Report on the sub committees of the Finance and Resources Committee

Report: 4
Date: 15 December 2011
By: Chief Executive

Summary

This report contains a summary of the business considered by the sub committees of the Finance and Resources Committee.

A. Recommendations

That members note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. This report covers the following meetings:

• Estate Panel – 20 October and 17 November 2011
• Resources and Productivity Sub-Committee –1 December 2011

Estate Panel

2. Amongst the matters discussed at the meeting on 20 October was the Safer Neighbourhood property programme and other reports which were considered at the October meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee

3. At the meeting on 17 November the Panel considered the estate reports which are on the agenda for today’s meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee. Panel members carried out a site visit on 7 December to Walworth Police Station; the Vehicle Recovery and Examination Service (VRES) facility at Charlton and the new build facilities at Croydon.

4. The final meeting of the Estate Panel is due to take place on 15 December immediately following the meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee.

Resources and Productivity Sub-Committee – 1 December 2011

Treasury Management six month review

5. This report presents the Treasury Management activity for the period 1 April to 30 September 2011. The report also provides, at paragraph 31, an update with respect to Landsbanki. A representative of Arlingclose, the Treasury Manager advisers attended the meeting. Members did not identify any points of concern in the report. The report is to be submitted to the meeting of the full Authority on 12 January 2012 The Sub-Committee supported the recommendations which include a request to increase the prudential code limit on variable rate borrowing.

Overtime Costs –quarter 2

6 Members received the quarterly report which provides an analysis of the overtime paid to police officers, police staff and Police Community Support Officers during the quarter from 1 July to 30 September 2011. It advised that the quarter 2 forecast indicates an overall overspend on overtime of £1.4m against a budget of £129.9m (1.1%). It should be noted that the overtime budget allocation for 2011/12 is currently some £10.5m lower than that applied to 2010/11 and that the forecast expenditure on overtime of £131.3m is some £8.6m lower than the actual figure incurred during 2010/11. This is despite a number of high profile events in the first quarter such as the Royal Wedding and the visit to the UK by the US President. It was noted that the forecast does not yet reflect the impact of the recent public disorder in London and there is therefore a significant risk that the forecast overspend on officer overtime will increase. The Sub-Committee was advised that discussions were underway with the Home Office around additional funding to cover the Royal Wedding costs and the direct costs associated with Operations Kirkin and Withern. The overtime element of the costs of Operations Kirkin and Withern could be as high as £50M; this relates to the initial stages and there is very little overtime currently being worked in relation to these two operations.

7. The Director of Operational Resourcing, Territorial Policing attended the meeting and members took the opportunity to explore further some of the other areas of overtime within TP, in particular the Central Communications Command (CCC). Data was provided in the report which showed that the CCC was consistently under strength both in terms of police officers and police staff. Significant levels of overtime had been necessary in order to ensure the continued provision of this essential call handling service. Changes to the shift system were due to be introduced shortly which it was hoped would ease the staffing position.

8. The Sub-Committee considered that the systems which had been put in place in recent years meant that the MPS was now well placed to be able to be able to accurately monitor overtime and to take action to address any adverse variations against the budget.

MPA/MPS Procurement Strategy –action plan

9. An update on the action plan was provided. The action plan is designed to monitor progress against the key actions required to implement the strategy which was approved by the Finance and Resources Committee in June 2009. Members noted that there continued to be good progress on most elements of the action plan. There is only one area accorded a red status using the Red Amber Green flagging system. This relates to the level of vacancies across the Category Management and Supply Chain Management teams where there was a higher than planned vacancy rate. This appeared to have been caused by relatively junior staff leaving to join the private sector. It was noted that recruitment will be undertaken to find suitably qualified staff. The other area of concern is that the number of apprenticeship opportunities both internally and within the supply chain remains below target.

10 Members considered that apart from these two areas of concern there had been a commendable performance in meeting the objectives in the action plan.

Early payment initiatives to small and medium enterprises.

11. The Sub-Committee has been monitoring the actions taken in support of the Mayors initiative to improve the time taken to make payments on undisputed invoices. The aim in the current year was to achieve a figure of 85% being paid within 10 working days The latest figure shows that the highest ever figure of 85.1% had been achieved in September and noted that the intention was to introduce a higher target for the following financial year. Members considered that this represented a satisfactory conclusion to their monitoring of the performance in this area and expressed their appreciation of the effort which had been made to achieve this position.

Capital Programme –quarterly monitoring report 2010/11 –quarter 2

12. This report provided members with a review of the capital programme as at the end of quarter 2 (September). It provides details of the financial and non-financial progress of capital projects and any actions being taken to resolve any identified underlying issues. It expands on information provided to the Finance and Resources Committee in the monthly monitoring report for Revenue and Capital. Members did not identify any areas of concern.

Requests for contract action –management information

13. The Sub-Committee received the quarterly update on the request for contract action within the previous quarter. It was noted that that the majority of requests came from the Directorate of Information and that the number and value of all requests made had gone down compared with last year. Also, the proportion refused shows much improved discipline in this area compared with 2-3 years ago when the Sub-Committee began to scrutinise this area.

Disposal of Westcombe Park former police station

14 The Committee may recall that a report on this disposal was considered by the Finance and Resources Committee at its meeting on 20 October 2011. There had been further negotiations with the successful bidder following that meeting. The Sub-Committee agreed to dispose of the property to the same bidder but at a different value for the reasons outlined in the exempt appendix.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equalities Impact

There are no race and diversity impact issues directly arising from this report. Any implications are addressed in the reports considered at the Sub-Committee

Met Forward

The remit of the Resources and Productivity Sub-Committee is largely in support of the Met Support strand, but there are no direct implications for the delivery of Met Forward arising from this report

Financial Implications

There are no financial implications directly arising from this report.

Legal Implications

4 Any implications are addressed in the reports considered at the Sub-Committee.

Environmental Implications

Any implications are addressed in the reports considered at the Sub-Committee.

Risk Implications

Any implications are addressed in the reports considered at the Sub-Committee.

D. Background papers

• None

E. Contact details

Report authors: John Crompton

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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