Contact: Nick Gibbins, (01962) 847544; [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 Budget monitoring reports are presented throughout the financial year, and the purpose of this initial report is to confirm the plans for achieving the savings target within the budget and to approve redeployment proposals, where plans are now in place indicating how the additional resources will be deployed and the anticipated impact upon the targets within the corporate strategy.

1 Savings targets in 2005/06

1.1 Policy and Resources budget for 2005/06 includes the following savings targets:

	£'000
Chief Executive -departmental saving -reducing the number of member meetings	96 100
Human Resources - SAP benefit realisation	50
Property, Business and Regulatory Services	256
County Treasurer - SAP benefit realisation	250
IT Services - SAP benefit realisation	200
Other budgets	50
	1,002

Chief Executive (£196,000)

1.2 As required the Chief Executive's Department has been considering how to achieve its efficiency target of £196,000. This figure includes £100,000 which it was intended should be found from a reduction in the number of member meetings. Building on the lessons learned from the Area Committee and Policy and Resources Scrutiny and Select Committee pilot a review of Democratic processes is currently taking place. In addition to moving towards a more modern, innovative and locally meaningful way of operating focused on improvement of services to the community the review will seek to make best use of resources.

1.3 The intention remains to rationalize the number of special interest groups which should result in a reduction in the number of meetings. It is likely however that the development of the scrutiny function and the movement to a more locally accountable structure will lead to a requirement for a different type of support from that which has been traditionally been needed. Once the review has been completed it will be possible to have a clearer idea on the feasibility of making savings from any reduction in the number of meetings and what the likely resource requirements are likely to be.

1.4 On a wider basis a range of options will be pursued to identify the scope for making savings these include:

· Postal arrangements

· Further use of technology to improve business processes and reduce paper

· Use of External training providers

· Reduction in travel

1.5 It is likely that during the course of 2005/06 new streams of work will begin, for instance if the County Council is chosen to pilot Local Area Agreements there will be a significant amount of work for this and other departments.

Human Resources (£50,000)

1.6 The first phase of the SAP benefit realization programme for Human Resources in 2004/05 and 2005/06 is based on more effective use of recruitment advertising through the Resourcing Centre. A saving of £100,000 was successfully achieved in 2004/05 and further savings of £50,000 will be achieved in 2005/06 as the Resourcing Centre was not operative throughout 2004/05.

Property, Business and Regulatory Services (£256,000)

1.7 The following paragraphs outline how Property, Business and Regulatory Services will achieve the target level of savings in 2005/06, where these savings might link into the Annual Efficiency Statement, how the department will monitor progress and develop future initiatives and re-state the additional work being undertaken to achieve efficiency improvements. The target for the current year will be met in the following ways:

Staffing (£72,000)

1.8 This will be achieved through a combination of not filling vacant posts and reduction in hours in Regulatory Services with monitoring of service performance indicators to ensure service quality is maintained. In addition to this a review of the current mix of permanent, overtime and casual hours in the Registration Service will be carried out to identify opportunities for cost reductions without affecting service delivery.

Repair and Maintenance of buildings (£71,000)

1.9 In the current year scope to demonstrate cashable efficiency savings are limited and the target will be reflected in the overall work plan for the year. Initiatives in construction procurement are having and will continue to have an impact in developing efficiency improvements for this budget area and the renewal of the Term Engineering maintenance arrangements in November 2006 will play a key role.

Travel and associated costs (£61,000)

1.10 This saving will be achieved across the department as a whole and will focus on more efficient journey planning. The department will also review where the use of pool cars could improve efficiency and will follow developments such as the IT Services pilot of video conferencing to see where this could be an effective alternative.

Supplies and services (£39,000)

1.11 This will be focussed on better planning of printing work and reducing and eliminating unnecessary printing and copying across the department, looking to make use of the emerging print framework agreements and a reduction in discretionary purchases of furniture and fittings.

Training (£17,000)

1.12 Savings in this area will focus on alternative methods of delivery such as increased use of cascade training and developing the departmental coaching initiative.

1.13 Existing regular meetings of senior managers within the department will be responsible for monitoring progress against the plan and the development of future initiatives.

1.14 The above savings are in addition to the work also underway to achieve improvements with significant corporate benefits of which corporate procurement initiatives to achieve overall savings of over £1m, work to increase capital receipts available to support the capital programme and the development of an office accommodation efficiency strategy are key examples.

County Treasurer (£250,000)

1.15 Savings within the Treasurer's Department are planned to result from reduced staff numbers, principally in accounting through streamlining budget monitoring procedures and in payroll through setting up a shared service centre with Human Resources. There are two critical dependencies, for the former, that the work required by the Government's new efficiency agenda does not take up all the time saved, and for the latter that there are no delays beyond late autumn in setting up the shared service centre in Eastleigh.

IT Services (£200,000)

1.16 IT Services achieved efficiency savings of £200,000 in 2004/05 associated with the roll out of SAP and expect to achieve further savings of £200,000 in 2005/06, as a result of the full migration of financial systems from the mainframe.

Other budgets (£50,000)

1.17 The main scope for achieving savings on other budgets is in relation to the fee paid to the Audit Commission in respect of audit and inspection, as the Commission is committed to a strategy of reducing the burden of regulation. Given the savings achieved in the 2004/05 outturn and the planned fee agreed for core services in 2005/06, a saving of £50,000 in 2005/06 should be achievable.

2 Growth proposals

2.1 Growth in the 2005/06 budget was incorporated either directly within service budgets or earmarked within the contingency pending clarification of exact funding requirements and production of a business case.

2.2 Contingency items were included in the budget in respect of a number of initiatives that fall within the Policy and Resources area. Approval was given at the Executive Decision Day in February to the allocation of £100,000 towards the setting up of a team to promote the well being of older people. A separate item on the agenda for this meeting deals with the proposals to establish a Hampshire Own Grown scheme for developing staff for the future. A report will be brought to a future decision day on proposals for developing occupational health services. This report deals with two other proposals in the budget - the contingency of £200,000 for the Civil Contingencies Act implementation and risk management and of £250,000 for Asbestos and Disability Discrimination Act Management.

Civil Contingencies Act

2.3 The appendix to this report contains a business case put forward by the County Emergency Planning Officer for an allocation of £60,000 to implement a new staffing structure for Emergency Planning to meet the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act, due to come into effect on 1 November 2005. Further business cases will be brought to a subsequent meeting in relation to:

· the development of new management arrangement plans for Health and Safety linking it more closely to Risk Management

· support towards the IT costs of the development of risk management information systems and corporate risk register.

Addressing legislative requirements for County Council properties

Asbestos and Disability Discrimination Act management

Asbestos (£200,000)

2.4 The additional funding will support the costs of the Asbestos Team within Property, Business and Regulatory Services in delivering an ongoing programme of statutory and essential inspection and survey work. To ensure progress against the plan can be maintained a `Mixed Economy approach' to the provision of this service is being developed. This will include adopting a partnership approach with perhaps two local providers and the recruitment of additional in-house resources including a senior surveyor and an apprentice. The funding would also contribute towards the costs of a seconded member of staff in delivering projects, audits and Schools Access Initiative work.

Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (£50,000)

2.5 This funding will be used to support the DDA team in bringing forward projects to ensure continued progress in meeting the requirements of the Act, to maintain performance against the Best Value Performance Indicator 156 - % accessibility of public buildings and to ensure vital access issues for County Council properties are addressed.

3 Conclusion

3.1 The recommendations are contained in the Decision Sheet.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works.

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.