Agenda item

A report was submitted providing Members with the Financial and Performance Review for the 2011/12 First Quarter.

It was stated that the majority of targets were being met and that there was a positive trend throughout the report. There was also positive news with regards to Heritable Bank and it was stated that at least 90% of the Council’s investment would be returned.

In February 2011 the Council had approved a General Fund Revenue Budget of £15,258,700. The overall position at 30 June showed an adverse variance of £48,000. This was predominately due to sources of income such as land charges, planning fees and car park fees yielding less than what would have previously been expected. Due to anticipated economic problems however an allowance of £200,000 had been included in the budge to cover shortfalls.

The provisional outturn for 2010/11 showed an adverse variance of £87,000 mainly due to the current economic situation. This outturn figure had been minimised due to the addition of £200,000 in the 2010/11 budget.

The Capital Programme contained a number of large value schemes such as the former Sainsbury’s site, the Health and Wellbeing centre and Silverdale Community Centre facilities where expenditure was not expected to be incurred until later in the year. Therefore only £1,565,200 was expected to be spent by 30^th June.

The Portfolio Holder for Customer Services highlighted the fact that the Council’s Customer Services Department had achieved a national excellence award and that improvements were continuing to be made. The % of requests solved at first point of contact was up on the quarter 1 target and was already higher than when the excellence award had been achieved.

It was stated that Sections RP3 to RP5 in the Dashboard Indicators report were very high targets to meet but that the only slippage had occurred due to the undertaking of necessary site visits.

ER2 in the Appendix showed that 52.6% of household waste was now sent for reuse, recycling and composting, this compared to just 16% seven years ago. It was also stated that the North Staffs warm Zone had recently won an award for its achievement.

The increase in the number of people visiting the museum was highlighted in CA2. This increase was largely attributable to the work of the staff at the museum and their encouragement of children to visit the museum. It was however thought that even more improvements could be made at the museum through the use of more scientific and interactive exhibitions and activities.

The overall trend in relation to crime was down in the Borough and throughout Staffordshire. It was hoped that this downturn would be helped further by greater partnership working with the police due to that fact that they would soon be moving into the Civic Offices. By sharing resources such as accommodation it was hoped that the police would be able to free up other resources to enable a greater police presence on the streets. It was stated that members of the public would benefit from being made more aware of the work of Locality Action Partnerships (LAPs) as crime figures were regularly brought to LAP meetings.

Resolved: -   That the report be noted and that the Council continue to monitor and scrutinise performance alongside financial information.