Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Sub-Committee received a Report of the Town Clerk concerning Corporate and Business planning.

The Town Clerk informed Members that a set of 10-12 common core indicators would be introduced during the 2019/20 business planning cycle, to allow cross-departmental comparisons and benchmarking, and improve transparency between departments on common measures e.g. sickness absence and Freedom of Information requests response times. It was proposed to develop measures under the following headings:

·         Workforce

·         Financial Performance

·         Delivery of agreed action

·         Internal customer service

The Chairman was keen to ensure that officers included an explicit measure for maintaining budgetary discipline throughout the financial year, too often in the past, departments, when identifying new funding requirements, had made in-year budget revisions or accessed funding from other sources (e.g. the Finance Contingency Fund), without giving enough consideration to re-prioritising their own budget commitments first. Both the Chairman and the Chamberlain had made it unambiguously clear on many recent occasions that in-year budget revisions would no longer be tolerated.

A verbal update on members’ scrutiny of Business Plans was provided, following on from discussion at the Chairman’s Informal Supper in July, where it was agreed that taking this outside normal committee meetings would be helpful.

The Corporate Strategy & Performance Team and Committee Clerks will contact chairmen to work out what would work best and put dates in diaries during November / December, so that finalised Business Plans can be brought to Committees for approval in the new year. It was agreed that where Business Plans are scrutinised by multiple Committees, one meeting be arranged for all relevant Committee members.

Members said they were encouraged by the proposals, too often in the past business planning had been an afterthought, but this proposal had the potential to generate new useful and regular input from Committees. Sub-Committee Members asked for details of officers’ Business Plan scrutiny processes to ensure that they are robust. Officers would return to Members with an update at the November meeting. 

RESOLVED – that the Sub-Committee noted the Report.