Minutes

Minutes of the special meeting of the Finance Committee held on 14 October 2002 at 10 Dean Farrar Street, London, SW1H 0NY.

Present:

• Graham Tope (Chair)
• Reshard Auladin
• John Biggs
• Elizabeth Howlett
• Eric Ollerenshaw
• Sir John Quinton
• Richard Sumray
• Rachel Whittaker

MPA staff:

• Catherine Crawford (Clerk)
• Peter Martin (Treasurer)
• John Crompton (Committee Services)

MPS staff:

• Stephen House (Deputy Assistant Commissioner)
• Keith Luck (Director of Resources)
• Mike Jennings (Director of Finance)
• Martin Chatfield (Head of Corporate Finance)

In the absence of the Chair and the Deputy Chair at the beginning of the meeting it was -

Resolved -

That Sir John Quinton be appointed to chair the meeting until the arrival of the Chair. (Graham Tope took the Chair after the opening remarks on agenda item 3)

Part 1

52. Apologies for absence

(Agenda item 1)

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Richard Barnes and Nicholas Long.

53. Declarations of interests

(Agenda item 2)

No interests were declared.

54. 2003/04 draft budget submission

(Agenda item 3)

The draft budget submission for 2003/04 was considered prior to its consideration at the Authority meeting on 31 October.

Introduction

In introducing the report the Treasurer stressed that textural and other changes would be made to the draft submission in the light of changing information. The capital spending plan referred to at paragraph 6 would be submitted to the Finance Committee at its next meeting on 24 October. The Clerk advised that the Chair of the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board was being consulted on the equalities submission. It was confirmed that the equalities budget submission would be included in the overall submission to the Mayor.

Additional police officers

The Treasurer reported that at the meeting of the budget steering group held on 10 October the Mayor had indicated that the police community support officers (PCSOs) were seen as part of the overall aim of achieving an additional visible police presence. The Committee noted that confirmation had not been received from the Home Office on funding for additional PCSO posts, but suggested that the budget submission be amended to include illustrative costing information on proposals for additional PCSOs which could be incorporated into the budget when this confirmation had been received.

Arising from a discussion on how the cost of additional police officers appeared in the submission the Committee noted that table 3.5 related to the cost of additional officers recruited in 2003/04 and did not include any residual extra costs relating to extra officers recruited in previous years. The figures should be more clearly described.

Savings

In reply to a question on efficiency savings the Treasurer confirmed that savings of 2% were required by HMIC but these could be met in ways other than cash. A member said that in the context of identifying savings it was important not to lose sight of the potential savings to be unlocked from best value reviews etc which in some cases required expenditure in the first instance to release the savings.

Other points

Referring to the schedule 3.7 members pointed out that a substantial increase was shown for the overtime line which was ascribed in the schedule to the appointment of additional officers but elsewhere in the report mention was made of the fact that under the police reform programme a 15% reduction was required to be made over the next 3 years. The Committee asked for further clarification from the Home Office and HMIC on the basis of this reduction.

A member drew attention to the sum of £0.5M shown in respect of congestion charging in appendix 2 which in effect was a recharge. It was agreed that the attention of the Mayor be drawn to the implications of cross-charging within the GLA group.

With regard to the treatment of the increased National Insurance contribution (paragraph 23) the Committee felt that there should be consistency of treatment across the GLA group.

The Chair referred to the fact that the revenue monitoring reports submitted to the Finance Committee used to contain information on number of officers carrying out civil staff duties. He requested that this information be re-instated in the monitoring reports submitted to future meetings.

The Committee sought confirmation on whether by putting forward specific items from the list of new items the Committee would in effect being giving these items a priority status. The Treasurer explained that as stated in paragraph 38 these items had been identified at the informal member workshop on 4 October as ones where an early decision was considered desirable.

The Committee then turned to the recommendations.

It was proposed by Eric Ollerenshaw and seconded by Elizabeth Howlett-

That resolution 2 be amended by the addition at the end of the phrase “due to the incompetency of the Government.”

The motion to amend the resolution was put to the vote and lost.

RESOLVED – (with Elizabeth Howlett and Eric Ollerenshaw asking that their dissent be recorded to the inclusion of the MPA deputy clerk/policy officer in item 6) that the Authority be asked:-

1. to note the estimate changes since the July report which have reduced the funding gap to £64.9 million;
2. to agree to include in the grant forecast a distributional gain of £20 million whilst recognising the risks arising from the uncertainty around the grant position as a whole;
3. to agree the provision for 1,000 additional officers, in accordance with the Mayor’s guidance, provided it is funded from external sources;
4. to note that a precept increase of 22.9% results from the application of the Mayor’s guidance;
5. to agree that the grant uncertainty would justify including an unfunded margin, of no more than £10 million, in the submission, to be addressed in December in the light of the grant settlement;
6. to agree the inclusion, from the list of potential new initiatives, of rape havens and MPA deputy clerk/policy officer. All other new initiatives, other than additional police officers, will be reconsidered in December following the grant settlement;
7. to note the proposed increase in budget for police overtime and to seek clarification from HMIC and the Home Office in relation to the PNB agreement which requires that police overtime nationally is reduced by 15% over the next three years;
8. to clarify in the submission the implications of proposals for civilianisation for policing capacity as an alternative to recruiting additional officers;
9. to include in the submission illustrative costing information on proposals for additional police and community support officers to be incorporated in the 2003/04 draft budget subject to confirmation of Home Office funding;
10. to draw to the attention of the Mayor the implications of cross-charging within the GLA group arising from the introduction of congestion charging;
11. to note that a potential £18.2 million savings have been identified to date, that are subject to formal approval by the MPS Management Board and agree the Treasurer’s advice that a further £6.5 million of savings is required to bring the funding gap to an acceptable level at this time
12. Subject to the above to recommend approval of the submission by the Authority.

The meeting ended at 4.46 p.m.

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