Issue - meetings

To receive the report of the Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets

RESOLVED

(i)         That the provision of the revenues and benefits service be secured through a local authority partnership with LGSS.

(ii)        That the Director of Corporate Services be authorised to undertake the negotiations to secure the agreement with LGSS in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets reported that following the Council’s decision to withdraw the CenSus Revenues and Benefits Partnership by September 2018, three options had been explored for the future provision of the service and the Cabinet Member was recommending agreement to secure the provision of the revenues and benefits service through a local authority partnership with the LGSS.

The Finance and Assets Policy Development Advisory Group had considered the proposals and raised no objections.

RESOLVED

(i)         That the provision of the revenues and benefits service be secured through a local authority partnership with LGSS.

(ii)        That the Director of Corporate Services be authorised to undertake the negotiations to secure the agreement with LGSS in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets.

REASON

The use of an established public-public partnership was recommended because of the speed and cost with which such a service can be supplied, the potential for improving the Council’s housing benefits subsidy and business rates position and the track record of the partnership proposed.

The Director of Corporate Resources presented the revenues and benefits update. A report was due to be presented to Cabinet on 25th May 2017 which was likely to recommend that the Council use a distant partnership for its revenues and benefits service called LGSS.

The LGSS was highly experienced in providing this service, Members noted that it provided an excellent training approach, with a good track record of recovering councils from subsidy loss and that it was anticipated that the new partners would also use many of the existing Horsham CenSus staff.

The LGSS were already operating successfully in Northampton and Milton Keynes.

The report to Cabinet would be recommending not to go ‘in-house’ to provide the revenues and benefits service for reasons such as lack of experience and higher costs.

Also, Members would be recommended not to outsource the service either, due to the risks involved, the small scale savings and the high transition costs.

Estimated comparative figures for annual operational costs and transition costs for all three options were provided for the Group. However, it was noted that there was a level of uncertainty in the comparative figures.

At the Cabinet meeting, officers would be seeking the approval to move forward and look further into the most suitable option, which at this stage appeared to be using the LGSS.

Members noted LGSS was well established and was currently providing the revenues and benefits service to a number of councils.  LGSS would also endeavour to use the existing Horsham District Council staff by allowing home working, therefore reducing the number of redundancies and the costs involved.

Members questioned the direction of Adur District Council, the other partner previously involved in the CenSus Partnership; Adur’s service would merge with Worthing Borough Council’s in-house service, in line with other shared services between the two councils.   The difference between Adur’s situation and Horsham’s was Adur’s existing partnership with Worthing meant it had access to Worthing’s already  established revenues and benefits service in place.

If the LGSS was selected as the best option, potentially the contract could commence at the beginning of April 2018.

Members noted, in addition to the business of the meeting, that Horsham would be receiving £460,000 to use to set up a Discretionary Business Rates Relief Scheme following announcements in the budget in March.

The Director of Corporate Resources reminded Members at the Cabinet had agreed in January to issue notice to withdraw from the CenSus Revenues and Benefits Partnership leading to the Partnership’s dissolution. Consequently, consideration of the re-provision of the service was underway. The Forward Plan identified that a decision was scheduled for May 2017.

The group heard the range of options under consideration as follows:

·         An existing ‘out of area’ local authority partnership

·         The establishment of an ‘in area’ local authority partnership

·         An ‘in house’ option

·         Private sector provision

Officers explained each of the options in full, and having sought the advice of experienced consultants, each of the options had been appraised according to a clear specification and ranked accordingly. The specification was extensive and included

·         Governance arrangements

·         Performance, including processing times

·         Customer service, including ‘channel shift’

·         Software

·         Data cleansing

·         Human resources

·         Financial implications

Members expressed their thanks for the clarity of the explanation of each of the options and agreed that two of the options would not meet the needs of the council. Members felt that one of the options was particularly strong and offered the endorsement of the group to that option at this stage, noting that the group would be consulted again before the decision was made.