There were no changes to committee membership.

To confirm and sign, as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting of the committee held on 5 December 2024.

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 December 2024 were confirmed and signed as a correct record.

There were no apologies for absence.

Members are invited to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests or other registrable and non-registrable interests in items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

Officers briefed the Committee on the results of the survey undertaken with Corporate Heads of Service and other key officers via an anonymous online survey using Microsoft Forms.

A variety of responses had been received and common themes and ideas emerged, in particular around ways to improve communication and engagement with staff in relation to climate change initiatives and providing more education to officers about climate change, the work the Council was doing to combat climate change and how officers could reduce their own carbon footprint in day-to-day life.  All comments received would be reviewed and those not already being addressed would be kept under consideration with a view to improving the Council’s practices where possible.

It was considered that factors such as organisational culture, availability of staff time and financial resources and individual will were more pivotal to enabling effective cross departmental working than the design of the Council structure.  Committee members acknowledged this point and felt satisfied that structural issues were not an impediment to promote sustainability practices.

However, the cultural element was raised as a point of concern, with just 13 of the 24 officers contacted providing a response.  Whilst workload was acknowledged as a possible reason for this, the low return rate prompted Committee members to ask officers to consider re-issuing the survey at a later date and making a response compulsory.  It was accepted that there was a trade-off between allowing the survey to be completed anonymously and not being able to track individuals’ responses, against deanonymising the survey and accepting that comments could potentially be more guarded. 

It was agreed that the responses received were extremely insightful, and reviving the survey at a later date would be considered at the Climate Change Member Working Party.

During the debate disappointment was noted by a Committee member that opposition groups had not identified a workstream for the Committee’s consideration during the municipal year, and whilst it was acknowledged that there had been a desire to undertake a piece of work to consider the effectiveness of the housing repairs contractor, those members had accepted officers’ explanation that this work was being monitored by the Housing Committee and adopting it as a workstream was unlikely to have the desired result of an upturn in performance of the contractor.

Officers were thanked for the effort that had gone into this workstream.

Within the context of one the Committee’s chosen workstreams on resident response times an update was provided on the access channel service review process and how it would help the council in understanding its response times to customer contact.

The service review was currently in the discovery stage of the process methodology, and all corporate access channels had been identified, reviewed, cleansed, and the data analysed.

Noteworthy achievements had included website improvements, enhancements to the Report-it feature, and the installation of a new Teams integration.  Initial findings and insights would be presented to the next Committee.

Committee members welcomed the improvements described in the report, and stressed the importance of closing the gap between residents and the Council by enhancing the ways in which contact could be made by residents.

An update was provided on the Council’s Treasury Management activity, with the Overview and Scrutiny Committee responsible for scrutinising the Council’s treasury activity.

Treasury indicators had revealed that Investment activities remained within authorised limits, whilst other activities within the quarter included scheduled repayments of £10.3m in borrowings, along with a prepayment of £6.3m in December 2024 on the existing £20m PWLB loan.

It was explained that the Council currently had a large amount of investments in instant access accounts, primarily because of repaying precepts to Surrey County Council and Surrey Police over the next two months for which the income had already been received.

The Corporate Head of Finance was asked about the rationale and benefits behind the prepayment of the PWLB loan, and advised that when MHCLG lifted the non-statutory best value notice in December 2024 concerns remained about the Council’s level of borrowing, and part of the treasury management strategy was to utilise capital receipts to reduce borrowing, and in repaying early through the sale of the residential properties in the Council’s regeneration schemes the government had applied a discount to reduce the borrowing further.

The Committee were given an overview of the performance of the investment property portfolio, and information on key performance indicators outlined in the Asset Management and Capital and Investment Strategies.

It was clarified that the high percentage on arrears was largely down to the rent due date falling on Christmas Day and some payments were held in managing agents’ accounts until after the bank holiday.  Officers continued to work with those tenants in arrears to try and reduce the deficit.

A Committee member asked about the primary risks associated with the current investment property portfolio, and how they were being managed.  The Corporate Head of Assets and Regeneration advised that this was subject to a variety of factors including the market risk, tenant risk, as well as risks associated with interest rates that resulted in an increase in costs.  There was also property-specific risks associated with all assets, that the Council’s team of professional chartered surveyors were regularly keeping under observation.

The Council’s S151 Officer provided the third progress report in respect of delivering measures previously agreed by Council to aid financial sustainability, following on from reports made in March and October 2024.

Attention was drawn to the Service Review process, and the objectives of the officer group set up to manage this workstream, whilst progress in the delivery of savings and efficiencies through a number of projects was highlighted, such as the establishment review, budget challenge exercise, savings ideas and digital transformation.

The budget for 2025/26 recently approved at Full Council did not require any savings to balance the budget for that particular year, but inflationary costs and other pressures revealed that a budget gap of some £3.9m was anticipated by the close of 2027/28. The importance of maintaining, developing and delivering the savings plan to address those future pressures was emphasised.

The Committee chair thanked the Council’s Finance team for their ongoing work.