councillor
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:12:19
poll. Thank you Chairman. Just a brief one on the legacy data centres into new two locations
but shared with BHT, Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust. Are there any risks to that sharing
with another organisation please.
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:12:43
So that was a strategic decision that was taken.
So we have a network which we've procured with BHT that actually
gives us benefits because it means that we can share,
in a controlled way we can share data in terms of social care
data and patient data.
So it helps our particular adult social care.
Likewise, the legacy moving into the shared data centres
again that was a deliberate decision to do that because it gives us economies of
scale with a trusted partner. So that has worked really well for us as an
organisation so it's a positive aspect of the way that we configure our all of
our infrastructure as opposed to a negative.
I may just come back because that's I've just realised that we were discussing
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:13:34
this in HASC over the years about patients with through the health service could sign a declaration
that they didn't want their data shared so would that apply where we have a data sharing scheme
with BHT so we couldn't access data that we might need or be entitled to? So I can't answer the
specific details on that here, so I can take that away,
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:14:05
but we are clearly very acutely aware
of the sensitivities of personal data.
But we can bring a written statement back for you.
Just to follow up Councillor Pohl's point,
Cllr John Chilver - 1:14:19
how far are we on track in terms of moving
all our systems to the cloud?
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:14:30
Tanay Tank - 1:14:32
So over the last five years, 98 % of our systems have been moved to the cloud.
And that's where we host it right now, either on the Azure environment, which is our cloud
environment or third party cloud environment.
So we've done a lot of good work over the last five years.
That sounds very positive.
Councillor Pole?
Cllr John Chilver - 1:14:54
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:14:56
Just on that, I mean, Councillor Chilva and I are long enough in this building that we
had a tour of an empty top floor where all the hardware used to be. Presumably it's now
just filled with diverters because everything is elsewhere. But on the cloud issue we've
I've had a few instances lately of major systems going down, even be it for a couple of days.
I heard banks were affected and all sorts. I mean the actual impact escapes me but I
know it was huge. So is that a risk for us or do we have backup systems or alternatives?
Tanay Tank - 1:15:48
Yes, it's always going to be a risk. We have resilient systems in place for our key tier
one applications. We also have backups in place for the tier one applications and the
backups are also encrypted, again, making it secure. So we're in a good place there.
There's always going to be dependencies on third parties, as you've seen recently with
Cloudflare. Yeah, so there's going to be instances like that which again we don't have control
of, but we do have control of our data, which is the most important.
Thank you. I can't see any more hands up, so I think we can bring this item to a close.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:16:30
The recommendations are one, to note the transition from the ONE programme to the IT strategy for
next five years and we look forward to seeing and discussing the new IT strategy in our
April meeting.
And secondly, to note and update the progress on the ORRA programme.
I think we can agree that.
Thank you.
And we move on to the next item, which is the corporate performance report.
We have the KPIs for the leaders portfolio and the resources portfolio.

7 Performance Monitoring Quarter 2

and I understand Councillor Covington you are covering both of those.
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:17:10
Thank you very much chair and yes I am having the privilege of doing that.
So just very quick sort of introduction so the report details reported to
performance outcomes and commentary for the council's key performance indicators.
Also highlight that improvement actions are listed in the report against each
indicator where applicable and the detailed work plan
are in progress that will drive improvement
in performance out turns.
I mean, moving very quickly to the portfolios themselves,
I will just focus on the reds and one of the ambers.
And we'll then also open up to questions on anything
you have in mind.
So I mean, on the leaders portfolio,
there is one red here, which is in regard
to strategic infrastructure projects,
percentage of profile spend achieved.
So this is at 38 .2 % against a target of 50%.
This is obviously down to CELAR.
This is because major infrastructure projects,
and as we know that with construction,
keeping things on track time and track and spend
is always very difficult.
So I mean, that is the reason for that red.
moving into my portfolio, so the first red is on the average call wait time
where yes we have a target of three minutes but the out term for quarter two
is seven minutes. I know the graph is showing an unwelcome increase. Part of
commentary and the reason for this is Q2 we will see cyclically there is a
high volume of calls because we have the single person discount and home to
school transport inquiries respectively there's about 5 ,000 and 3 ,000 per month
so within the quarter sorry per item and then also there was the
unexpected news regarding change in service provider for community equipment services,
NRS and then customer service team taking up the telephone line for that, which saw
a total of just under 5 ,000 calls in August and September. I mean, to really put that
in stark relief. Sorry to put the focus on that. At one point, I mean at the high point
they were doing well over 1300 additional contacts per week. So the additional resource
was put in to deal with this. But I mean, what also just to highlight that, yes we see
that the average call wait time has gone up. But we do not see is that for all of these
items, the actual average handle time is very high because I mean these are all very complex
items. I mean pulling them out, the average handle time for Q2 for a call, an NRS call,
was 14 minutes. And we have other things with box highways, it's sort of 12 minutes and
the average handle time for the Q2 was 11 minutes.
So we are seeing very complex calls,
which require a lot of time,
which will inevitably have the pushback
on the average wait time.
But to end on a positive,
we are starting to see that,
so NRS, that line has sort of been transferred over,
and we are now seeing the average call time
at the latter part of September for all lines was three minutes and 40 seconds.
So that is where we are with that one. The other red is voluntary staff
turnover where we have a target of 12 % and the out -term was 9 .3%.
I mean the simple explanation for this is that the labour market is not very
at the moment. I mean there are a number of very obvious reasons for that. I mean
yesterday and the uncertainty leading up to that being a major reason for that. So
that is the reason for that one. And then so the amber I want to draw your
attention to. I mean it is an amber but I mean this is one I have raised in
cabinet. I think it's one we really really do need to highlight as a great
achievement of the work that the team has done and this is in regard to number of
sickness absence days per full -time employee annually. So we have a target of 8 .5 days lost
and the out turn is 8 .77. The reason why I'm sort of holding this up and I'm not quite singing but
holding this up as a major achievement is that just to put this into context,
The public sector for Q2 lost 13 .3 days.
The average of public, private, and the council was at 9 .77 days,
while the private sector was at 9 .1 days.
So, very much I'll highlight that we are better than the private sector in Q2
in regard to the number of sick days lost.
and this is down to management, targeted interventions,
and work with management teams in getting to dealing
with their employees and having the tools
for these interventions.
So I will now stop and hand over for,
actually do you want to say anything before questions?
Thank you very much indeed.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:22:59
questions colleagues. Councillor Crabtree. Thank you. First of all I'm just worried I
Cllr Anna Crabtree - 1:23:08
might be missing something because it says in the beginning of the report that
there are 16 red alerts but we've only discussed three. Do we have the backup
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:23:20
reports that show the other findings? So that refers to all everything. I mean that
refers to all the portfolios. I mean today you are looking at the leader and
and resources.
Okay, so that's what we're expecting, that's fine.
Cllr Anna Crabtree - 1:23:29
I just wanted to double cheque.
In that case, I just have a question
about the call wait times.
So I know what you're saying about the improvement
partway through September,
and the significant reduction in timings.
Presumably when we look at the quarter two data as a whole,
that is therefore skewed positively
because of the shorter wait times at the end.
So I just wondered what the average times
had been before that point. Was it eight minutes or nine minutes or ten minutes in August or
the beginning of September, for example. It's fine if we understand you probably don't have
this available to hand right now, but I'd be happy to have it later.
And I was wondering what the longest wait times were that the system had recorded and
whether we had any information about, for example, if somebody's been waiting for 15
minutes and they give up and they hang it up, do we record dropped calls so that we
know if people are hanging around so long that they just give up. Thank you.
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:24:27
Obviously on the detailed data and we will have to get back to you on that but
I mean just from my personal experience so I was very lucky that during
customer service week I went and attended for about over an hour and in
the call centre to see a number of calls and when I was there I mean yes I was
seeing waiting times of, this was sort of early September, end of August time, waiting
times of about 20 minutes for some of the lines, I mean, particularly the ones sort
of which I mentioned, I mean, NRS and continents in particular, because as I was trying to
sort of say during my narrative, the handle times on that is having a major pushback on
that, and yes, we have put additional resource in, but that will sort of always have an impact.
And on the highest recorded one, unless you have that to your head,
I think we'll have to get back to you on that.
And on drop calls, I think we do record those until the moment or drop.
So that data is included in there.
I think probably the only thing I would say without that data,
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:25:34
but as sort of the flip side of it, is there were no call time wait complaints.
So we are really careful in terms of the messaging that we put on the call lines.
We explain if there are long waits.
We explain different ways that people can access information.
We do callbacks so people can ask for a callback and the callback is done on the same day.
So we put a lot of interventions in place to try and handle it.
But to Councillor Carrington's point, as an example, the NRS lining, people want to talk
to us about the particular continence products
that they have that they're trying to source.
And many times, and I think you heard this as well,
things like the prescription from the GP
often is not correct.
There is nothing that we can do about that.
So the residents are understandably very frustrated,
but we're having to refer them back to the GPs
to get a new prescription.
So it is, some of them are difficult, long and lengthy calls but the agents work really hard at it
and hence why I think, and plus all the messaging and the callbacks and so on,
we're able to make sure that there aren't called wait time complaints.
Thank you very much. Councillor Dillard.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:26:58
Cllr Dev Dhillon - 1:27:00
Thank you Chairman. If I can expand on to our call time,
I know over out in 5 % above the target take us to the red.
If my memory serves, I think this is the first time
I've seen where we have annual single person discount review
and home to school transport, both very critical sectors
to be having at the same quarter,
especially the single person are normally elderly residents.
And I know I had a lot of complaints in my own patch.
We have another quarters, why do we have the same review in August, September when there's a school admission and home to school transport at its peak?
Or is there any rationale behind that?
Mr David Skinner - 1:27:59
So in terms of the rationale for why we have to undertake single person discount at that
time of the year is we obviously have to wait for annual billing to conclude and that obviously
runs through then by the time that we get through any queries that come through from
annual billing in terms of council tax we then run single person discount and actually
we've got a significant number of residents that are in receipt of single person discount.
So we try to stagger it so that we don't get a huge surge of people all in one go.
There's, I can't remember the exact numbers, but it's a material figure in terms of our
total tax base, so therefore then we try to phase it in, in effect over the course of
the year.
We then obviously then have to allow enough time to then process any of those queries,
resolve any of those issues before we then get round to the next annual billing cycle
in terms of going through and it's important to remember that when we're talking about
doing this we're dealing with a tax base of 238 ,000 residents. So it's a significant sum
of work and there are a number of freezes that start to come into the system before
we can start running the annual billing cycle to make sure the kind of system updates go
through and any information that's required. So that's why we start to do it. So there
There are very, very narrow windows that we can use
to start to do that work.
I'm happy with that, Chairman,
but if we know every year that happens,
Cllr Dev Dhillon - 1:29:25
can we actually add some extra resources on that?
Mr David Skinner - 1:29:32
So we look to find the most efficient way of doing it,
and we kind of go through.
Any additional resources, unfortunately,
the
resources that we hold.
And so, we will see what we can do to
try to align with the optimum degree of
efficiency, but there are limits to what we can do within the
resource constraints that we hold.
.
.
Cllr Christine Adali - 1:30:13
I've got two questions. One regarding the calls, just a quick understanding. The ongoing
deployment of circuit breakers on phone lines during busy periods, does that mean they just
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:30:30
get cut off or do I misunderstand that? So circuit breakers are typically things like
putting in the messaging about callbacks and so on. It's that type of intervention that
we put in place. We don't cut anybody off.
I had a hunch it wasn't. I just wanted to clarify what it was, not to have a wrong impression
Cllr Christine Adali - 1:30:52
there. And then I've got a question regarding the processing of housing benefits change
claim. It's not massively over the eight days, it's fine, but in quarter one the performance
was 6 .39 days. So in variance to quarter one it's a two days change on the time of processing
time for housing benefits and I just wondered if that was down to the additional vacancies
or more demand or what was the driver behind that?
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:31:26
Yeah, so it gets to housing benefit claims. So we regularly see the fastest averaging
processing times falling in quarter four when we see the fewest applications. So over the
course of Q1 and Q2, so basically we revert to the mean as we process the annual rent
up list for our social housing tenants and then so that sees average processing times
held close to the eight day target. Basically it is cyclical, is sort of the quick way of
saying that rather than going into the full detail as I did unless there's something you
want to add.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:32:00
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:32:04
Thank you. Thanks. Councillor Powell. Thank you Chairman. I'm afraid mine's on
core handling as well. Looking at the the graph in the slide pack here it's clear
that the trend is upward although not not massively comparing quarter to
across the years but it is still rising. On your actions list you've got a
procurement of an AI chat platform that surely been in place for a number of
years it certainly was before vesting day in this council so did did we just
cast that asunder and go back to manual hand handle
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:32:57
So the answer is what we have is a chatbot, the AI chatbot, the AI chat platform is a
separate piece of work.
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:33:06
Yeah, so what we've got, had for a number of years now is, as Councillor Carrington
says, it's a chat, it's a bot, so where we've written decision trees, so it's relatively
narrow in what it's able to do.
It's still really good and we deployed it on our main line, so waste and council tax and so on,
but it can only answer specified questions. What we've just procured is an AI chat platform that
is able to deal with natural language on any question and it will take residents and service
users to the place within the website and or answer their questions. We're not
doing, we're not doing, although it's called chat, we're not going to deploy it
on the telephony straight away, we're going to deploy it on the website
to help people to be able to self -serve. So the call messaging will be
encouraging people to go onto the main website and use the chat because it will
you, as I say, it will be natural language and you'll be able to talk to it and it
will take you to the place to be able to undertake your transaction but it will
cover everything that's on our website whereas at the moment the bot
only covers four main areas. Thank you for the clarification. So I'm keen that
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:34:26
the improvement actions you've got presumably there's been some in place
previously and that these are sufficiently different that the slightly
upward trend from you know what is over a hundred percent extra on top of the
desired call waiting time will will have an effect so you know can you explain
that the difference as a new member of the committee you know between this set
of actions and previous. So I think probably the thing to say is that the
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:35:09
strategy has always been to have a single front door for
residents but over the years since vesting day we've pushed more and
more into the customer service centre because it's a really efficient way of
managing resident inquiries so there's more volume going in there and therefore
more work but we haven't increased the head count in fact we've taken head count
out. So you're seeing some of the consequence of that in the chart. So when we don't have
moments of peak demand, so if we haven't run a council tax summons, if we're not doing
single person discount, if we don't have to deal with NRS, if we're not dealing with green
waste, if it's just an ordinary Tuesday with nothing, no bad weather, we can absolutely
smash it on the on the call handling wait times. When those additionality
comes in where there's pressure we will go above because that is how we're not
structured to be able to deal with the peak because that's that would be way too
expensive but as you rightly observe we're struggling to hit our target so
hence why we've got we try and manage the calls we try and we try and deflect
people to use, particularly if they've previously been online to stay online,
the AI chat platforms that we've seen are really impressive in terms of the
ability to deflect calls and keep people who are able to transact digitally. So we
want to drive down the number of calls that we that we get in, not because we
don't like talking to our residences, because we're just not staffed to be
able to manage at this level of calls.
Um, and, and the ROI that we see on this and the evidence from use cases is that
this is, and from other councils, um, this is absolutely achievable.
Um, but I have to be really clear with this committee to fund this AI chat will
require us to lose agents because that's the only way that we can, that we can do
it, but we think that it will be overruled a superior service.
and then what we will have is the people that we are talking to are the people
that really need to be talking to us who have those complex relational calls
rather than things that are just transactional.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:37:35
Thank you, if I could just briefly which is why I went for the trend
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:37:37
and you very thoroughly explained that, thank you.
Yes, through the...
When a customer is waiting and they're offered that callback facility,
I think that's key because many of my residents are older,
those that have approached me,
and if they don't get an answer within a minute,
they'll probably hang out,
which could be to the detriment of everybody.
But the offer of a call back through an automated system
is ideal.
Thank you for the explanation.
Can I ask if the AI chat platform will be rolled out
Cllr John Chilver - 1:38:13
across all services simultaneously
or focused on the biggest ones?
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:38:21
I think it's being rolled out yeah but sort of by services so and we'll
obviously there'll be a test and learn process through this as well it won't
just be deployed and you know it will be very thoroughly because I think the chat
box will hold out just across some of the biggest services. Yes that's right across the four yeah.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:38:40
Councillor Wilson. I think Councillor Teth's question is relevant.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:38:46
For the second time in two days I should be waiting.
I understand that. Seriously, thank you very much.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:38:54
I understand the theory that's being put forward in terms of bringing in these new AI intercepts.
I'm slightly concerned that actually in parallel rather than sequentially you reduce the number of agents as I hear it.
And stop me if I'm wrong, that's just the way I've understood it.
are you going to be monitoring customer satisfaction?
Because at the end of the day,
this has to be not just about cost,
but actually about the service we give our customers.
And what worries me is there is the potential
for people who quite frankly don't feel comfortable
with the AI agents effectively dropping out of the system.
And there are fewer people
to actually answer the calls in real time.
I just speak as somebody who's had to deal
with a lot of utility companies recently
and other institutions.
you know HMRC for example it took me over an hour to get through you know and
and it is horrendously difficult to actually talk to a real person and I
just have a slight concern that Buckinghamshire Council will go down the
same route and we won't actually be aware of whether our residents are
actually happy or not happy with the service we're then providing as this
comes in.
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:40:12
So I can absolutely assure you that the deployment will happen first, we make sure it works before
the saving is taken out. So there is a delay on that but all of the evidence that we've
seen and this has been, we've looked at this really carefully, is that so long as we deploy
correctly that this will be very positive in terms of
the ability for customers to be able to undertake
transactions, but we are really, really aware that
there will be some residents, it's just not appropriate
for, and so absolutely we will always have a customer
service team available.
In terms of the important point that you make about
customer satisfaction.
So we measure first call resolution, and we also measure
the telephone call satisfaction, web chat
satisfaction, council access satisfaction.
And you can see all of those are green.
And everybody who takes part in it, we open this up to all
members to do call shadowing with our agents.
you'll hear how skilled and careful and caring they are with our residents
to make sure that they get the best service and a good quality
and speedy answer to enquiries. So we work really hard to balance it all.
If I could come back because I asked a question about how you measure
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:41:53
on will you be measuring customer satisfaction.
I completely understand we'll have internal metrics
looking at things like call answering and so on.
What I'm not clear on is whether we have any system
akin to what lots of companies now do,
which is at the end of a call,
they ask you how happy you were
with the way it was dealt with,
where your question was resolved first time and so on.
So I'm just wondering whether we look
at the customer perspective on how satisfied they are
with their interaction,
rather than measuring our own internal statistics.
Ms. Sarah Murphy-Brookman - 1:42:26
We absolutely do. It's on page 82 in the report on the telephony called customer satisfaction.
Is that a call back system? Just how it's done.
This indicator measures the average customer satisfaction based on responses to the customer services post call survey question about the overall telephone call experience.
Right, and that will carry on when we introduce these agents.
Absolutely, this has been enduring.
Right, super, thank you.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:42:50
Thank you, Councillor Wilson.
Thank you.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:42:54
I had a response, I made an inquiry when the papers were first published for Cabinet for these performance reports,
that the dashboard that typically comes at the back end of the report was not published,
and I had a response from the Business Intelligence Officer saying this was based on the fact that they weren't reviewed at Cabinet,
and the view was that they were considered to be duplicative. Now that we've got these
performance reports into the scrutiny committees, I found them particularly useful and certainly
that dashboard was useful particularly for this committee because it contained quite
a bit of resources information and I would respectfully ask the cabinet member to reconsider
given that we have a wider client base than just cabinet.
Perhaps the dashboards do need revamping,
but I think they are pertinent to all the scrutiny committees
because they're all now scrutinising their little sections of it,
but it's good to get back to Councillor Crabtree's question earlier,
what the overall position is.
So I would like to see those reinstated.
perhaps revamped but I think that would be helpful.
Yes, I mean it is part of the cabinet report.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:44:19
Councillor Carrington.
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:44:23
Yes, thank you very much Councillor Wilson and yes I know there was engagement on this prior to cabinet.
So yes, I mean the reason for the decision was, as I said in the response to you,
was to streamline the process and avoid the duplication of data as you said. I will obviously,
I will definitely take this away and I will ask the team to look into this. I mean there
was a concern over resourcing but I'll look into this and get back to you on this.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:45:00
Thank you. I can't see any more hands up so I think that brings us to the end of that
item and we are asked to review how the Council is performing, which I think we've all done.
That's been agreed. Thank you. So we move on to the next item, which is the

8 Budget Scrutiny Scoping Document

Budget Scrutiny Inquiry Group Scoping Paper, which sets out the proposed approach for the
Committee to the budget scrutiny process in January 2026 to analyse and assess the draught
budget. As usual we will hold meetings with all portfolio holders to develop our conclusions
and recommendations which will be presented in a report cabinet.
We have already completed three of the five preparatory briefings as listed in paragraph
1 .6 of the paper with the next one on 9 December on temporary accommodation. The timetable
The table for the scrutiny meetings is set out in paragraph 1 .7 and covers three days, the 12th, 13th and 15th of January.
The key lines of enquiries have been updated and I'd like to thank members of the committee who sent in their input and suggestions.
And they are set out in paragraph 1 .9. Those are the generic questions to be asked of all the portfolio holders. Thank you.
I have received a briefing note from Katie, our Support Officer, which she has asked me
to read out to the committee if I can find it, which basically states that we are regarded
as an exemplar in terms of the way we approach budget scrutiny.
You will see in the agenda the scoping document for our budget scrutiny process at Buckinghamshire Council.
Over the past few years I have attended budget scrutiny training sessions with both the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny led by their Chief Executive and also the Association of Democratic Service Officers.
In both cases, a range of councils discussed their budget scrutiny arrangements, and I
ascertain was informed that our budget scrutiny process is held to be one of the most thorough
in the country, and therefore held to be best practise.
This view was due to the combination of our offer of both budget briefings in November
in December, followed by an allocated, concentrated week during January of portfolio budget scrutiny
sessions.
These were considered to enable councillors a full opportunity to ask questions on the
different areas of Buckinghamshire's budget.
Further, it was notable that the amount of information provided by our officers on the
and enabled good scrutiny and onwards communication towards cabinet.
So I hope we can maintain this standard of excellence this year
and I know that the papers presented to the Scrutiny Committee
were very highly regarded last year
and I hope we can maintain that standard as well of information.
So the request of the committee is whether they can approve the
set out in this paper. I would like to invite anybody to raise questions.
Cllr Christine Adali - 1:48:41
Councillor Dali. Yes, I would like to repeat my questions.
We had a brief discussion earlier. Why the scrutiny sessions got reduced in time. There
are at least four if not five sessions that got reduced by half an hour each. And I just
ones to scrutinise in depth. If we don't need the full time, we don't use the full time,
but not being given the full time I think might be to the detriment of the scrutiny.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:49:16
I'd like to also ask about how much flexibility there might be within this timetable. Dave,
are you able to?
Mr David Skinner - 1:49:25
Just the point in terms of time was that this is a process that has evolved over a number
of years and actually the position that we arrived at last year fully accepting the fact
that this is a new committee and a different committee with different experiences was that
actually kind of there was a limited number of questions and actually they didn't require
the whole time. So what we've tried to do is to put the programme together that reflects
the actual time that was used and there was a lot of time last year for questions and
I think adequate time for questions, though it wasn't a case of curtailing any questions
and not allowing questions last year.
There was just a natural tailing off in terms of kind of those questions that were being
asked.
And also it reflects the relative scale and size of the portfolios in terms of kind of
what's going through.
So I think we've allowed an hour and a half for some of the bigger and more complicated
portfolios, but also obviously members will have received the benefit of the pre -scrutiny
sessions that you've been going through now and therefore then I think some of the smaller
portfolios I think we've allowed three quarters of an hour and then a sort of normal regular
portfolio is kind of an hour and I think that the leader's session at the beginning I think
is an hour and three quarters to kind of reflect the overview.
So that's designed to try and provide the maximum opportunity to ask questions without
adding in any additional time but obviously it's all subject to members
conversation.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:51:05
Councillor Tett. Yes thank you very much I mean I think it's interesting to note
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:51:08
that we are regarded as a sort of you know a peer role model in terms of
scrutiny and this process has evolved over probably about 15 years actually in
terms of the rigour with which we produce our budget. I think that the work the
committee has done historically has really helped improve the budget and I'm
slightly uncomfortable I have to be absolutely honest. I think there is merit
in looking at previous degrees of questioning for each portfolio and
flexing maybe some of the times rather than giving everybody the sort of same
straightjacket of time because some portfolios will be more interesting and
more requiring of scrutiny than others.
What I'm slightly uncomfortable with
is the overall reduction in time,
which feels to me as if it's reduced
where it might be possible to reduce,
but then it's also reduced effectively
where actually we might have needed more time.
Transport was always the one.
There are others that actually members may wish
to get into more detail.
I'm aware that there are already
six suggested question areas.
members may well have others.
You know, the impact of the current national budget
and its impact, you know, I'm sure will be something
that we'll want to get into and understand
how that's been taken into account in the budget
and some of the other areas that are not listed here.
So I am slightly uncomfortable with the constriction of time
in the way that is being proposed by the officers.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:52:43
Dave, could you also address the question about how much flexibility there might be
on the day if we find that we need more time or we have time left over?
Mr David Skinner - 1:52:58
So I think as Councillor Tetz alluded to, this has tried to reflect our experiences,
this has evolved so it's definitely not with the aim of curtailing any questions, it's
to try and align based on that historic experience where those portfolios that have had a longer
set of questions then have. That's what we've tried to build in to reflect that previous
experience. In terms of degrees of flexibility then obviously we can respond on the day in
terms of if there's a large volume of questions that go through to try and reflect that. Obviously
thing. I think that's a really important
thing. I think that's a really important
thing. Probably just to try and
emphasise as well that there's a lot of information that comes
out in advance. We have spent quite a lot of
time in terms of evolving the PAC so that the information I
think as Katie set out in the note to you is as transparent
as possible to facilitate that information.
The benefit of the pre -scrutiny sessions, I think, has been really powerful and the
evidence over the past few years has kind of reflected that.
And then obviously I take members through kind of the outcome from cabinet sessions
and do a session in terms of how to read the information as well in terms of going through.
So the sessions become, I think, really focused and really powerful in terms of going through and delivering that work.
But obviously there is a degree of flex on the day, so if some session is overrun,
but there's a sort of consequential impact in terms of going that,
and I'm sure that members will want some time at the end of each day to consider that day's inquiry findings.
Thanks.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:54:46
Just for clarity, can you confirm whether when we talk about the overall reduction in
time, are we comparing this with the previous version of the proposals?
Is that – yes.
And how does it compare with last year's timetable?
Mr David Skinner - 1:55:04
So I think what it reflects is the actual outcome from last year.
And again, there were some sessions where – and Councillor Wilson may well remember
this where some sessions we didn't require the full -time allocation in some sessions.
I don't think there were any sessions where we curtailed the number of questions. So it
reflects the actual time that was spent questioning last year as opposed to the time that was
allocated to it.
Cllr Dev Dhillon - 1:55:34
Yeah, thank you Chairman. I was looking at the time allocated. We have 45 minutes for
community and 45 minutes for culture in our next community and before this meeting we
were talking, I think they're quite fine. That is good timing and that's what is quite
good time allocated.
But my concern is when we come to health and housing,
allocated one hour probably won't be enough.
And the third day, we only got two portfolios.
One is environment for one hour and education for one and a half
hour, again, education takes quite a long time.
And then the closing session of leader for one hour,
30 minute.
If we are running, overrunning with any portfolio,
isn't it that we should allocate the third day and use it more for two of our sources
and then have the wash up to the end of the day because it might be very difficult to
get that cabinet member and officers for any overrun to the next day, if you know what
I mean.
Yeah, it's difficult to bring cabinet members back on different days, so I think that one
Mr David Skinner - 1:56:50
gets logistically harder. But again, we can look in terms of extending some of the sessions,
so I think health and wellbeing, as you said, there's an hour and a half for that and that's
traditionally what's been used, so I don't think we've gone over that in terms of questioning,
but we can definitely have a look to see in terms of what the original proposal was and
if members want to revert back to the original proposal then we can wash that through all
the subsequent timings.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:57:27
Thank you Chairman. I'm an engineer. No matter how much I prepare the unexpected happens
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:57:45
So I generally over prepare and I can't help but feel that you know I bow to
Councillor Dillon and Wilson's past experience but to to narrow down our
allotted time to what has gone on before when we've got a new committee of
apprentices and we've been doing our apprenticeship but we will make mistakes
and we will need to learn as we go along because this is our first one so that
would be another reason I would suggest that we just have some scope for the
unexpected.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:58:26
Thank you Councillor Tet. Yes thank you Chairman. I mean I again I echo
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:58:30
Councillor Pol's comments. We could always stop our questioning if we
actually find we're comfortable you know we've been given an hour and we finish
at 45 minutes there's nothing lost. You know my slight concern and I know this
proposals being put forward with the very best of intentions, is that we get to the end of a
period of time, and actually we've still got lots of lines of inquiry we really want to pursue,
and the guillotine comes down. And that feels uncomfortable to me.
I wouldn't mind an answer to your question, Mr Chairman. You asked, what was the allocation
of time last year vis -a -vis this proposal? I'm not clear. If it was five hours last year and
four and three quarters this year or five hours last year and three hours this year.
How has that changed?
I think last year's allocation was the same as probably the original proposal which is
Mr David Skinner - 1:59:26
why it was then tempered down because some of the, as I say, then we didn't get there
in terms of with some of those sessions so it just reflects the actuals but as everybody
said that if you want to revert to the original proposal then as you say if you don't need
the time then you don't need the time.
Cllr John Chilver - 1:59:44
Councillor Crabtree. Thank you. I agree with what other people
Cllr Anna Crabtree - 1:59:49
have been saying but I would just probably reiterate that there are so many new members
of this Council we don't know how long we are going to need because we are an unknown
quantity even to ourselves potentially so I would agree with what Councillor Teck was
just saying that it's better to have the time and not need it than to find ourselves lacking
at the end. Thank you very much. Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 2:00:09
Yeah, and I would add to that, if we do have that amount of time, one of the things we've
done in prior years is sometimes need to have an additional session. And so with that additional,
not additional, reinstating the capacity, if there are topics that we need to come back
to then, or we need to go into more detail, then I think it gives us that flexibility.
including, dare I say, because I know some people have taken a whole week off to do this,
the middle, the Wednesday, because we've probably all cleared our diaries to work on this, and
I would rather do a great job and put all the time in than feel that I've come up a
I would say to the committee also perhaps we should all try and make sure that Wednesday is kept just as a reserve day without committing ourselves if possible.
Yes, that's a very good suggestion.
Cllr John Chilver - 2:01:19
So I think there is a consensus around the table that we slightly amend the recommendation on this paper
that the finance resources select committee approved the approach to the
budget scrutiny process for the 26 -27 draught budget subject to the reversion to
the previously proposed timetable. Are we all happy with that? Councillor Tett.
Just clarification. I'm absolutely fine on that if that's what members want on the
Cllr Martin Tett - 2:01:44
timing. Just in terms the lines of inquiry I for example mentioned I'd like
to really understand the impact of this national budget on the budget preparation because there
are many aspects of the national, whether it's the minimum wage changes, whether it's
the SEND changes and so on, that will have ramifications through many portfolios and
I'd just like to make sure that we don't lose that. And it's important, some of this is
seen in public, I mean I understand we get briefed in private but we're also doing this
on behalf of residents I just think it's important that we don't lose the
opportunity to ask further questions in view of our lines of inquiry. Thank you.
Cllr John Chilver - 2:02:31
Is the rest of the committee content with the Councillor Tetz proposal?
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 2:02:36
Yeah I think one of the things that sometimes been difficult there is an
opportunity for other members of the council to come in and ask questions and we haven't
always been able to accommodate that. So whilst the priority is given to the scrutiny committee
there may be and typically the chairs of other select committees have attended the sessions
the relevant sessions for their own portfolio areas that they cover. So there may well be
other people and I believe, and I'm sounding correct if I'm wrong, there is an opportunity
for public questions. So all of those, in terms of the transparency point, I think is
pertinent on that. The other question I was going to ask Mr Skinner is whether or not
who's publishing the cabinet papers on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.
Just so I can clear my diary.
Christmas present.
So for so many different reasons then.
Mr David Skinner - 2:03:49
So ideally we would want to publish the papers before Christmas
but we are obviously waiting for the provisional settlement.
We don't have a date for that.
that will be the first date where we will see our confirmed figures for how much funding
we get as a result of the fair funding review. Everything before that will be based on modelling
and our best estimation based on all the information that's in the public domain. But we are still
hoping to be able to publish on Christmas Eve.
So happy Christmas to everybody for looking through the pack.
And then we'll work our way through.
But that, as I say, is still subject to getting
that information and then how consistent
it is with all the previous modelling work.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr John Chilver - 2:04:48
If my memories serve, I think last year
Cllr Dev Dhillon - 2:04:51
during the budget scrutiny, we had between 70
to just over 90 people following our meeting on webcam every day. We had a
roughly about 20 questions, four of them which we answered and I'm definitely
sure that is right figure during the live session and rest of them I promised
to send a written reply and I was able to take about five questions from our
Councillors. I fully agree with Councillor Martin Tett that if we have a
surplus time, that is not a bad thing to have. But to get the cabinet member and the service
directors back is a really, we don't know whether they have a time in their diary or
not will be best to have, make that adjustment. And people are really concerned. I was really
surprised that those members of the public, they stay with us roughly all day to listen
to the whole budget inquiry.
So especially on health, which was hour and a half,
which is only one hour, and that is a very, very followed
portfolio by the general public.
Thank you.
Councillor Tetz.
Yes, thank you.
I just wanted to respond to something
Cllr John Chilver - 2:06:05
Stuart Wilson said, and this is where
I slightly digress from him.
Cllr Martin Tett - 2:06:09
I am a little bit concerned at the idea
that literally any other Councillor can just
come along and sit in this meeting
and ask any questions and whatever.
we do have a committee system here where there are members of committees you know
we are trained on those particular topics and we have all the background
briefings and so on there are some councillors who can come along and
potentially bore for Britain quite frankly in terms of hobby horses they
have which may or may not be relevant to anybody else watching and I don't know
whether it's a constitutional right and I can see Stuart nodding away that any
can turn up without the Chairman's agreement and literally attend that
meeting and ask questions or whether it is subject to the Chairman's discretion.
So I would just urge you Chairman that if we have you know other members who
just want to sort of ride particular hobby horses we do have a
responsibility to the public to make sure these meetings stay relevant and
obviously we have that background, we have that training, we have that
knowledge, we can keep these meetings hopefully very focused and what we don't
do is allow them to be effectively hijacked onto particular hobby horse areas.
Cllr John Chilver - 2:07:22
The rule is that members can raise questions on the agenda of the meeting. I think we agreed
that at a recent meeting, didn't we, Councillor Wilson, but they would have to give advance
notice if it's something that's not included in the agenda and I'm assuming that would
apply here, but I'll cheque the constitution and confirm that.
So I think there's a general proposal following up on Councillor Tett's proposal to add to
the list of the key lines of inquiry an additional one, which is something along the lines of
what is the impact of the latest budget and the local government finance settlement on
on your proposed budget, something along those lines.
And how has this been taken into account? What is the impact of both of those and how
Cllr Martin Tett - 2:08:17
have these been taken into account? Can we add that on to the list of key lines
of inquiry? Thank you very much. And obviously these questions are not exclusive and members
will be able to ask whatever questions they wish. But this gives the sort of standard
framework that can be provided consistency in what's asked during the scrutiny meetings.
Any other points or issues that anybody wants to make?
So we have two modifications to the recommendation. One is the subject of the reversion to the
previously proposed timetable and also the addition of a key line of inquiry relating
to the impact of the latest budget and local government finance settlement and how it has
impacted the proposals. Are we all comfortable with that? I think the wording can be sort
Good, so the next item is the Work Programme.

9 Work Programme

Are there any comments or questions?
This can be found on page...
I'm trying to find it.
Page 97, I think.
Any comments or questions?
as you can see we have the budget scrutiny week there and then our next
normal meeting is on the 26th of February next year so if there are no
comments or questions on that. Oh, Councillor Crabtree.
Cllr Anna Crabtree - 2:10:08
I was just going to ask the IT strategy that we were mentioning earlier should that be on the 16th of April.
the new five -year plan.
In April, so I think that needs to be added.
Thank you for raising that.
Cllr John Chilver - 2:10:23
So now we have the exclusion

10 Exclusion of the Press and Public

of the press and public, so I need to read the
formal proposal
to resolve that under section 100A4 of the Local Government
Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business
on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined
in Part 1 of Schedule 12 of the Act.
Is everybody in agreement?
Thank you very much indeed.
So I think we can switch off the broadcast now.

10 Exclusion of the Press and Public

Cllr John Chilver - 2:11:08
Thank you very much. We're back online again.

12 Date and time of the next meeting

And the next item on the agenda is presumably the date of the next meeting, which as I said earlier is the 26th of January.
So thank you all very much for attending. Thank you to anybody who's been following us online.
And I wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.