Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Chaffey and McEwan.

To receive details of any changes in membership.

Cllr A Coles replaced Cllr B McEwan and Cllr D Rathbone replaced Cllr H Chaffey for this meeting only.

To receive any declarations of interest by Members of interests in respect of items on this agenda, and to consider any dispensations.

Members may however, also decide, in the interests of clarity and transparency, to declare at this point in the meeting, any such disclosable pecuniary interests which they have already declared in the Register, as well as any other registrable or other interests.

There were no disclosures of interest made on this occasion.

To consider whether the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of any item on the agenda.

RESOLVED, that the press and public be not excluded from any items on the agenda today.

To consider the minutes of the previous meeting held on 15 June 2022 (copy enclosed)

RESOLVED,  that the minutes of the previous meeting held on 15 June 2022 be agreed as an accurate record.

None for this meeting.

None for this meeting.

None for this meeting.

None for this meeting.

None for this meeting.

None for this meeting.

To consider a report from the Leader of the Council (copy enclosed)

The Leader of the Council presented a report which advised members of the steps being taken towards the adoption of a Council Plan for Westmorland and Furness Council. The Council Plan would set out the high level strategic direction for the new authority including vision and priorities.

Although there was no statutory requirement for a local authority to have a Council plan or Corporate Plan, most Councils had some form of over-arching corporate policy document or Council Plan which set out the Council’s vision, values and priorities.

A Council Plan was particularly important in the case of Westmorland and Furness where a new Council was about to come into being. There was an opportunity to set a long term direction of realising the benefits offered by local government re-organisation by doing things differently.

The new Council would be required to set budgets, design structures, make decisions on operating models and appoint the right people to the right roles. All of these things needed to be guided by vision, direction and priorities so that, in addition to being efficient, safe and legal, the new Council was able to structure and design itself in such a way that enabled it to deliver lasting change.

This Council plan would be prepared with a great deal of uncertainty around the means of delivery. So it needed to focus on;

•   Vision - how the Council see the District and its people changing in the long term;

•   Priorities – the areas to which resource will need to be targeted to deliver the vision;

•   Values and principles – the values that will inform how the Council delivers on the vision.

Importantly the new Council would face significant resource challenges. This meant that the plan would have to inform some difficult decisions on priorities and it would not be able to achieve all of its ambitions straight away. However it was important that if the benefits of local government re-organisation were to be realised, there needed to be vision, ambition and direction.

The plan would provide a high level framework for functions currently delivered by the County Council such as social care supporting families and vulnerable children and adults, highways and transport, strategic infrastructure and investment, services to support the education system and improve outcomes for children and young people  and District functions such as planning, environmental health, housing and recreation and was an opportunity to get some of these to work better together in pursuit of strategic priorities.

The Leader said that because of the considerable uncertainties and demanding timescales under which the plan was being prepared, it was likely that there would be a need for early review and extensive community conversations in the first year of the new authority.

The Leader then took members through some of the detail in the report, including:

·           The new district – facts and figures

·           The district economy

·           Challenges, and

·           The timeline and council plan preparation process.

Cllr Battye was concerned about the emerging vision and priorities  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

To consider a report from the Senior Manager – LGR Programme (copy enclosed)

Members considered a report from the Senior Manager – LGR Programme which provided members with an update on the LGR Implementation Plan.

At the meeting in May 2022 the committee received a presentation on the LGR Programme Implementation Plan.  The plan set out the vision and ambition for Cumbria, and the approach to the programme, in addition, it also shared the overall timeline that the programme is working to.

The report came at the point where the programme was nearing the end of the design phase and provided an update on the approach adopted to design options and the development of the Service Baseline Blueprints.

This report focused on activity since then, including the publication of Service Baseline Blueprints, their reporting to Shadow Executives, and the shift to the implementation phase of the programme including the changes in programme governance to support this.

The Service Baseline Blueprints were produced and presented to the Shadow Executive Meeting on 22 July, along with a series of recommendations for an ‘in-principle’ agreement as the basis for further work in the implementation phase of the programme.

Currently the informal Member’s Liaison Group was being consulted on the development of the blueprints for services, with the intention of reporting back the Shadow Executive in August and September 2022.

At the same time other activity was underway across the programme to support the planning for services as these transition into the new Authority.

This activity includes:

·           Budget aggregation/ disaggregation - Work has been on-going to provide information on service budgets and staff resources based on dis-aggregation principles and current year budgets.  This will then be followed by another piece of work to correlate the budget costing with the funding available.  Over the summer, Finance officers will work with officers and Members to review service budgets.

·           Allocation of staff resources - a staff allocation decision making framework has been co designed in partnership with the Trade Unions. Preparatory work is underway to roll this out, commencing with high level all staff briefings, workshops to support managers to have the conversations with staff. It is our intention that all staff will know which Council they will work for and in what role by November.

The programme was now in its implementation phase and the focus had shifted to delivery; with an increased overview and management of the delivery of day one requirements (to be safe and legal) and associated critical milestones.

Programme governance had shifted to reflect this with the creation of new boards and processes to support .

A Day One Board had been set up and was chaired by the Programme’s Senior Responsible Officer and included all technical leads across the programme and programme managers. The board met weekly and was focused on delivery against the programme’s critical day one requirements, needed to ensure that the new council and the operation of its services were safe and legal on day one. Sixty plus delivery plans were in place and aligned to those requirements, incorporating key milestones,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

To consider a report from the Cabinet Member for Finance (copy enclosed)

Members considered a report from the Cabinet Member for Finance which set out the proposed financial disaggregation and aggregation process from a funding, revenue cost and balance sheet perspective to give initial potential funding envelopes for the Unitary Councils and Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service. 

The report also provided clarity on the decisions required by each Unitary Council and Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service to deliver the strategic planning process to enable the development of their 2023/24 revenue and capital budgets and Medium Term Financial Plans, and included the timeline for the strategic planning approach required to support the establishment of two financial sustainable Unitary authorities and a financially sustainable Cumbria Fire and Rescue service (CFRS).

As part of the LGR Implementation Plan a strategic planning process had been proposed that enabled the two new Unitary Councils and CFRS to determine how they would deliver services to achieve their Council Plan priorities and deliver them within a balanced budget.

For 2023/24 the strategic planning process requiref decisions and information to be provided as part of the overall financial disaggregation work.  It would also require individual organisations to make decisions on their own assumptions around financing and risk in order that a balanced budget for 2023/24 and Medium-Term Financial Plan could be finalised for approval by the Executive and Full Council in February 2023.

In respect of the Financial Disaggregation work there were a number of decisions which would need to be taken jointly by both unitary authorities and CFRS to approve the principles and approach taken to allocate the existing resources.

These decisions included capital and revenue funding and expenditure and all balance sheet items (which included reserves, liabilities, and assets).

The Cabinet Member then took members through the detail of the report.

Each sovereign authority had a MTFP for at least a 3-year period and many for a 5-year period.  Each MTFP had been prepared on the basis of assumptions around costs and revenues and around each authority’s balance of risks and opportunities and risk appetites.  The published MTFP budget gap was around £32m for 2023/24 and £35m for 2024/25:

On conclusion of his presentation the Cabinet Member ended by detailing the conclusion and next steps.

Cllr Hughes asked the Cabinet Member for Finance to expand on why Westmorland and Furness would be more reliant on Council Tax that Cumberland would be.

The Cabinet Member responded to say the main reason was that the need was higher in Cumberland than it was in Westmorland and Furness, which had far less areas of deprivation.  Cumberland would also be getting a greater share of the public health grant.

Cllr Battye asked when Scrutiny members would get the chance to consider the draft budget and medium term financial plan.

The Interim Chief Finance Officer said the draft budgets would not be available by the next meeting on 21 September, however, they would be available by October.  The draft budgets would be out for public consultation and the Overview and Scrutiny Committee would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

To consider a report from the Strategic Policy and Scrutiny Advisor (copy enclosed)

Members considered a briefing paper which informed them of new or updated items of significance to the Shadow Overview and Scrutiny Committee as well as providing an opportunity to review the Shadow Authority’s Forward Plan and consider the Committee’s Work Programme.

Cllr Phillips raised again the issue of linking all the milestones in the Forward Plan together so that decisions would fit in with the Scrutiny Work Programme. It was agreed that the Strategic Policy and Scrutiny Advisor would review the programme with lead officers on timings.

Members agreed that the first Task & Finish Group activity would be on the locality models, and felt that this needed to be geographically focused.  It was agreed that the Strategic Policy and Scrutiny Advisor Officer would follow up on membership of the task and finish group, timescales, and scope.

The Chair reminded all members that it had previously been agreed to have a half an hour pre-meet before each Scrutiny meeting going forward.

At the end of the meeting the Chair raised the issue of Scrutiny feedback to Cabinet, and the fact that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had not received any formal feedback from Cabinet on their comments that fed into the blueprints report.  She asked that this be added to the agenda for the next Scrutiny meeting ins September.

RESOLVED, that the committee

(1)  notes the Shadow Authority’s Forward Plan;

(2)  agrees that the topic for the first task & finish group activity be on the locality models;

(3)  notes the Committee’s Work Programme;

(4)  requested feedback from Shadow Cabinet on the baseline blueprints.