Agenda and minutes

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

Apologies: Cllr Carol Thirkill and David Jones.

Skipped Items 2,3&4 due to the meeting being informal.

The Chair welcomed members and wished to minute his thanks to Councillor Peter Harrand for his service to the committee and previous Overview and Scrutiny Committees over the years.

The committee received a report which advised of the approved business plan and budget for 2023/24. The Transport Levy remained cash frozen, recognising the difficult financial environment in which all local government is setting budgets. It has proposed that some non-recurring savings would be set aside and put in a ring-fenced reserve for transport related projects or to support expected pressures on the bus tendered services budget... Further government funding to support bus recovery was confirmed after the budget was set and further reports will set out the consequences and impact of this.

Budget update

Funding Gap: Members asked questions around how the £462k funding gap previously reported had been closed. This was achieved through many small refinements across numerous budget heads such as the revised pension rates, updated inflation estimates, the review of contracts and resulting in a forecast small surplus.

Risk and Vacancy Savings: The pay award had been set at 4% in line with all five West Yorkshire local authorities. It was likely that the CA would over-achieve on the vacancy saving set which would help to offset any increase in salaries above that budgeted figure. The inclusion of a vacancy saving reflects the impact of the timing differences that incur as a result of normal recruitment timescales and the Committee queried the impact on others of these vacancies. In some instances, interim support and consultancy had been procured e but the approach taken varied between teams. Longer-term vacancies are not carried indefinitely, they are considered further – whether the post was still required in its original capacity, why the post might not be attracting the right people, etc.

Trasnport Levy (the levy): Members questioned whether it was realistic that the levy remained frozen. It was emphasised that the CA worked in partnership with the Districts, for the good of the region and a decision on the approach to the levy is made collectively taken the wider matters into account. In the coming years a levy increase could be the way forward to assist in balancing the budget but that would be discussed in the round.

Bus-tendered Services: The CA had a general duty around bus-tendered services as opposed to a statutory one; therefore, members could decide not to support the network in part or in full which would cause challenges. Despite most areas of spend more straightforward to forecast, bus tendered services are currently very volatile.

£2 Mayor’s Fare: The government scheme of the £2 fare did not apply for the majority of West Yorkshire, with the local Mayors Fares (intended to be for 3 years) being a different scheme set up well in advance of the government’s one. The intention was to encourage increased patronage and in turn produce increased revenue. Evaluation of the success of the scheme is underway.

The committee requested that in future an overview of the business and budget plans is submitted in their initial stages to allow for the overview aspect of the committee’s function and so that the committee  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The committee received a report which provided an update on the Integrated Corporate System (ICS) project. The new ICS combined the three separate existing HR, finance and payroll systems which was going to achieve much better efficiencies and provide improved access to information in an immediate way.

Implementation of the ICS project had been underway for just over a year in earnest. The previous ‘go live’ set before Christmas was based on the supplier’s plan and was a challenging timescale for such a large project. The HR and Finance elements had been signed off; payroll was the last part to be completed before a ‘go live’ date could be confidently provided. The project had been delayed due to the interpretation and understanding of how parts of the payroll processing worked. The CA had a good relationship with the contractor but had held a hard line, payments had been held and the contractor was owed a significant amount of money which would not be paid until work was completed up to standard.

The committee looked forward to receiving further progress reports on the realisation and benefits of the ICS project.

The committee received and noted the final, summarised Corporate Scrutiny Work Programme for the 2022/23 municipal year.