Loading
The minutes are published. No summary has been written yet.
1.1 The Chair welcomed Members and Officers to the meeting. Apologies were received from Councillors Veronica Crick, John Killick, Sue Malson, Jason O’Connell and Chris Tew.
2.1 Councillor Steven Evans declared a personal, non-prejudicial interest in agenda item 5 as he was a Council appointed member of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority. 2.2 No other interests were declared.
3.1 The minutes of the meeting held on 4 November 2021 were confirmed as an accurate record.
4.1 The CONS gave a verbal update on her action by saying that a Group Leader for Strategic Recycling, Waste and Operations had been newly appointed and that he would be looking at the issue. Staff had been reminded before Christmas and that it was not a case of task and finish, it was about quality and speed. She reported that the staff would continue to be reminded going forward. 4.2 The action sheet was noted.
5.1 The Chair introduced the item and after, the EM went through the scrutiny activity and introduced the report. The ACER briefly outlined the report pulling out key highlights for Members’ attention and then following, Officers responded to Members’ questions as follows:- • GFO – Staff pension contributions were included within the draft budget in November. The local government percent was going up to 25%, which was around half a percent increase over the current financial year. There had been no increase in the teachers’ pension on-costs. • HoFS – The McCloud judgement did affect the local authority (LA) but would be wrapped up as part of the Local Government Pension Scheme actuarial evaluations in April this year, with results being brought into effect from April 2023. The impacts were unknown but there were ongoing discussions taking place around the judgement. • ACER – Should the pay award for school based staff be less than 4%, the resource would be retained by the school and it would be up to them where that resource would be allocated. There would be no restrictions and could be used as part of the normal school budget. • COSC – The LA was looking at its Fostering eligibility criteria which would incur costs, so that the rates of pay could be brought up to the right level. Looked after children were within the LA’s resource. This was about making change for people to progress and to reduce reliance on the use of external provision. The eligibility criteria was a national criteria where children would be placed in bands. It was a complicated process which he could explain via a written response to Members. AP • ACER – The LA wouldn’t be looking to have the same model for the hardship fund as Welsh Government (WG) which was more focused on the impacts of the pandemic. It would be more focussed on hardship and Covid recovery, but would be guided by Members in putting the criteria together. There would still be some impacts and issues coming from the pandemic in 2022/23 and so the funds could need to be spent to help recover, with perhaps not too much focus being put on hardship. • ACER – Financial targets had been set for Greenmeadow Community Farm, which Members wanted to see operating on a commercial basis. The levels were realistic but if it started to look problematic then the LA could assist. • COSC – There was no cap on what looked after children providers could charge. There were ongoing conversations with WG around the subject. The providers were private organisations so the LA was subject to the market at the time of placement, so they were looking at developments in this area. There was hope that they could develop a Foster pool in order to deal with children who ended up out of area. Some of the providers had very high prices, but when there were no other alternatives they had to be used. They had used MIST which had been of great benefit. • ACER – It would be up to Members to consider whether Community Halls and other organisations would be supported through the hardship funds. • HoFS – The SRS relocation was subject to a business case; the costs had been built in. • HoFS – The process of moving data from the SRS was ongoing. Blaenau Gwent were going to be the first partners to move over to the new arrangement, then it would be Torfaen, followed by Monmouthshire then Newport. It would be a good few months until the moves had been completed and use of the storage facilities be discussed. There would have been capital costs incurred to replace any infrastructure and the move proved to be more cost effective; Torfaen’s costs would be covered within the existing budget. • LFOR – The increase in registrar levels was purely down to demand. With the opening of the new hospital, this had meant more deaths etc. in the area. • GFO – The non-achieved mitigation of the Children and Communities Grant was a 2021 budget mitigation. The LA had a Children and Communities grant of around £5mil and part of the Social Care and Housing mitigation was to look at costs outside of the grant that were eligible and to absorb those core costs into the grant. A review was ongoing but to date it hadn’t achieved a saving. COSC – If funds had been taken out without a thorough review then it could have an impact on frontline services. They had discussed and agreed to have an independent review but with Covid, it hadn’t progressed. There were ongoing discussions taking place about the rationalisation around the grant to seek clarity. • CONS – The LA was in negotiations with Bron Afon in relation to the grass cutting schedule in order to bring in the same practice across the whole estate. They were hoping to bring in a one journey method with Bron Afon in order to pick up on various things that would include grass cutting. There were still things to sort out, but discussions were progressing. • COE – The Play Service was expanding its provision, especially at schools. Play on the Playground had taken off over the last 2 years. The service was manageable and was not causing concern. • LFOR – The Greater Gwent Joint Archives Service was an agreement between the five Gwent LA’s. It was based in Ebbw Vale and held a lot of historical documents and information. Torfaen provided most of its support services. They had recently moved their IT to be provided by the SRS which significantly reduced their costs. • ACER – The LA was already a real living wage employer, it was more about whether care providers would come up to it. COSC – The position was that it wasn’t affordable. Officers and Members had been lobbying WG for some time and should it be successful, it would support it going forward. Torfaen employed care workers already received the real living wage and many of the people who were commissioned from also did, but they wanted to be in a position where they could make it a contractual obligation to make sure that the right levels were paid. The work they had completed and uplift in fees and charges reflected this. • ACER – The transformation budget was designed to plug gaps identified by the Chief Executive, such as the creation of the new Communities directorate, employment of a new Head of Programmes Officer etc. There were a number of other challenges being brought to Cabinet such as a more extensive children’s plan which would go further than T22, an Estyn inspection was coming up, climate change and a new approach to procurement. All of these would need a degree of extra resource and capacity and so the transformation budget had been created. These projects would only be carried out on completion of a business case that the Chief Executive had agreed. • COSC – It was hoped that a communications plan would be put together for the real living wage proposals. There were concerns around people leaving the sector; this was certainly a step in the right direction. The strategy was to try and keep people at home, but with the falling numbers of domiciliary care workers, they really needed to support the residential sector as well, so it was a whole sector approach. They weren’t in a position to say what the percentage increase would be, but this was good news for local providers. • ACER – If the Covid recovery fund and hardship wasn’t spent, it would be up to Members where that money would go. There was an expectation that Members would want to see the fund spent but if not, it could go into reserves but possibly badged as Covid recovery and hardship and not for any other use. EM – There wasn’t any set criteria on how the funds could be spent; this would be part of the conversations going forward around the budget. There would need to be a conversation with all Members and the fund would need to be for the good of the community. ACER – No treasurers were expecting an uplift and so it was a mature approach to allocate money to a fund, rather than spread it out when it was uncertain what impacts Covid had. • LFOS – The 16+ Team had grown so the budget had been shifted from some of the younger age groups where numbers had been reduced. COSC – The strategy was to drive down the number of children transitioning into the system and therefore reduce costs. • GFO – The Brecon Beacons National Park Authority was in the Neighbourhood Services environment line at £33k estimated for the next year. Gwent Crematorium was is in the finance other budget head. They usually received a distribution from Gwent Crematorium at around £120k worth of income, but they recently had notification from Newport City Council that they could expect a reduction in income because of other commercial crematorium services being available, so it was estimated at around £60k. 5.2 There were no further questions and so the EM and Officers left the meeting. The B&DSSM and SBSO stayed for the recommendations. 5.3 Recommendations On completion of their scrutiny activity, the Committee concluded by offering the following recommendations and comments for consideration:- Recommendation 1 All members should be included in conversations regarding the utilisation of the £1.128 million set out in the budget for ‘COVID recovery fund / hardship’. It was recommended Members should be able to give their views on proposed criteria through a scrutiny session. Recommendation 2 Members were pleased with the commitment to support care providers to deliver the real living wage in Torfaen. It was recommended that this should be a contractual obligation for all care providers in Torfaen and that the Council should widely communicate and promote its implementation. 5.4 The meeting ended at 3.28pm.
Councillors must say when they have a personal link to something being discussed, such as a job, a property or a family member. A prejudicial interest is one strong enough that the councillor usually leaves the room and takes no part.
Declarations are read from the minutes once they are published.
Lists the council's current councillors only. Co-opted members, officers and former councillors aren't shown.