March 2009

last updated:March 2010

Meeting of Executive Committee, 18 March 2009

Revised 2009/10 Budget
The Chief Executive introduced the paper and sought a steer from the Executive Committee on how the revised budget should be presented to Council. He outlined the rationale for recommending option 2 for the budget strategy as set out in the paper and drew Members’ attention to the principles and criteria agreed by the Leadership Team as a basis for the budget reductions.

Early discussion centred on the possible impact of the remit review upon which the Chief Executive and Registrar updated Members including potential risks for the Council. The Committee discussed the position of the TLA vis a vis any early discussion on CPD within the remit review upon which the Chief Executive responded. The Chair of Council believed it was important to recognise that the Council were enablers, not providers of CPD.  The Committee had a detailed discussion on how the budget should be presented to Council, anticipating possible questions from Members and to think through possible outcomes of the review and a future fee strategy. 

The Committee looked at the suggested reductions to operational budgets set out in section 4.3.5 and made some textual changes including an agreement to exclude specific reference to the October Council meeting being restricted to one day.  The Committee examined the principles and criteria set out in appendix 1 and made some presentational and textual amendments to be included in the paper to Council which it believed would strengthen the Executive Committee’s argument.  Further discussion centred on the presentation of the reserves and reference to reduced levels of interest and that in respect of the principles Committee Chairs should be presented with some examples that could help the debate on the 25th March.  The Committee then discussed the strategy for the fee for years 2 and 3 as set out in section 4.3.6 of the paper and believed that this needed to be reworded carefully in terms of the projected fee and also to have details of the projected income and forecast expenditure for these years. The Committee believed that the statements of principles should lead the Council paper and these be followed with technical changes.

At the end of the debate the Chief Executive stated that the paper for Council would be written with regard to all the points raised by Committee in terms of both presentational and textual amendments.

Committee:

• agreed an approach for future years’ fees and reserves
• reviewed and adjusted changes made to date, in accordance with agreed principles and priorities subject to presentational and textual amendments made at the meeting to appendix 1 in reporting to Council
• finalised the budget for 2009-10 for submission to Council on 25 March 2009 to incorporate the above amendments and other suggested presentational amendments in respect of the final paper to Council including Section 4.3.6 in respect of the Fee for Years 2 and 3.

Member Engagement in the Teaching in 2012 Programme: the Selection and Role of Lead Member
The Chief Executive introduced the paper and the context to the recommendations; an additional recommendation was proposed that the Chair of Council should be the Lead Member for the Corporate Governance project.

The Committee supported the proposed arrangements and discussion centred on the time commitment involved and the proposed wider involvement of Council Members.  The Chief Executive stated that some of the activity would be based on email communication with some face to face work and liaison with key staff built around the Members existing GTC commitments where possible. The Committee noted the comments made by Angela Stones and particularly the need to ensure that staff and Lead Members fully understood their role in terms of remit and responsibilities.

Committee:

• approved the list of Teaching in 2012 programmes, detailed at section 4.4 of the paper, and those programmes for which is it suggested that a Lead Member is appointed to note the status update for each of these
• approved the decision to appoint Lead Members for each of the Teaching in 2012 programmes (where a Lead Member has not already been appointed)
• approved the role of the  Lead Members as detailed at section  4.3 in the paper
• approved the timescale and process for appointing the lead Members (including further consideration by Executive Committee to be given to the practice being recommended to other service committees)
• agreed the Chair of Council be appointed as Lead Member for the Corporate Governance project.

Corporate Measures Performance Monitoring
The Director of Corporate Services introduced the paper which informed Committee of the revised performance and budget monitoring reporting arrangements to be applied to the Council’s corporate measures from 1st April 2009.  She added that the paper to the next meeting would set out these measures in the balance score card format as requested previously by the Committee.

Committee endorsed the revised procedures for performance and budget monitoring arrangements outlined in this report and that a paper incorporating balanced score card reporting would be submitted to the May meeting.

Information Assurance: Progress Report
The Director of Corporate Services introduced this paper which had been submitted to the Audit Committee on 17 March who noted the paper in accordance with their terms of reference.  Consequently the Committee was asked to endorse the approach set out in the paper.  The Director of Corporate Services and the Registrar updated Members on the current priorities and key issues facing the Council as it sought to implement “Hannigan” and other requirements. 

The Director of Corporate Services highlighted the key challenges in respect of getting the local authorities and schools to work to acceptable standards of security in respect of data exchange arrangements. The Director of Corporate Services mentioned work on the Statement of Internal Control process and that Council was compliant in all the requirements except one which related to the previously reported breach. She also informed the Committee  that information risk was managed in the Council existing risk management arrangements and that the corporate risk register now had a separate entry for information insurance.  Committee noted the significant resource implications required for implementing the Government information assurance requirements and that these had to be met within the Council budget.

Committee endorsed the approach the GTC is taking to further safeguard the personal data it handles.