Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached report.

Mr Maddock introduced the report providing information on the cost of Member and Corporate Services, how it was calculated and what was the definition of these services. The two areas that this report was concerned with was Corporate Management which was made up of two cost centres and Member Activities which was made up of six cost centres. The former fell within the Office of the Chief Executive budgets and the latter, Governance.          

Corporate Management sometimes referred to as Corporate Policy Making was the cost of managing the authority as a whole and includes the cost of the Chief Executive, management board meetings, production of the accounts, external audit, Cost of maintaining a corporate bank account  and a number of other similar costs. There was a popular misconception that a service area that provides support to all areas of the Council was a charge to Corporate Management, this was not the case as the definition was rather more narrow than that and the costs of these functions should be apportioned out to all Council services.

Member activities were sometimes referred to as Democratic Representation and as the name suggested was concerned with the cost to the authority of having elected members. It included Members Allowances, the holding of committee meetings and provision of agendas, the cost of attendance at external meetings where the member was representing the Council, officer advice to members and the provision of member admin services.

As regards the total cost of both of these services the HRA should bear a proportion of the cost as members and officers carrying out this work clearly make decisions that affect both the HRA and General Fund.

As regards to Corporate Management, a significant proportion of the costs relate to officer time and all the cost of the Chief Executive. As regards Member activities, much of the costs were incurred regardless of the number of meeting held. A proportion related to office space including the Council Chamber, Members Room and Committee Rooms. The majority of the Democratic Services Team were also charged here along with support provided to members by other officers.

It was noted that the costs of Corporate Management and Member Activities were quite significant and based on the 2017/18 original estimate represent 12% of the General Fund ‘Net Cost of Service’ of £17.959 million. However in common with a number of other services there was a significant fixed element to the costs which would only vary when large scale changes were made.

Councillor Lion noted that the production of paper agendas was now moving over to a paperless agenda system. There were now no more Council Bulletins on paper. He asked what was the cost of paper agendas. Mr Maddock said that he would find out.

Councillor Patel said that the report was interesting and that it fed into the Transformation project with its costs for the building and offices.

The Committee had a short discussion on Members ability to read or connect to the new electronic Members Bulletin and their problems generally viewing things on line.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee noted report on the cost of Member and Corporate Services.