Agenda item

Report of the Commissioner.

Members received a report of the Commissioner regarding Q2 Revenue and Capital Budget Monitoring 2021-22.

The Chair noted that the actual vacancies were a lot higher than that which was budgeted but the outturn did not reflect this.

The Business Rate Premium Reduction was cased by the loss of income during the COVID pandemic.

The projected overspend had come down due to IT and accommodation charges. The Force was holding 84 vacancies. On the £1.3mil of savings identified by consultants, ideally this would come out of the tracker whilst reviewing the TOM, HQ and Business Support Services. This was due to the savings being unrealistic, for reasons explained within the report.

On the Capital Programmes, the forecast spending had reduced from £6.4mil to £5.6mil, largely due to slippage in the Digital Asset Management system. It was clarified that if a capital programme was not deliverable, the funding could not be reallocated and there was no flexibility in this.

Members were encouraged by an increased honesty and realistic approach to forecasting overspends and slippage, with project officers being held accountable.

The Force was on track to deliver all savings but not necessarily in the areas originally planned for.

Following a question, it was confirmed that the Digital Asset Management/Digital Evidence Management slippage did have an impact, causing operational difficulties with the Crown Prosecution Service. The issue in this instance was not the lack of funding, but the lack of IT and project management resource to deliver it. It was hoped that following the IT Review, works could be reprioritised and this area would be high on the agenda.

The Assistant Commissioner explained that the Force was not comfortable with the high vacancy levels. This was being reviewed. Regarding capital programmes that assisted with the delivery of ‘BAU’ activities, there had been some progress to streamline delivery. The Force would continue to put pressure on its officers to ensure any requests were put into the City Corporation quickly. On capital funding linked to change programmes, it was recognised that the Force did not have the appropriate people on board to implement and oversee lifetime management. There was a drive within the Force to have one PO model so that change impact could be considered in one place.

The Chair concluded by suggesting that the analysis in section three, whilst useful, was something that fell under the remit of the Strategic Planning & Performance Committee (SPPC)

RESOLVED, that the report be noted.