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

1 Summary

1.1 The County Council's approved budget for 2008/09 includes a contingency of £626,000 to address a range of pressures, and this report seeks approval to the allocation of £120,000 to County Treasurer's to support financial systems training in line with corporate priorities.

2 Recommendations

2.1 That £120,000 of the £150,000 identified in the approved budget be allocated from the contingency to County Treasurer's in 2008/09, on a recurring basis, to enable the service provision outlined in this report.

2.2 That the actions outlined in the report to improve the take up of financial systems training need to be underpinned by the principle that access to corporate systems should be conditional on undertaking appropriate training.

2.3 That progress in improving the take up of financial systems training be reviewed after twelve months, including giving consideration to extending the departmental levy to replace the corporate support proposed in Recommendation a, if the proposed approach has not been successful.

2.4 That the balance of £30,000 remain in the contingency to be allocated by the Executive Member for Policy and Resources.

3 Proposed Allocation

3.1 The County Council's approved budget for 2008/09 includes a contingency of £626,000 to cover unfunded budgetary pressures. The report to Cabinet on 8 February identified £500,000 of such pressures, of which £150,000 related to County Treasurer's. It was agreed that allocations from the contingency would be approved by the Executive Member for Policy and Resources. This report seeks approval for the allocation of £120,000 from that resource.

4 Using the Resources

4.1 Departments have opted to pay for financial systems training on a pay as you go basis. With pressures on budgets and staff time the necessary training is not being taken up and the County Treasurer's department can no longer afford to pick up the unfunded costs of the corporate financial systems team. Relevant training on induction in the competent use of financial systems is essential in risk management terms (and could otherwise result in a lower Use of Resources assessment) as well as in avoiding inefficiencies in staff time operating the system. Such work underpins the delivery of the corporate priorities as a whole.

4.2 In accordance with the report to Cabinet on 8 February 2008; a working group was been set up to review the position and risk assess the necessary training. This included representation from Property, Business and Regulatory Services (PBRS), Children's Services (CS) and Human Resources HR), and their findings were agreed by the Corporate Management Team (CMT). The group concluded that £120,000 needed to be released from the contingency.

4.3 A number of actions were agreed and the County Treasurer's training team will actively:

· liaise with Corporate Networks such as Departmental Training Development Officers, the Corporate Procurement Network, Corporate Accounting Forum and the Corporate IT Development Group in order to market the training offered and to pick up concerns which might feed into the nature of the training offered

· take action to strengthen the flagging of systems training as part of the induction process

· provide bespoke training for "infrequent" users of SAP - perhaps including "task response" for particularly unusual items

· compile information on the commonest system errors, and ensure that training is addressing them

· ensure that signposting is available on-line to the different types of support available (eg including Service Centre, IT Services, HR) and for which problems they are the most appropriate contacts

· It was also acknowledged that a mandatory regime based upon making access to corporate systems subject to the successful undertaking of training, might be necessary.

4.4 The group recommended that:

· £120,000 of the £150,000 contingency be accessed to support current arrangements for two years, subject to a review during that period, following which a different approach may be taken in the long-term

· the Treasurer's training team be funded during this three year period by means of a levy on IT users which would cover some 60% of the training team costs, the remainder being from the contingency, and schools and bespoke requests

· arrangements for schools be left at present.

5 Impact Assessment

5.1 The proposals in this report are derived from the departmental service plan and are in accordance with the budget strategy and the County Council's financial management policy. An impact assessment of the departmental service plan and the financial management policy has been carried out and the proposals in this report are not considered to be discriminatory.

6 Summary

6.1 The allocation of the £120,000 would indirectly support all the County Council corporate priorities.

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.

None