Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from County Councillor Beavers and Councillor Blackburn.

Members are asked to consider any pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the agenda.

During part 2, item 10 County Councillor George Wilkins declared a non?pecuniary interest which related to a contractor being located in his division.

RESOLVED: - That the Minutes of the last meeting held on 21 May 2018 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Core Financial Statements for the financial year ended 31 March 2018 were presented to the Resources Committee in May.  The report confirmed that:-

·        the unaudited Statement of Accounts would be signed by the Treasurer to certify that it presented a true and fair view of the financial position of the Authority as at 31 March 2018;

·        this would be subject to review by the Authority’s external auditors, Grant Thornton;

·        that a further report would be presented to the Audit Committee in July, following completion of the external audit;

·        at that meeting the Chair of the Audit Committee would be asked to sign the final statement of accounts, as well as the Treasurer;

·        Following this a final audited set of accounts will be presented to the Resources Committee for information.

In light of this the Committee noted and endorsed the report and core financial statements, based on the various outturn reports presented on the same agenda.

Subsequent to that the full set of accounts were produced and signed by the Treasurer and submitted for audit to Grant Thornton.   The External Audit Findings Report was considered as now presented.

The main issues within the report were as follows:-

• Audit opinion - the auditor would give an unqualified opinion on the financial statement;
• Value for money – the auditors concluded that the Authority had proper arrangements in all significant respects to ensure it delivered value for money in its use of resources.

The auditors had identified one adjusted mis?statement, relating to the treatment of our share of North West Fire Control, as set out on page 13-15 of the Audit Findings Report.  The Statement of Accounts was updated to reflect the changes identified during the audit and a revised statement of accounts was approved by the Audit Committee in July, as considered by Members as now presented.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor O’Toole regarding potential changes to Manchester’s membership on the North West Fire Control (NWFC) Board of Directors the Chief Fire Officer confirmed that the change of governance in Manchester to a Mayoral governance approach had led to fewer Members being available to attend meetings therefore Manchester had wanted instead to nominate Officers to sit on the Board. 

It was noted that Manchester owned 52% of NWFC, Lancashire 25% with the remaining shared between Cheshire and Cumbria.  The potential for a change in membership and any associated risk would be reviewed shortly by the Board’s current representation with any resultant change requiring alteration to the Articles of Association.

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Wilkins, the Director of Corporate Services confirmed that building assets received a full valuation every 5 years with a desk top review undertaken every year.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the last review of fire stations concluded that they were broadly in line with our requirements.  The stations were used jointly with the Police and Ambulance Services where possible and with other partners for community  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4/18

The report set out the current budget position in respect of the 2018/19 revenue and capital budgets and performance against savings targets. 

Revenue Budget

The overall position as at the end of July showed an overspend of £0.3m.  Trends were being monitored to ensure that they were reflected in future years budgets as well as being reported to the Resources Committee.  In terms of the year end forecast, it was still early in the year however, the latest forecast showed an overall underspend of approximately £0.1m.

The Committee was provided with detailed information regarding the position within individual departments, with major variances relating to non-pay spends and variances on the pay budget being shown below:-

The next scheduled meeting of the Committee has been agreed for 10:00 hours on 28 November 2018 in the Main Conference Room, at Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meetings are:     scheduled for 27 March 2019

                                          proposed for 29 May 2019 and 25 September 2019

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Wednesday, 28 November 2018 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.

Further meeting dates were noted for 27 March 2019 and agreed for 29 May 2019 and 25 September 2019.

An item of business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered as a matter of urgency.  Wherever possible, the Clerk should be given advance warning of any Member’s intention to raise a matter under this heading.

The Director of Corporate Services advised that further to the report to the last Authority meeting in September where Members noted that Lancashire Leaders were considering the potential for Lancashire to bid to be in a 1-year pilot pool for 75% business rates retention and following subsequent consultation with the Chairman he could confirm that the Leaders had agreed to submit a bid which included all districts in Lancashire except Lancaster City Council who had formally withdrawn from the process owing to the significant risk represented by the nuclear power station at Heysham. It was noted that Lancaster were not members of the current pool arrangement for the same reason.  Without Lancaster in the pool, the extra growth forecast reduced to just over £7m. Members also noted that:

·        The 2019/20 pilots would not benefit from the ‘no detriment’ clause enjoyed by existing 100% pilots. Instead the safety net threshold for the entire pool would be raised from 92.5% to 95% to recognise the increased risk sharing.

·        Participating councils would also be exposed to a higher level of business rate risk for the duration of the pilot in 2019/20. There would be a higher share of any losses, arising as a result of appeals, bad debts and empty premises, being 75% rather than the current 50%.

·        The Safety Net threshold would only be activated by Central Government on a pool wide basis and was therefore unlikely to be triggered. As such each authority would bear its own risk over and above the 5% Resilience Fund created by the additional growth.

Authorities selected as pilots would be expected to forgo Revenue Support Grant (£8.4m in 2019/20 for the Fire Authority), but the value of these grants would be taken into account when revised tariffs and top-up’s for the pilot authorities were set up but the impact on the Fire Authority and other participating authorities would be revenue neutral.

The new 75% pilot, if successful, would allow Lancashire authorities to influence the policy and approach taken by Central Government on any future national scheme. Having 2019/20 as essentially a transitional year would provide an opportunity to test and gather information on the design of the new business rate retention system in preparation for the anticipated national implementation of the new arrangements in 2020/21.

Whilst it was impossible to project with any accuracy the 2019/20 financial position in terms of Business Rates Retention, based on the 2018/19 NNDR1 modelling, there was the potential for £140k additional growth to remain with the Fire Authority with our contribution to the resilience pot estimated to be £10k and £50k to the investment fund for use across Lancashire. A contribution of £2,000 or a similar amount would be made to the Lead Authority.

RESOLVED: - that the report be noted and endorsed.

The Committee is asked to consider whether, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, they consider that the public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, indicated under the heading to the item.

RESOLVED: - That the press and members of the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, indicated under the heading to the item.

(Paragraphs 3 and 4)

The Director of People and Development presented a report that outlined the background and current position in respect of the pensionability of the Day Crewing Plus Allowance.

RESOLVED: - Members endorsed the first three recommendations as set out in the report and requested a legal opinion be provided before determining the last recommendation.

(Paragraph 3)

Members considered a report that provided an update on all contracts for one-off purchases valued in excess of £100,000 and high value procurement projects in excess of £100,000 including: new contract awards, progress of ongoing projects and details of new projects with an anticipated value exceeding £100,000.

RESOLVED:  That the Committee noted and endorsed the report.