Agenda item

The Committee will be asked to receive the Report of the Finance Task Group which will consider the following finance reports:

·         Revenue Monitoring Report Period 6, 2015-16 (Appendix B1)

·         Capital Monitoring Report Period 6, 2015-16 (Appendix B2)  

·         Review of Treasury Management Activities 2015-16 - April to September – (Appendix B3)

·         Income Collection:  April to September 2015 Report (Appendix B4)

The meeting of the Finance Task Group will be held on Wednesday 25 November 2015, after the agenda is published and the minutes of that meeting will be circulated as soon as they become available.

Task Group minutes on the meeting held 25 November 2015 are now attached  (Appendix B5)

The committee considered the Report of the Finance Task Group which had met on 25 November 2015 to consider the four reports attached to the agenda.

The Chair referred to the Income Collection April - September 2015 report and stated that the overall council performance was very good in terms of debt collection. He added however that the overpayment of housing benefit caused some concern, as the current debt stood at £15m and he questioned whether the council were pro-active enough in informing people of the need to tell the council about any change in their circumstances.  The Director of Finance replied that this was an area of concern, but the council did actively inform people in receipt of benefits of the need to tell the council of any change of circumstances.  Of that figure, £5 had already been collected; just under £7m had been invoiced and approximately £3m was due to be invoiced.   Universal Credit would be implemented in Leicester from January and Leicester would cease to be a benefit administering authority; it was believed that the Department of Work and Pensions would be the only body which would have the authority to collect that debt and they would therefore be asked to take responsibility for that.

Councillor Porter said that he believed that had been occasions when payments had continued to be made direct to a landlord even after the tenant had moved out. In addition he understood that there were also times when the landlord then sub-let the property to private tenants.  He asked what measures were in place to recuperate that overpayment from the landlord.  The Director explained that if a landlord continued to receive benefit where the tenant was not there, this would be fraud. The claimant also had a responsibility to inform the council. The Director asked Councillor Porter to inform the council if he was aware of any such happenings, but added that the council would not be able to report back to the councillor on their findings.

A Member asked the Director how quickly a change of circumstances would be actioned and what progress was being made in establishing a single point of contact. The Director responded that any change that was likely to result in a reduction in benefit, would normally be actioned straight away in order to prevent the recipient accruing a debt. It would normally take about 15 days to action a change that would result in an increase in benefit. This figure however was currently standing at about 21 days.  The Director confirmed that work was progressing on establishing the single point of contact and added that service provision worked better where this was established from the start.

In respect of Universal Credit, it was noted that this would start in January 2016 for new claims for single people; it would not apply to pensioners.  The Department of Work and Pensions were aiming for a full roll out of this benefit in 2018.

Councillor Cleaver expressed her appreciation to the Director of Finance and the department. Some of the changes to benefits had left people, particularly those in poverty and with mental health issues, in very difficult circumstances and the department had worked very quickly to help those affected.  Councillor Cleave asked for her thanks to be formally noted in the minutes.

Councillor Willmott referred to a forecasted overspend of £188k in the Coronial and Registrars service due to an increased workload primarily from Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding (DoLs) orders. He stated that Leicester seemed to have a much higher number of DoLs than other authorities, and there was some controversy as to how effective they were. Councillor Willmott requested an investigation as to what lay behind this overspend

Councillor Chaplin referred to the Adult Social Care element of the Revenue Budget Monitoring Report and stated that last year at scrutiny, concerns were raised that decisions would be made based on budgetary issues as opposed to need. She requested that a higher percentage of the council budget be allocated to Adult Social Care because people were in need in this particular service area. The Deputy City Mayor responded that decisions were based on need and this year, an extra £3m had been found due to the needs of people in the system.  Allocating additional funding into Adult Social Care would result in less money for other service areas and this would be a political decision. However decisions would be based on need and ensuring that people had the best possible quality of life.

Councillor Dr Moore stated that the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Commission would be considering the financial data at their next meeting.  There were concerns at the rising number of Looked After Children who needed external placements and it had been suggested for the commission to set up a task group to try to understand the reasons for this and whether for example it was a result of the financial climate.

AGREED:

                        that the report of the Finance Task Group be noted.