Contact: Jon Pittam, (01962) 84 7400; [email protected]

1 Introduction

1.1 When Cabinet considered the report on final accounts on 26 June 2006 it was suggested that this was the first of three steps, dealing primarily with the consequences of the over commitment on the budget for Adult Services.

1.2 The next two steps are:

· July - 2006/07 budget review

· September - provisional budget guidelines for 2007/08 (and forward financial plan for 2008/09 and 2009/10).

1 2005/06 outturn

1.1 The overall reduction from the outturn in 2005/06 was £5.6m leaving estimated balances of £3.5m by 31 March 2007. The minimum level of balances is £7.0m, so savings of £3.5m are required to reinstate that level. However this reinstatement was based on the previous risk assessment and Cabinet agreed that the amount should be reviewed in July with the recovery plan for Adult Services. This report therefore deals with savings to add £3.5m to balances, plus any further increases required against the continued higher risk of an overspend on the Adult Services budget in 2006/07.

2 2006/07 budget review

2.1 A number of issues need to be considered:

· initial budget monitoring for 2006/07

· progress on achieving savings built into the 2006/07 budget

· effectiveness of the recovery plan for Adult Services in 2006/07

· additional risks from developments in settling pay and benefits

· the revenue impact of the capital programme review

· financing the contact centre

· the revised risk assessment and the minimum level of balances in 2006/07

· the savings required to effect an increase in balances

2.2 These issues are dealt with in turn in the report.

3 2006/07 budget monitoring

3.1 The current projection for adult services is an overspend of £17.5m, before further mitigation measures and the use of contingencies. This assumes that most, but not all, of the planned budget savings of £6.4m are fully achieved in 2006/07 and that all debt due from the Health Service is fully paid (the majority of payments due in 2005/06 have now been received, but payments for 2006/07 are being delayed). Action on both concerns is being taken.

3.2 The projection is broadly the impact of the full year commitments from the overspend in 2005/06 together with additional demographic and cost pressures arising during 2006/07 which are difficult to predict for the remainder of this year.

3.3 The first monitoring report for Children's Services projects a potential overspend of £1.6m, primarily from looked after children costs (£1.1m), home to school transport (£380,000) and out county special schools (£270,000). This is an initial projection and planned savings and other action should reduce this before the year end. However given the current situation Cabinet may wish to reinforce the importance of complying with cash limits and require Children's Services to remain within its cash limit for the year.

3.4 There are no significant variations on other services, or other budgets, projected at this stage.

4 2006/07 planned savings

4.1 Service budgets were set incorporating efficiency and other savings of £10.7m. These were the real cash savings that need to be achieved within the cash limits set. Any shortfall will require compensating action to prevent an overspending and increases the risk of a further reduction in balances in 2006/07.

4.2 The savings were included to provide for redeployment and budget growth over the initial budget guideline for each service. So if savings are in doubt in any service the Executive member should be holding back an equivalent amount of growth (or other budget) to compensate for any shortfall. In practice that may be difficult to achieve in certain areas. The planned savings were:

Table 1: planned savings and redeployments 2006/07

4.3 Progress made in achieving these savings are set out in Appendix 1. In summary the position is as follows:

Table 2: progress in achieving planned savings

4.4 Progress in preparing firm action plans to achieve the required savings is behind schedule for this stage of the year. No progress has been made in achieving £2.0m of savings, mainly on Adult Services. £5.3m (50%) of the savings are still uncertain. This creates a further risk in staying within cash limits for 2006/07. Executive members and chief officers must ensure that the savings are achieved, and it is recommended that there should be a report back to Cabinet in October stating the reasons savings cannot be achieved and if so identifying alternative actions being taken to avoid an overspend.

5 Adult Services' recovery plan

5.1 The Member's Panel set up by Cabinet received monitoring information on the progress of the financial recovery plan for Adult Services on 23 June 2006.

5.2 The Panel concentrated on the search for additional savings to bring the projected overspend back towards the 2006/07 budget cash limit. Difficult decisions have already been taken to increase income from charges, after consultation, and they will make a very helpful contribution. Other themes being pursued are

· demand management, for example raised eligibility criteria and re-direction of clients to other solutions at the point of referral - the aims being an overall reduction in the number of clients and a reduction in the average cost of packages of care

· restructuring the department, with an associated reduction in the workforce to achieve the optimum affordable staffing level

· modernising in house services, using external contracts and developing alternative services, again lowering unit costs (for example "extra care sheltered housing").

5.3 The estimated savings from these approaches are anticipated to be £4.5m in 2006/07, rising to £8.4m in 2007/08. However these savings are not certain and achieved. They are based on initial estimates that will need to be monitored closely. In broad terms the expectation is:

Table 3: additional savings, Adult Services

5.4 In addition there are a number of proposals which need further appraisal before an estimated amount can be added to the tentative figures in table 3. The two main themes of these further proposals are in "staff mix" and "reducing unit costs". All need further analysis and evidence and the likelihood is that their impact in 2006/07 will be low. This includes the procurement review. Initial analysis suggest that procurement of residential care is below costs elsewhere. No savings targets are yet available but the most promising areas include procurement of domiciliary care, tightening up on local discretion on procurement and maximising occupancy in the Council's residential nursing homes.

5.5 The total savings identified to date are therefore as follows:

Table 4: total estimated savings, Adult Services

5.6 In addition to these projections, Adult Services, along with all services, will be expected to achieve its required savings towards benefits realisation from the pay and benefits review and towards the contact centre. These will add around £3m from 2007/08.

5.7 Paragraph 4.1 referred to the latest budget monitoring projection for an overspend of around £17.5m. As always difficult judgements have to be made about the cost of continuing and new packages of care for the rest of the financial year. The range of possible outcomes narrows as the year progresses. The Panel considered a best and worst case projection for 2006/07 summarised in the next table.

Table 5: range of projected overspend and savings for 2006/07

5.8 The minimum addition to balances required in 2006/07 is therefore between £7m to £11m. A further £2m could be added for the planned budget savings where no progress has been made and possibly another £2m to represent the difficulty of achieving the suggested additional savings of £4.5m at this stage of the financial year. The overall risk to balances in 2006/07 from an overspend on Adult Services could be between £11m to £15m.

5.9 Current monitoring suggests that although the position may be stabilising, it will take some time to turn the "oil tanker" of the 2005/06 overspend around. There remains some chance of doing so by the end of 2007/08, but at this stage the best prognosis (assuming that action is taken to achieve planned budget savings) seems to be a minimum overspend of around £11m in 2006/07 - much in line with the 2005/06 outturn result. The impact in 2007/08 will depend on the budget increase available for Adult Services against new cost pressures. The gap will continue unless substantial savings are made.

6 Pay and benefits

6.1 The Cabinet of 10 February 2006 agreed that "Executive members should prepare provisional contingency plans to reduce staffing and improve productivity as part of a benefits realisation strategy".

6.2 There are two components

· recurring costs arising from job evaluation, rising to an estimated full year cost of £10m per annum (over and above the current budget, including the additional £2m allocated to Social Services in 2004/05 towards market supplements in advance of implementation).

· back pay and/or equal pay compensation which is non-recurring.

6.3 Progress with union negotiations on back pay/compensation has been prolonged and fruitless. The likelihood of settlement has evaporated since the Middlesbrough judgement which resulted in a substantial claim for compensation against a trade union. The Employment in Hampshire County Council Committee will on 17 July 2006 determine what to do next. It is anticipated that the unions will agree to implement job evaluation from 1 April 2007 if it is de-coupled from the back pay/compensation issue. No settlement on back pay/compensation will be possible with the trade unions. The amount required for back pay or to meet equal pay claims could be much greater than provided. This will result not only in a substantial and severe risk to the future financial stability of the Council but also a reduction in the size of the workforce which will be affordable. Balances will be grossly inadequate, because of the other pressures from Adult Services and future very low grant settlements during the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 (CSR07) period (2008/09 to 2010/11).

Recurring costs

6.4 The £10m estimated continuing cost of pay and benefits when implemented was planned to be met by

· £7.5m from the budgeted contribution to the grant equalisation reserve which was transferred into the contingency when the 2006/07 budget was set

· £2.5m benefit realisation savings

6.5 The forward financial plan assumes that

· 75% of additional costs on services arising from job evaluation will be met by corporate support

· but that no corporate contribution will be made towards additional costs incurred by business units or to service costs supported by income (as these costs are supported by trading activity and costs and income will need to be adjusted accordingly)

· no corporate contribution will be made towards costs in schools which will be met within the dedicated schools grant (100% specific grant for schools)

· benefit realisation plans will be required to meet the remaining 25% of additional costs

6.6 As a result the main impact of the savings will fall on Adult Services, Environment and Recreation and Heritage, in line with the incidence of higher numbers and costs of regradings arising from job evaluation.

6.7 The risks with this strategy are

· final costs may be different

· it assumes that in addition to benefits realisation, all services will continue to absorb incremental costs - these could be more substantial from fewer pay bands and a higher pay line than present. However these in turn will be offset when market allowances and historical pay practices are assimilated within the new pay scales and withdrawn

· services continuing to require market allowances will need to make further savings to compensate

· and most fundamentally that the £7.5m budgeted contribution will be available for this purpose and will not be required in part or in full to bridge the funding gap likely on Adult Services in 2007/08. It can only be used once.

Back pay/compensation

6.8 £10m had been accumulated in the job evaluation transitional cash reserve when the 2006/07 budget was set. Any settlement in excess of this will require further savings and will inevitably impact upon the affordable size of the workforce and the ability of the Council to provide its existing wide range of high quality services.

6.9 It is now very likely that claims and compensation may eventually exceed £10m. In any event some of the resource will be required for further extensions to meet additional project team costs and legal costs in dealing with potential equal pay claims.

6.10 Similar assumptions about the treatment of back pay/compensation in the forward financial plan have been made for continuing costs.

· there will be a corporate contribution from the net amount remaining in the job evaluation transitional reserve (currently £10m) towards back pay costs as incurred by services

· there will be no corporate contribution towards business units, service costs met by income, or schools which will be required to use their existing business unit surpluses and schools' balances to meet back pay/compensation costs

6.11 Savings plans will be required for costs which exceed the reserve provision. There will need to be constant monitoring and revision of the process depending upon how successful any potential equal pay claims are, where they fall and the timing of any settlements (i.e. cannot be just first come, first served to maintain equity between service cash limits and over council tax payer/financial years). There is potential for a "lumpy" and very uneven impact over a prolonged period which will put the County Council's consistent and sound financial planning at severe risk.

6.12 Given this worsening and uncertain prognosis for back pay/compensation, and the other risks to the budget from Adult Services (and possibly Children's Services), together with further grant loss from 2008/09 onwards, it is recommended that the benefit realisation plan be accelerated. This would provide additional savings in advance of implementation to provide further financial flexibility. It would also start the necessary process of improving workforce productivity and reducing pay costs to compensate for the longer term, and one-off costs, of the pay and benefits review and potential equal pay claims.

6.13 The recommended profile is:

6.14 The savings for 2007/08 and 2008/09 onwards will be included in the provisional budget guidelines to be set in September. Further work needs to be done to refine costings for pay and benefits, so for 2006/07, it is proposed that savings be allocated on the basis of the pay budgets as set out in the next table.

Table 6: additional staff reductions 2006/07

6.15 £0.5m represents just 0.2% of pay budgets in 2006/07, but a higher target in 2006/07 is probably not feasible given the current pressures on Adult Services (and Children's Services). Executive members are asked to review their benefits realisation targets, make the savings in 2006/07 and report back to the December Cabinet with firm plans to make these workforce and pay budget reductions in 2007/08. Use of other savings to substitute for workforce savings will not be acceptable.

7 Revenue impact of the capital programme

7.1 The review of the capital programme is considered earlier on the agenda. Cabinet will wish to relate the pressures on capital against the revenue budget pressures in setting priorities. In particular the revenue budget pressures do not allow any scope to fill the gap in the lack of grant towards supported borrowing financing costs.

8 Contact centre

8.1 The Cabinet approved in principle the creation of a contact centre to deal with telephone calls to the County Council in a central team, providing economies of scale, improving customer service and providing a substantially reduced number of telephone numbers which the public need to call to contact the County Council.

8.2 The Cabinet at its meeting on 10 February 2006 resolved that "Executive members prepare contingency plans, to deal with the resources transfer required when the contact centre is set up".

8.3 There are three components to funding the contact centre if it is to start running in 2007/08

· set up costs, which fall in 2006/07

· transfer of workforce resources required to staff the contact centre from 2007/08

· additional efficiency savings to pay back the investment against the business case for the contact centre from 2007/08

Set up costs

8.4 Set up costs include the project team and IT costs, supporting computer systems, telephony, training, transitional parallel running and any other reorganisation costs from the redeployment of staff. The anticipated set up costs total £5.9m, which includes a contingency of £0.8m for reorganisation costs. £4.5m of these costs will be incurred during 2006/07.

8.5 There is no identified funding available, but the report on the revenue budget to the Cabinet on 10 February 2006 identified the contact centre as the major invest to save initiative at an estimated cost of around £5m. The report stated that "the balance in the modernisation reserve will be insufficient to meet these costs and additional capital receipts are being sought to provide the necessary investment. Failing that unsupported borrowing will be required to roll up the interest and repayment costs, requiring a higher pay back target. Provided that service budgets are adjusted for the resources transferred to run the contact centre and meet the benefits reduction targets set out in the report to Cabinet in December 2005, the reserve would be reinstated after five years. Executive members and chief officers will need firm plans to achieve these benefit realisation targets and monitor them closely during the year. Further reports will be made to Cabinet".

8.6 The Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services has been unable to identify any additional capital receipts in either 2006/07 or 2007/08 to help finance these set up costs. Unsupported borrowing will therefore be necessary after all as the balance in the reserve is £3.2m for all modernisation, restructuring and efficiency projects. A contribution towards the costs from the reserve would be possible. However because of the overall need to increase balances to provide for the additional risks in 2006/07, it is now recommended that the set up costs be met in full by using unsupported borrowing to release revenue contributions to capital. Alternatively the implementation of the contact centre could be aborted but initial project team and other costs of around £0.8m have already been committed to date and would need to be written off.

Running costs

8.7 The anticipated annual running costs of the contact centre are £3m per annum. These consist of staff who are currently full time telephony staff within services who can be redeployed and retrained within the contact centre. An assessment has also been made of other staff engaged in answering telephone calls but not on a full time basis. Budget transfers to match the full time equivalent effect of the staff resource will be required to provide the funding for the full staffing and other running costs of the contact centre.

Efficiency savings

8.8 The business case for the contact centre is dependent upon improved efficiency as a result of its implementation. The assessment is a saving of £1m per annum, providing for the pay back of the set-up costs over a 6 year period, including the cost of rolling up interest on unsupported borrowing.

Budget reductions

8.9 Budget transfers from services will therefore be required to match the transferred staff, the other staffing and running costs of the contact centre, and to deliver the efficiency savings within the business case as set out in table 7.

Table 7: contact centre savings

8.10 The allocation of the total savings across services is based upon current telephone call times and is therefore proportional to the anticipated call traffic within the contact centre. Further work is being carried out to confirm the basis of the apportionment having regard to the complexity of telephone calls relating to different services.

8.11 Firm plans now need to be made to identify the redeployment of existing staff, the budget reductions and business process redesign that will be needed to contribute towards the balance of costs to be transferred and the efficiency savings. These budget transfers will be phased-in during 2007/08 and 2008/09 as services transfer to the contact centre and reported to Cabinet in September.

9 Revised risk assessment and increase in balances required

9.1 Risks have increased considerably since the 2006/07 budget was prepared. Adult Services will overspend in 2006/07, and possibly other services either from not achieving planned budget savings in full or from new pressures (for example Children's Services). However, apart from the two year recovery plan for Adult Services, it is presumed that other services will remain within cash limits.

9.2 The risk assessment deals primarily with the possible impact in 2006/07. There are higher risks to face in 2007/08 from a continued overspend in Adult Services, (even if it is possible to increase its cash limit when provisional guidelines are set in September) and from implementation of pay and benefits with possible back pay/equal pay compensation. Grant is known for 2007/08, but grant settlements are unlikely to be favourable in 2008/09 and the following two years. Small increases nationally in line with inflation are expected during CSR07, which may mean a zero cash increase for the County Council because of continued grant redistribution to areas of "higher need and low resource" within a smaller national increase than during the current spending review period. Capping will constrain council tax rises, which inevitably means very tight cash limits for all services in 2007/08 and 2008/09. There will be no room for extra resources for growth. The Council will need to start planning to reduce or transform services. Significant planned savings beyond the normal requirement for efficiency savings will need to be built into the 2007/08 budget.

9.3 Around £14.5m extra in balances will be necessary in 2006/07 to cover the additional risks as summarised in the next table.

Table 8: required reinstatement of balances 2006/07

10 Savings required

10.1 £0.5m has already been identified by imposing a mid-year benefit realisation savings target for 2006/07 in advance of the implementation of pay and benefits.

10.2 Other sources of savings might include:

· further in-year savings targets

· use of other reserves

· capital receipts

· increased income

In-year savings targets

10.3 Setting further pro rata in-year savings targets are likely to be counter productive for the reasons set out in this report:

· tight 2006/07 budget which contains planned savings of £10.7m with no evidence that these can all be achieved during the year

· budget monitoring reveals risks of further overspending in Adult Services (the largest budget after the ring fenced schools budget) and possibly Children's Services

· the requirement to start planning and restructuring the workforce (to achieve the savings targets required for benefits realisation for pay and benefits and the contact centre) limits the scope for other reductions.

10.4 The exception to this are budgets such as the book fund, or revenue contributions to capital (for highways or buildings repairs) where work can be deferred for a year. But already the scope to do so with commitments being incurred is reducing at this stage of the year. However such budget reductions remain the quickest and most pragmatic way of offsetting a cash shortfall and may still need to be called upon as the year progresses, especially if the risk of overspending on Adult Services becomes more than currently assumed.

Use of other reserves

10.5 Earmarked reserves were reported with the final accounts to Cabinet on
26 June 2006. The main reserves at 31 March 2006 were:

Table 9: Earmarked reserves at 31 March 2006

10.6 The reserves have all been set aside for specific purposes and the protocol for their use was also set out in Appendix 4 in the Cabinet report on 26 June 2006.

10.7 Of these reserves most cannot be used to help in 2006/07. The schools reserve (36% of total amount) is ring-fenced to schools. The grant equalisation reserve (25% of total) is required to balance grant loss in setting the 2007/08 and later years budgets to compensate for the low grant floor. Proposed plans for its use will be reported in September. The job evaluation reserve (11% of total) is now deemed to be the very minimum requirement to settle back pay and equal pay compensation claims. The insurance reserve (8% of total) is required for outstanding fire reinstatement works. The designated underspendings reserve is factored into 2006/07 budget decisions. In total these reserves account for £78.4m (84%) of the total available.

10.8 Some or all of the remaining £14.5m (16%) could be reviewed, policies changed and used to plug the cash shortfall in balances.

10.9 The trading accounts reserve (£4.3m) is the largest available. There is around £1m for the former DSOs, £1m for supplies and £1.8m for services to schools. Business plans for the use of surpluses have been in place over many years, but in reality, much like schools reserves, the amounts tend to remain consistent or increase as plans tend to be set on a cautious basis. A case could be made for withdrawing some of these surpluses but in doing so Cabinet need to be mindful that the financial strategy for pay and benefits assumes that they will be needed to help with its implementation and to cover back pay/compensation claims that are not covered by the central reserve.

10.10 The modernisation, restructuring and efficiency reserve was created to assist in funding uncertain future costs associated with the modernisation of the County Council's services. The costs of restructuring from changes in Children's Services, Adult Services and Environment are being minimised and largely contained within existing cash limits. Invest to save initiatives such as the strategic property review and the achievement of additional capital receipts are now being rolled-up and repaid from extra capital receipts. It is suggested that the costs of the contact centre be met by releasing revenue contributions to capital by additional unsupported borrowing and repayment from existing service cash limits. Given these changes, and allowing for some commitments on restructuring costs, £3m could now be released from the reserve. It would mean that there was no chance of making corporate contributions towards further restructuring costs or for new invest to save proposals.

10.11 The local public service agreement reward grant reserve was newly established when the accounts for 2005/06 were closed, and it was intended to earmark the reward grant for future use, subject to review as part of the medium-term financial plan. Given the risks in 2006/07 it is suggested that Cabinet should review its use now. The reserve was £2.7m at 31 March 2006. The report to Cabinet on 26 June 2006 identified that £6.2m in total will be received after repaying unsupported borrowing and £1.5m used for the development of the local area agreement. £6.2m exceeds the balance in the earmarked reserve because 50% of the grant is due later in 2006/07.

10.12 £1m of the reward grant has accrued corporately (the efficiency index) and the Leader proposes to use this, together with a further £0.5m (from £3m for Environment) towards the home to school transport pilot projects costing £0.5m per annum from 2006/07 to 2008/09. The projects are not anticipated to start until later in 2006/07 and will help to improve road safety and reduce congestion. There will be a trial of a wide range of alternatives to car use. This will include dedicated American style "yellow school buses" as well as ways of making existing buses more attractive to parents and pupils. The pilots will run in four areas based upon an evaluation of socio-economic factors such as car ownership and proximity to other schools. Where possible, the new measures will be partly funded by fare revenue and private hire. The business case for the pilot schemes and the monitoring of their success, or otherwise, over the 3 year period will be reported to Cabinet.

10.13 This leaves £4.7m available for allocation. It is suggested that a further £1m be earmarked for "wellbeing" and used towards the cash shortfall on Adult Services in 2006/07. This leaves £3.7m to be allocated pro rata to services.

Table 10: Allocation of local public service reward grant

10.14 Executive members are asked to bring forward costed business plans for use of the remaining reward grant to Cabinet in October.

10.15 A new reserve was also established for income from the landfill allowance trading scheme when the accounts for 2005/06 were closed. The reserve is to be used to reduce cost pressures from the existing waste contract and for further investment in waste infrastructure. The aim was to use the amount already accumulated in the reserve in 2007/08 to reduce the council tax rise. However given the projected overspending in 2006/07, which can only be met otherwise by increasing council tax in 2007/08, it is suggested that £3m should now be earmarked in 2006/07, leaving £0.5m in the reserve.

Capital receipts and capital programme

10.16 The Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services has been unable to identify any extra capital receipts in 2006/07 (or 2007/08). In any event there is a need to provide for a shortfall in the capital programme (from additional fee costs) and to repay invest to save contributions of £0.5m per annum towards extra staffing and consultancy resources to secure earlier and additional capital receipts. A target of £5m over two years would meet these costs.

10.17 However it is possible to save £5m within the capital programme (by adjusting revenue contributions to capital) for the acquisition of an interest in the land at Manydown following the decisions by the planning inspector on the local plan, which means that the provision will not be necessary in the short-term. Manydown is included in 2008/09, so an adjustment between years will be required which may require some rescheduling when the new capital programme is rolled forward, unless the target for additional capital receipts in 2006/07 and 2007/08 is achieved with sufficient margin to cover additional fee and invest to save contributions as well.

Increased income

10.18 Income from charges is reviewed annually and Executive members are asked to maximise all charges and consider new ones. Additional charges have been levied as part of the Adult Services' recovery plan. The remaining scope for extra income in 2006/07 is limited because of the lead in time required to increase charges.

Local authority business growth incentive scheme (LABGI)

10.19 This scheme remains in place for 2006/07, but will be reviewed as part of CSR2007. Year 2 allocations should exceed year 1, on average, across the County Council area, although they remain unpredictable.

11 Suggested savings

11.1 Summarising the steps in this report, the in-year savings target is £14.5m. It is recommended that the following steps are taken to achieve these savings

Table 11: Possible savings 2006/07

*see paragraph 12.3 below

11.2 £14.5m will cover the risk of a further overspend in 2006/07, and protect the Council's financial stability by increasing balances before setting the 2007/08 budget. An additional capital receipt target, or a moratorium on revenue contributions to capital could be substituted in part for the suggestions in
Table 11.

11.3 Further savings during 2006/07, or in setting the 2007/08, budget may be required if the risk assessment is insufficient. Alternatively it may be possible to return some of the savings in 2007/08 if the projected overspend in 2006/07 is reduced. It is further suggested that the items indicated by * in table 11 be returned, pro-rata, against any improvement at the end of 2006/07.

11.4 However if the projected overspend does occur, much of the one-off flexibility to provide help in 2007/08 will no longer be available. There remains a risk of further overspending and extra balances will be required in 2007/08. Quicker and firmer action is required to reduce spending in Adult Services, and probably in other services to help re-balance budget guidelines for 2007/08. Budget projections will be considered with the proposed budget guidelines for 2007/08 in a further report to Cabinet in September.

12 Equality impact

12.1 The proposals contained in this report are not considered to be discriminatory.

13 Recommendations

13.1 The recommendations are contained in the summary 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.