Venue: Siambr Hywel Dda, Council Offices, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, LL55 1SH
Contact: Annes Siôn 01286 679490
No. | Item |
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APOLOGIES Additional documents: Minutes: Cabinet Members and Officers were welcomed to the meeting. Apologies were received from Cllr. Ioan Thomas, Cllr. Gareth Griffiths and
Cllr. Dilwyn Morgan. |
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DECLARATION OF PERSONAL INTEREST Additional documents: Minutes: There were no
declarations of personal interest. |
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URGENT ITEMS Additional documents: Minutes: There were no urgent items. |
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MATTERS ARISING FROM OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY Additional documents: Minutes: There were no matters arising from overview and scrutiny. |
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MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON PDF 221 KB Additional documents: Minutes: The Chair signed the minutes of the Cabinet
meeting held on 27 June 2017, as a true record. |
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REPORT ON THE COUNCIL'S COMPLAINTS AND SERVICE IMPROVEMENT PROCEDURES PDF 597 KB Cyflwynwyd gan: Cyng. / Cllr Mair Rowlands Cyng. / Cllr W Gareth Roberts Cyng. / Cllr Dilwyn Morgan Additional documents:
Decision: Accept the annual
report on the Council's Complaints and Service Improvement arrangements
(Corporate and Social Services Adults and Children Procedures). Minutes: The item was submitted
by Cllr. Mair Rowlands RESOLVED To accept
the annual report of the Council's Complaints and Service Improvement
arrangements (Corporate and Social Services Adults and Children Procedures). DISCUSSION The report was presented
and it was noted that three complaints
reports could be seen in the appendices.
It was emphasised that there were specific
reasons for producing separate reports, but that
they needed to be considered together in order to obtain
a full picture of the Council's complaints situation. It was noted that the number of complaints received by the Council had fallen, and was continuing to fall as the numbers had reduced again during the first quarter of 2017/18. It was emphasised that a change in culture
and in the way complaints were dealt with,
had been the reason for the reduction. In addition to this, the Complaints Coordination Team (Corporate) were working with departments
to attempt to find a way of improving and learning from
complaints. Observations arising from the discussion -
It was noted that it was valuable to have a team that
worked independently to any other service
and that they focused on
solving problems. The work of analysing the problems was emphasised and a change in
culture in the departments was reflected in the reduction in the number of complaints. -
The most obvious reason for the complaints was a lack of response; it was asked what was being done to improve this. It was noted that work was still
in progress to improve performance and, whilst the departments were gradually changing, there was room for improvement. -
The corporate system's report was presented to the Corporate Management Team every quarter, and the Service Improvement Officer, on one
hand, worked as an agent for
residents but on the other hand,
assisted the departments to
consider whether there needed to be a change in arrangements
to ensure that the same complaint was not received again. -
It was emphasised that complaints in the Children and Supporting Families Department were resolved during
Stage 1 at manager level, and that
no complaints had progressed to Stage 2 in the past two years. Awdur: Iwan Evans, Geraint Owen a Morwena Edwards |
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SAVING STRATEGY 2018/19 ONWARDS PDF 551 KB Cyflwynwyd gan: Cyng / Cllr Peredur Jenkins Additional documents: Decision: Accept the procedure noted in Appendix 1 of the report in order to plan
further savings from 2019/20 onwards. Minutes: The report was submitted by Cllr Peredur Jenkins RESOLVED To
accept the procedure noted in Appendix 1 of the report in order to plan further
savings from 2019/20 onwards. DISCUSSION It was noted that as it was a new Council term, it was important to ensure
that we had a system to identify any financial deficits which would be likely to
appear in the future. It was emphasised that Gwynedd Council had been praised
by external organisations for their forward planning work. Savings planning
would need to begin for 2018/19 and beyond, although the Finance Department
would not be aware of the settlement until late October. Work had been completed by the Head of the Finance Department, in which he
noted 46,600 possible scenarios; this gave the Council an opportunity to plan
based on information and probability. It was emphasised that, during the past
12 years, the Council had harvested £62m of savings, and because of this, it
was obvious that the task of identifying any possible savings was likely to be
much more difficult from now on. During the previous period, departments were asked to identify efficiency
savings opportunities and work was undertaken to discover cuts by identifying
the possibilities and asking the public which services they wished to retain.
All the plans resulted in a series of 10 buckets, and cuts were implemented by
cutting buckets one to four. One option was to repeat the procedure if cuts
would be needed, depending on buckets five to ten. Another option was discussed to consider a range of proposals across all
Council services and the impact of those proposals on Gwynedd residents. A
definitive timetable would be in line with the aspiration of conducting more
pre-scrutiny. The procedure included the Scrutiny Committees from the outset,
and the public and all members would be included in the prioritising process. Observations arising from the discussion -
The new
option was favoured as it was a new term and made use of the scrutinising
procedure from the outset. One lesson confirmed by our previous arrangement was
that planning far enough in advance generally led to less of an impact for
residents. However, the point was made that as we were now beginning from a
position where the easiest savings had been delivered - future savings would
not be painless. -
It was
noted that the new option gave more time to plan and focused on the importance
of having a broad discussion. Awdur: Dilwyn Williams |
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REVENUE BUDGET 2017/18 - IDENTIFYING EARLY RISKS PDF 56 KB Cyflwynwyd gan: Cyng / Cllr Peredur Jenkins Additional documents:
Decision: Accept the report and
note the budgetary risks identified in early 2017/18 and agree that
the Cabinet Members and the
relevant heads of department should take appropriate steps regarding the matters under their
management. Minutes: The report was submitted
by Cllr. Peredur Jenkins. RESOLVED To accept the report and note the budgetary risks identified in early
2017/18 and agree that the Cabinet Members and the relevant heads of department
should take appropriate steps regarding the matters under their management. DISCUSSION The report was presented
and it was noted that this was the first quarterly report for 2017/18. It was explained that there was outline per department and brief comments about the main matters where there were
significant differences. It
was noted that spending tendencies were not very clear
again as it was early in the year. It was confirmed that every cabinet member had received reports from accountants for their particular
field. It was noted that the report highlighted five departments that had a tendency to overspend, and it was emphasised that there was a responsibility on every department and cabinet member to control their budget.
Reference was made
to the overspend forecast in the field of school transportation, and it was asked what was the intention to cope with this. It was noted that the department intended to review packages to see whether the need identified at one time continued
to be appropriate in order to see whether
it was possible to bring
the budget under more control. The department would be taking steps to readdress the situation. Observations arising from the discussion -
It was noted that monitoring budgets was a continuous process, and it was noted that the current review was a fore-warning given in
order to attempt to solve any problems
before they became too large. Awdur: Dafydd Edwards |
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CAPITAL PROGRAMME 2017/18 - FIRST QUARTER REVIEW PDF 88 KB Cyflwynwyd gan: Cyng / Cllr Peredur Jenkins Additional documents: Decision: Accept the report on
the first quarter review (30 June 2017 position) of
the capital programme, and to approve the revised financing as shown in part
4 of the report, namely an increase of: -
£3,332,000
in various sources to fund actual slippages from 2016/17 -
£3,253,000
in the use of grants and contributions -
£55,000
in the use of revenue contributions -
£956,000
in the use of renewal and other reserves -
£428,000
in the use of the capital fund Minutes: The report was submitted
by Cllr Peredur Jenkins RESOLVED To accept the report on the first quarter review (30 June 2017 position)
of the capital programme, and to approve the revised
financing as shown in part 4 of the report, namely an increase of: -
£3,332,000
in various sources to fund actual slippages from 2016/17 -
£3,253,000
in the use of grants and contributions -
£55,000
in the use of revenue contributions -
£956,000
in the use of renewal funds and others -
£428,000
in the use of the capital fund DISCUSSION The quarterly report
was presented in order to submit the capital programme and to approve the relevant financing sources. It was noted that they predicted
a capital programme of
£46,725,000 for the next three years. It was noted that the
main conclusions were firm plans to invest
£32.7m during the year and that £5.8m had been drawn from specific grants. In addition, it was noted that an
additional £3.3m of proposed
expenditure had been re-profiled form 2016/17 to
2017/18. Observations arising
from the discussion: -
Although this is a technical report, it was important to note that this
money made a difference to the lives of
Gwynedd residents. -
It was noted that there was a significant fall in the proposed programme between 2017/18 and 2019/20 as there was no certainty which
grants would be available, and what impact Brexit
would have on the Council's budgets and grants.
Awdur: Dafydd Edwards |