Agenda and draft minutes

To note apologies and confirm the quorum of 11 members is met.

Apologies for absence was received from Councillors David Jones, Carol Thirkill, Peter Harrand and Betty Rhodes.

The meeting was confirmed as quorate, with 12 members present out of 11 needed for quorum.

There were no declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests.

There were no items requiring the exclusion of the press and public.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 18 November 2022 be approved.

The Chair welcomed the Committee and Officers and addressed his deputising as Chair for the meeting. He provided a brief overview of the two workshops held in December on staffing issues and the draft 2023/24 budget and thanked members who were able to attend.

Resolved:  That the Chair’s verbal update be noted.

The Committee received a report which provided the latest update on budget and business planning for 2023/24 and addressed comments and conclusions made at the Workforce Workshop held on 25 November 2022.

Discussion and questions centered around the following points:

Staffing, vacancies and business plans:

• The current Staff Terms and Conditions under negotiation are outdated and the Combined Authority is in the process of moving towards a more flexible and agile approach to work, in terms of location and hours, which the new proposed Terms and Conditions intend to reflect.
• The savings generated from job vacancies has been set at £3 million, an increase compared to previous years. A vacancy management policy is in place which intends to encourage more consideration when deciding to replace leavers like-for-like. It was emphasised that a recruitment freeze was not in place and that the vacancy management approach would be monitored. There is an intention to conduct further work into how vacancy savings are monitored and any impact the savings may have on the organization’s capacity to deliver. It was important to match the business plans to ensure there is sufficient resource.
• The Combined Authority is reviewing business plans against resources. Where additional resource for delivery was required, it would be signposted in the business plan and remain under review.
• Come teams such as Consultation and Engagement involve shared services. Where partners were delivering projects the Combined Authority’s Consultation and Engagement Team supported them, which both provides the Combined Authority with income and saves local councils money. There had been discussions regarding shared services in internal audit and treasury management which had been done previously on a smaller scale.

Integrated Corporate System (ICS) and financial information:

• Budget holders conduct monthly reviews to identify any risks, concerns and compare the actual spend to the forecasted budget.
• The new integrated finance system scheduled to go live before 1 April 2023, would allow for a more robust way of live monitoring of budgets, enabling everyone access to collected financial information on demand. This could establish a tighter regime on budgets and the requirement of monthly reports giving quick confirmation that budgets are on track. The Finance, Resources and Corporate Committee would then also receive the reporting information as another layer of monitoring – as would Corporate Scrutiny, if requested.

Budget setting process:

• It was confirmed that there were conversations taking place between the Combined Authority and the five partner authorities at political level and officer level with regards to the budget and common budget pressures. The Director of Finance and Commercial Services met monthly with the West Yorkshire Directors of Finance which provided a forum for ongoing discussions about the challenges and pressures we are facing including what approach each local authority is taking, the scale of deficit and good ideas people may have.
• Although all finance directors aspire to a 3-year medium term financial forecast, in the current climate, no-one had budgets balanced beyond next year. Some local authority partners were relying heavily on the use  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25.

The Committee received a report which updated members and asked for feedback on the progress on the annual review of the Leeds City Region Local Framework.

The Assurance Framework must be reviewed annually by government, although the CA had not yet received the updated guidance. The Combined Authority must stick to government guidance and there were certain things that couldn’t be changed as they would not get approval on economic case for most projects particularly on transport projects for which government TAG guidelines must be used.

The main change in this year’s framework was the approach to evaluation because there was now an Evaluation Team in place at the Combined Authority to oversee that part of the process.

A peer review had been set up with other Mayoral Combined Authorities so that they can review each other’s frameworks and processes and learn from each other.

The Combined Authority found that the main frustration reported to officers reviewing the Assurance Framework was the amount of forms and work that promoters felt they needed to do to get through the process. Another issue was the requirement for committee approvals and the fact that committees often don’t meet regularly enough which caused approvals to be delayed. Some changes were made to lower risk projects, or projects with smaller funding, to allow for a more flexible and shorter approvals route to remedy this.

Resolved: That the report be noted, and the Committee’s feedback be considered further.

The Committee considered the Work programme for 2022/23 and discussed the standing items, the accommodation project, cyber security, and integrated corporate systems. The Chair invited members to submit any further ideas or comments to the Scrutiny Team for consideration.

Resolved: That the appended work programme be noted and approved.

Resolved: It was noted that the next committee meeting would be at the new time of 2.00 pm due to a clash with another committee meeting that morning.