Agenda item

In accordance with the Council Procedure Rules, the following questions were asked

Councillor O Temple

Can the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People’s Services explain why schools, the only major users and bankers of cash within this authority, were not consulted before this council’s new procuration specification for banking services was drawn up which excludes any ability to pay cash in, or withdraw cash, across the counter of either banks or post offices?

Councillor Napier, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Finance thanked Councillor Temple for his question, to which he would provide a reply absence of Councillor Johnson, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People’s Services.

The Co-op Bank was the council’s current banker and had a commercial relationship with the Post Office which enabled cash to be paid in to the Council’s bank account by schools at local post offices.

The Co-op Bank had advised all local authorities that they were withdrawing from the local government banking market which meant the council needed to go through a procurement process to appoint a new bank by 31 March 2016 when the council’s current contract with the Co-op ran out.

Officers had held a number of discussions with the major banks before beginning the procurement process.  Of the major banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland/Nat West Bank was the only one other than the Co-op who had a commercial relationship with the Post Office in relation to the paying in of cash.  RBS/Nat West however along with the other major banks had recommended that the council promote the utilisation of the courier service and move away from considering using the post office and local bank branches for paying in of cash.

The courier service was seen to protect staff but in addition all major banks were looking to significantly reduce ‘over the counter’ transactions of any description with more and more local bank branches expected to close.  After considering the responses from the major banks, the need to protect staff and the need to ensure that the procurement process was competitive a decision was made to recommend the utilisation of the courier service across the council.  At the present time all services in the council other than schools already utilised the courier service, for example Sports Centres and Libraries, and 10% of the council’s schools also currently utilised the courier service

To ensure schools were informed of the upcoming change, the Council wrote to every school in the county advising them that the cash paying in facility with the Post Office would no longer be available once the council changed its bank.  This would be replaced by a cash collection courier service and schools had been advised that the revised arrangements would be phased in from May 2015 to January 2016.

Under the new contract, any school would be able to pay in cash or withdraw cash from the local branch of the council’s new bank.  The Council’s advice to schools however would always be to utilise the courier service due to the health and safety benefits for their employees.

For further information, as part of the Council’s Customer First Strategy, developments were also being considered in relation to online payments for schools which would hopefully significantly reduce the number and value of cash transactions in schools that would also reduce the frequency of use of the proposed courier service and save the schools money.

Councillor Napier hoped this answered Councillor Temple’s question which explained that there really wasn’t anything to consult on and the current service would no longer be an option

Councillor Temple thanked Councillor Napier for his reply and asked why, in the year when the Council knew it would need to appoint a new bank, schools were not consulted.  Councillor Napier replied that the Council had written to all schools and added that he would be willing to meet with Councillor Temple to further discuss the issues he had raised.

Councillor M Wilkes

The Council has a £750,000 contract with Citizens Advice Bureau to deliver advice services in County Durham.  The Council has asked CAB to work up future plans based on a £150,000 cut to this budget.  In light of this, can Councillor Napier be certain that all residents in need of these services will be able access them should funding be reduced?

Councillor Napier, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Finance thanked Councillor Wilkes for his question.

While it was correct that the Council had a £750,000 annual contract with the CAB covering a range of advice services across the County, additionally the Council also provided the CAB with in-kind support through the lease of two premises that they used on a peppercorn basis, which brought the Council’s total support to nearer £800,000 per year.

The current contract covered the period 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2017, which the CAB saw as a positive step and allowed them to plan better rather than under a rolling annual agreement, which produced significant year to year uncertainty for them.

In agreeing the current contract with the CAB, the Council had put in place more robust performance management and better sharing of information arrangements in place to inform the Council’s ongoing monitoring of the impact of the Government’s Welfare Reforms, which were having significant detrimental impacts on some of the most vulnerable members of the communities.

The Council fully supported the CAB and the valued services they provided.  They did a lot of tremendous work as did other advice agencies such as Age Concern and other similar groups that were also doing some great work.

The financial support given to the CAB had remained largely untouched since 2011/12 when a 25% reduction was made to all Council budgets in that year when, as the Leader had mentioned many times, the world changed for local government.

No further cuts in CAB grant had been made since 2011/12 although the Council had asked them to work with it to model how their service offer could be remodelled to achieve savings of around £150,000 in line with the 20% further reductions that the Council was facing with all Council budgets over the next 3 years.

It was emphasised that no decisions had been made at this stage and all the Council had asked the CAB to do was model potential impacts and implications.

From 1 April 2014, the four citizen advice bureaux services combined to create a single countywide CAB service, which released significant efficiencies and back office savings within their organisation. The Council was also working with the CAB and other providers to improve the co-ordination of activity through a countywide Advice in County Durham Partnership to remove duplication of effort and optimise available resources.

These two areas provided an opportunity to further review current arrangements and funding, improve efficiencies and address any gaps in current advice provision.

Councillor Napier assured Councillor Wilkes and all members that the Council would continue to work with the CAB to carefully consider the proposals that were being developed and that due consideration would be given as to whether to bring these proposals forward into the Council’s medium term financial plans as budget saving in the future.

All areas of the Council’s budget were being reviewed as it faced up to the unprecedented ongoing budget reductions never experienced by Local Government before.

Councillor Wilkes thanked Councillor Napier for his reply and expressed concerns that vulnerable members of the community may experience gaps in the advice service if all funding for the CAB was used within CAB premises, particularly referring to those vulnerable members of the community who were unable to attend the CAB.  Councillor Wilkes requested that consideration be given to provide some element of funding to assist such members of the community through, for example, the provision of home visits.

Councillor Napier replied that the Council, while operating in an unprecedented era of austerity and cuts, worked with a range of other agencies to provide services on a co-ordinated and holistic basis.  However, the comments made by Councillor Wilkes would be taken forward in future discussions.