Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Philip Bateman MBE, Cllr Val Evans, Cllr Susan Roberts MBE, Cllr Louise Miles, Cllr Jacqueline Sweetman and Cllr Udey Singh. The Chair wished the Panel Members and Finance Cabinet Member who were not able to attend, due to illness, a speedy recovery.

There were no declarations of interest.

[To provide an update on the Blue Badge Service]

Councillor Simkins, Deputy Leader of the Council introduced the report on Blue Badges.  He remarked that Blue Badges were for the most vulnerable in the community and it needed to be looked at on a constant basis to see how the Council could increase its performance. There were issues with communications, and this would be addressed in detail by Officers. The Deputy Leader was happy to answer any questions posed and was pleased that special meetings could be held, which proved that Scrutiny worked.  He hoped the Panel would make some recommendations and moving forward could see how effective they had been.

The Director of Strategy stated at the last Scrutiny Board there had been feedback from the Board about the Blue Badge process. The Director of Strategy undertook an action to do some further work and bring forward a future item on the performance around the Blue Badge service. Within the agenda pack there was a Briefing Note which set out the performance of the Blue Badge service.

The Head of Customer Engagement spoke on the Performance Report for the last financial year for Blue Badges giving a snapshot. For the period 2021 – 2022 the Council processed 4,676 applications, dealt with 10,401 calls and were able to answer 10,216 of those calls which equated to an abandonment rate of 1.8% for the service. The average wait time for the period was 51 seconds.

The performance from 2019 to quarter one of the financial year was highlighted. For the period 2019 – 2020 the Council processed 4,209 applications and the average processing time for those applications was 8 weeks. For 2020 – 2021 3,376 applications were processed which was slightly reduced due to the pandemic. The Department for Transport eased some of the rules around Blue Badges, they put an additional 6 months on for people whose Badges had expired and you saw in the following year application had gone back up. The Badges that weren’t applied for during that period contributed to the increase for 2021 – 2022 and the average processing time was 9 weeks.  For quarter one the processing time was 5 weeks but that could fluctuate throughout the year dependent on how many applications were received during that time. There was a reliance on applicants providing sufficient evidence in the form of identification, making sure everything asked for was submitted. When they have not submitted the right information it would impact on the average processing time.

The Head of Customer Engagement reiterated the Deputy Leader’s Comments, explaining the Council delivered a good service for Blue Badges.  It was not perfect but the Council’s performance in comparison to neighbouring authorities was good. The Council followed Government guidance on applications, a decision on applications was made within 12 weeks.  The Council were averaging the last financial year at 9 weeks, which included Badges being posted out. It took 7 – 10 days for a Badge to be ordered once a decision had been made. Some Local Authorities  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

[To provide the Council’s outturn position for 2021-2022 compared with approved budgets and targets and performance update against the Relighting Our City priorities]

The Director of Finance confirmed that the Outturn Report was presented to Cabinet in June, it brought together the performance and financial position for the Council until the end of March.  The Council had strengthened links last year between performance and budget to ensure they were robustly monitoring delivery of Council priorities under pinned by the budget. This was the last report before the Relight our Council Performance and the Our Council Plan Performance framework that had started earlier in the year. The report revealed that 18 out of 29 indicators showed an improvement, a further 10 indicators was showing similar performance and one indicator saw a decrease in performance during the last 12 months.

The Director of Finance stated that the report noted areas where the Council needed to invest to improve performance, such as the £3 million that was put into Wolves at Work to help youth employment in the City. The appendix to the report had considerable detail regarding the budget. Some areas saw improved financial positions at the end of the year and other areas where there were merging pressures. Overall there was an underspend of approximately £2 million and they had been able to protect a lot of the Council reserves as well as part of the Outturn position.  It was however still subject to the external audit which had started in the previous week and these numbers would be validated as part of that process. The level of reserve had been reviewed as part of the of the year end process and would go through the Scrutiny process, as normal, through the Resources and Equalities Scrutiny Panel. Council tax and business rates were better than they had forecasted last year, although collection rates were still below pre-pandemic levels. They were working to understand what this meant for the income during the year and what it might mean for future years.

The Director of Finance commented that they were mindful of the high cost of living which could affect residents’ ability to pay Council tax and the impact of inflation on businesses. The Housing Revenue account had seen a reduction in the level of rent collected last year. They had seen a reduction in expenditure and so overall the revenue account had still come in within budget. The general fund continued to be monitored throughout the year and would refresh the long-term monitoring planning. The schools’ budget was managed by them, but the work of the Council was to make sure that their budgets were being managed well for the education of the children in the City.  They used the financial and performance data from last year to inform in year forecasting to understand what it might mean and how the budgets were linked to the delivery of performance.

An update on the in-year monitoring would be taken to Cabinet which would be the quarter one position, with further reports going through in the Autumn.  When looking at last year and in year  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.