Annual Report 2007/08
Welcome to our 2007/8 annual report. This is the first time for a while that we've produced a report of this type and we hope you find it a useful guide to our work over the past year.
Jump to sections:
- What does South Cambridgeshire District Council do for me?
- How we work with other Councils and Partners
- How do we work as a Council?
- What are we trying to achieve?
- What did we achieve?
- How much did it cost?
- Did we have anything left over?
- How much did it cost individuals?
- Were we efficient and provide value for money?
What does South Cambridgeshire District Council do for me?
The table below outlines the services provided by the various levels of local government in South Cambridgeshire:
| Cambridgeshire County Council | South Cambridgeshire District Council |
|---|---|
| Children's Services including Education | Environmental Health |
| Libraries and Heritage | Housing Services |
| Adult Social Care | Planning and Economic Development |
| Roads and Traffic | Community Development |
| Environment | Conservation, sustainability and community planning |
| Strategic Planning | Information and Customer Services |
| Trading Standards | Collection of Council Tax and Business Rates |
| Waste Disposal | Council Tax and Housing benefit |
| County Farms Estate |
How we work with other Councils and Partners
The district council is responsible for leading the work of the South Cambridgeshire Local Strategic Partnership. The partnership brings together the different parts of the public sector as well as the private, business, community and voluntary sectors to define and deliver local priorities across the area rather than work being confined to separate organisations.
The Local Strategic Partnership has recently agreed a new strategy for 2008-2011, which also outlines the partnership's longer-term vision for the area. The four priority objectives are:
- Active, healthy and inclusive communities;
- Safe and clean communities;
- Building successful new communities; and
- A sustainable infrastructure and environment.
Having influenced its content, the strategy supports the outcomes and targets in the Cambridgeshire Local Area Agreement. The district council will be asked to formally adopt the strategy during 2008/09. During 2007/08 the Partnership facilitated the use of additional funding to deliver local projects within the district, for example: Working as sponsor for Growth Area funding and directly giving grants to enable the sports pavilion at Oakington to be built.
How do we work as a Council?
The Council has 57 councillors (This link will open in a new window) representing 102 parishes led by Councillor Ray Manning, the Leader of the Council. The Council has adopted the leader and cabinet executive model as its political management structure whereby the Leader is elected by the Council and the Leader then decides the size of and distribution of responsibilities within the Cabinet. For 2007/08, the Cabinet included Councillors (known as Portfolio Holders) with responsibilities for:
- Resources
- Staffing and Communications
- Environmental Services
- Housing
- Planning Services (but not including planning applications)
- Growth and Sustainable Communities
- Community Services
The Council has in its constitution delegated decision-making powers to the Cabinet and some decision-making direct to Portfolio Holders. In addition to the Cabinet, there are the following key committees:
- Scrutiny and Overview Committee
- Planning Committee (to consider planning applications)
- Standards Committee
- Corporate Governance Committee
- Licensing Committee
The staff management structure for 2007/08 was headed by a senior management team consisting of the Chief Executive and the Executive Director together with five corporate managers for finance and support services, affordable homes, health and environmental services, planning and sustainable communities, and policy/performance/partnerships and the principal solicitor and the human resources manager.
The Council is also now considering how it can best deliver services to its residents and is undertaking a number of structure changes to ensure its has the capacity to deliver the future agenda and priorities in an efficient and effective way.
What are we trying to achieve?
At a high corporate level, the Council in July 2007 adopted three corporate objectives after extensive public consultation:
- work in partnership to manage growth to benefit everyone in South Cambridgeshire now and in the future;
- deliver high quality services that represent best value and are accessible to all our community; and
- enhance quality of life and build a sustainable South Cambridgeshire where everyone is proud to live and work.
These corporate objectives have 21 related service priorities which cascade down in to service plans and budgets and which can be summarised as:
- Corporate Objective One: planning new communities with major partners, protecting existing communities, delivering affordable housing, promoting low carbon, and furthering recycling
- Corporate Objective Two: ensuring value for money, strong management and prioritisation, improving customer satisfaction, providing high quality services, improving access to services, working towards equality, and taking account of climate change
- Corporate Objective Three: listening and engaging, working to improve services through partnership, working towards community safety, protecting the environment, promoting sustainability, supporting rural transport, promoting sport and recreation, addressing the needs of the vulnerable in the community, and promoting economic development
Further information is available in the Councils corporate plan:
The Council is now reviewing its aims to ensure the are fit for purpose for the future and build on the progress made during the last year.
What did we achieve?
This has been a challenging year for the Council, which culminated in the follow up Corporate Governance Inspection. The Council had made significant progress in five of the seven areas of the inspection and has promising prospects for the future.
The Council has also been recognised nationally for the South Cambs Magazine which won two awards and ensures residents of the district are kept informed of the Council's progress and achievements throughout the year. The Council has also improved its performance during 2007/08 with 80% of our key Performance Indicators improving compared to the 2006/07 performance.
Corporate Objective One: planning new communities with major partners, protecting existing communities, delivering affordable housing, promoting low carbon, and furthering recycling.
The appointment of the Growth Areas Project Manager and the focusing of the Corporate Projects Officer on this area of work had provided additional capacity and a more coordinated approach to the growth area objectives. It is successfully identifying significant external funding. Council objectives and performance indicators for this priority area have now been developed, which will give improved focus and provide the basis of more effective monitoring and management of this priority area.
Milestones have been achieved giving progress in the following areas:
- The establishment of the Northstowe Trust
- Development of growth area Section 106 agreements
- Development of joint work and joint planning arrangements with Cambridgeshire Horizons and other partners
Within the sub region of seven local authorities, we led the way by completing one third of the total 1,219 completions, which is highly commendable in current conditions.
There have been delays in meeting some planned timescales but these delays are largely out of our control e.g. the LDF and housing SPD processes. A preferred RSL partnership has been selected for the affordable housing at Northstowe and the other growth areas.
£9.7 million towards affordable housing for the next 3 years has been identified and it is expected that further bids will be supported as and when schemes are ready. This is an extremely positive result for South Cambridgeshire and continues the high level of success that was achieved in the last bid round.
Corporate Objective Two: ensuring value for money, strong management and prioritisation, improving customer satisfaction, providing high quality services, improving access to services, working towards equality, and taking account of climate change/
All 2007/08 corporate milestone timescales were achieved or were on target to be achieved in 2008/09. There were significant improvements in some areas e.g.
- Customer satisfaction - actively monitored in more service areas: Development Control and Housing repair customer satisfaction rating of 9 out of 10
- Service First project - now well established with services being aware of and trying to improve performance against the published standards.
- Processing of complaints was more actively monitored and managed. This led to significant improvements in the time taken to respond to customer complaints.
- Monthly performance monitoring now includes compliments statistics.
- Local tax collection rated performing in top quartile.
Focused activity went into improving the performance of the voids turn around times. A new voids process kicked in alongside the implementation of Choice Based Lettings in February 08. This produced an immediate reduction in void times down to around 17 days, which compared with the previous performance of above 40 days.
During the year the Contact Centre performance declined as a result of staff vacancies and other factors. A joint improvement team was established to develop and implement an action plan, which achieved an improved performance in the final quarter (Jan to March 08).
Corporate Objective Three: listening and engaging, working to improve services through partnership, working towards community safety, protecting the environment, promoting sustainability, supporting rural transport, promoting sport and recreation, addressing the needs of the vulnerable in the community, and promoting economic development
- Improved public access to decision making e.g.
- Scrutiny and Overview Committee evening meetings and in villages
- Public speaking at Planning Committee introduced - Improving the involvement of customers:
- Planning Agents Forum established
- Building Control customer focus group established
- Consulting on establishing a Business Stakeholders Forum on regulatory matters covering Environmental Health issues in 09/10.
Recycling - Nationally the authority continues to lead the way on recycling. The total tonnage of waste collected per head (BV84a) has gone down, which is a very positive development. The waste sent for composting or treatment by anaerobic digestion (BV82bi and BV82bii) exceeded the annual targets. The % recycled in 06/07 was 18.24% but in 07/08 it was 18.63%.
Bed and Breakfast (BV183a) - Bed & Breakfast was not used at all in 07/08, which is an excellent result both in terms of an improvement in the service to the teams customers and a cost saving.
How much did it cost?
The Income and Expenditure Account represents the cost of running Council services between April 2007 and March 2008; the money to finance these costs comes from council tax, business rates and government grant. The tables below set out our expenditure against our objectives.
| Corporate Objective | Net Expenditure | £000's |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Planning new communities and protecting existing communities | 3,252 |
| 1 | Affordable housing | 1,576 |
| 1 | Recycling | 447 |
| 2 | High quality services | 382 |
| 2 | Strong management and prioritisation | 2,190 |
| 2 | Equality | 58 |
| 3 | Listening and engaging | 599 |
| 3 | Community safety | 114 |
| 3 | Protecting the environment | 4,777 |
| 3 | Sustainability | 100 |
| 3 | Rural transport | 746 |
| 3 | Sport and recreation | 1,774 |
| 3 | Vulnerable in the community | 345 |
| 3 | Economic development | 46 |
| Net cost of services | 16,406 |
| Service | £000's |
|---|---|
| Payments to Government | 2,265 |
| Investment Income | -2,321 |
| Appropriations and other internal transfers | -4,144 |
| Amount to be met from Government grants and local taxpayers | 12,206 |
| Financed by | £000's |
|---|---|
| Council tax | -5,808 |
| Business rates | -6,475 |
| Reserves and Government Grant | -1,198 |
| Total | -13,481 |
Net General Fund surplus for the year -1,275
Did we have anything left over?
We spent a little less on services in 2007/08 than we received, leading to a surplus on our Income and Expenditure account. The surplus was added to the balance from previous years to give a new balance of £7.8 million.
| General Fund Balance | £000's |
|---|---|
| Balance at 1 April 2007 | -6,546 |
| Add: surplus for the year | -1,275 |
| Balance at 31 March 2008 | -7,821 |
Capital Expenditure
| Corporate objective | Expenditure on | £000's |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Planning new communities and protecting existing communities | 299 |
| 1 | Affordable housing | 11,526 |
| 2 | Strong management and prioritisation | 294 |
| 3 | Protecting the environment | 291 |
| 3 | Rural transport | 75 |
| 3 | Sport and recreation | 579 |
| Total Capital Expenditure | 13,064 |
| Financed by: | £000's |
|---|---|
| Capital receipts (from the sale of council housing and other assets) | -8,526 |
| Revenue contributions | -341 |
| Grants and allowances | -4,060 |
| Reserves | -137 |
| Total | -13,064 |
Capital expenditure represents money spent on purchasing, upgrading and improving assets. The Council receives the benefit from capital expenditure over a long period of time; the table outlines the capital investment made during 2007/08 and how it links to corporate objectives. The Council has two separate capital programmes - housing and general services.
Housing Revenue Income and Expenditure Account
The Housing Revenue Income and Expenditure Account includes all the expenditure and income associated with the Council's 5,625 homes; all expenditure is funded from rental income and contributes to corporate objective 1 by delivering affordable housing for local people. Around 50% of rental income has to be paid to the Government, with only the balance of income being available to spend on Council Housing.
| 2007/2008 | £000's |
|---|---|
| Income | 299 |
| - Affordable Housing | 11,526 |
| - Council house rents | -19,596 |
| - Other income | -2,211 |
| - Appropriations & other internal transfers | -249 |
| Total income | -22,056 |
| 2007/2008 Expenditure | £000's |
|---|---|
| Repairs & maintenance | 2,707 |
| Supervision & management | 4,815 |
| Capital financing costs | 3,244 |
| Payments to Government | 10,048 |
| Other costs | 396 |
| Total Expenditure | 21,210 |
Housing Revenue surplus for the year -846
The number of properties owned by the Council in 2007/08 has reduced by 118; this was due to sales to tenants and also the transfer of some of its non traditionally built houses, some sheltered bed-sits and various land sites to housing associations for the development of affordable and supported housing; these transfers are an important contribution to the Council corporate objectives.
How much did it cost individuals?
The council tax is set in terms of a band D property which is in the valuation band from £68,001 to £88,000 at 1991 prices. For a band D property, the council tax for 2007/08 was £1,292.84. This was the one of the lowest tax levels (21 lowest out of 238 district authorities) in the country and most of the money was raised on behalf of the County Council.
Were we efficient and provide value for money?
Following recommendations on efficiency savings in the public sector, the Government required councils, from 2005/06, to make annual efficiency savings worth 2.5% of their 2004/05 budgets for each of the next three years.
The Government set South Cambridgeshire District Council a target of making £1,343,000 of efficiency savings over the period 2005/06 to 2007/08. The Council actually achieved £1,930,000 worth of savings, exceeding its target by £587,000.
The main areas making up the savings were:
- Sheltered housing re-structuring, £488,000
- Bringing back the IT support service in-house, £353,000
- Increased productivity from reduced levels of sickness absence, £193,000
- Various procurement projects, £169,000
- Increased staff productivity in the housing repairs service, £134,000
- Environmental Health management structure, £83,000
- Savings from the central heating installation and maintenance contract, £80,000
- Increased take up of payment by direct debit by council tax and business rates customers, £65,000
- Waste collection service operational arrangements, £59,000
The Council continues to identify further efficiency savings to ensure residents of the district receive value for money services whilst continuing to be a one of the lowest tax levels in the country.
