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Financial Information

FINANCIAL POLICY DIVISION

POLICY & TECHNICAL TEAM

Welcome to the Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council Policy and Technical Team Webpages.

The Policy & Technical Team of the Financial Policy Division consists of seven members of staff, who deal with the Policy & Technical accounting areas for the Authority. The main specific areas of work carried out by the team are:

Treasury Management

The definition of Treasury Management is:

"The management of the local authority's cash flows, its borrowings and its investments, the management of the associated risks and the pursuit of the optimum performance or return consistent with those risks."

Local Authorities’ treasury management activities are prescribed by statute. The sources of their powers are, in England and Wales, the Local Government Act 2003 (the 2003 Act). The approved Treasury Management activities carried out by the Policy & Technical Team are as follows:-

 (a) Cashflow forecasting and management;
 (b) Borrowing to finance temporary cash deficits;
 (c) Investing surplus funds in Approved Investments;
 (d) Funding of capital payments through borrowing, capital receipts, grants or leasing;
 (e) Management of Debt;
 (f) Re-financing maturing debt;
 (g) Interest Rate exposure management;
 (h) Dealing with brokers, bank and the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB).
 (i) Monitoring of opportunities for improving treasury management performance including debt restructuring.

The Policy and Technical Team set the Treasury Strategy Statement and Annual Investment Strategy to be followed by the Authority for the forthcoming financial year. The Treasury Strategy Statement details the expected activities of the Treasury function in the forthcoming financial year. Its production and submission to Council is a requirement of the CIPFA Code of Practice on Treasury Management (2001).

The Local Government Act 2003 also requires the Authority to prepare an Annual Investment Strategy.

VAT
The Policy & Technical Team submit monthly VAT returns to HM Revenues & Customs on behalf of the Authority in order to reclaim back VAT on the Authority’s purchases and to pay over VAT on the Authority’s income.

The team also manages and advises on all aspects of VAT for the Authority, including the partial exemption calculation, in order to ensure that VAT is properly accounted for and tax management risks are mitigated.

Capital Programme
The Policy & Technical Team co-ordinates the production of the Authority’s three year capital programme and monitors and reports upon all capital expenditure incurred in the financial year. The team closes the capital accounts, which forms part of the Annual Statement of Accounts produced by the Accountancy Division. 

Capital grant claims
The Policy & Technical Team prepare and submit the majority of capital grant claims to external bodies, on behalf of all departments of the Authority. Examples of the main types of capital grant claims submitted are:
· Objective 1 Claims to the Welsh European Funding Organisation (WEFO);
· Local Regeneration Fund Claims to the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG);
· Physical Regeneration Fund Claims to WAG;
· Transport Grant Claims to WAG;
· Claims to the Department of Enterprise, Innovations & Networks (DEIN), which is major new department within WAG.

Standard Spending Assessments
The Policy and Technical team carry out research and analysis into the Welsh Standard Spending Assessment system in order to support the Authority’s cause for an increase in revenue funding from the Welsh Assembly Government.

The Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) is the mechanism for distributing revenue support grants (RSG) to local authorities in Wales to enable them to theoretically charge the same council tax for the provision of a similar standard of service. SSAs are intended to reflect variations in the need to spend, which might be expected if all authorities in Wales responded in a similar way to the demand for the services in their area. SSAs are formula based and are determined by the Welsh Assembly Government.

The actual revenue budget set by the Authority can be above or below the SSA for the Authority, as decisions on the level of service provided varies from authority to authority (as it is driven by the needs of the area). However the overall level of the budget is limited by the ability to make contributions from the Authority’s reserves and the ability to increase council tax, both of which may be subject to political and regulatory consideration.

Three year financial strategy framework
The Policy & Technical Team contribute to the ongoing development of the Authority’s three year financial strategy, which includes:
· The informed use of comparative data at key stages in the budget setting process;
· The development of stakeholder information to inform the budget setting process;
· The development and appraisal of Prudential Borrowing Schemes in order to realise the potential of innovative funding flexibility;
· The cross referring of budgets to key strategic documents;
· The establishment of a robust process to evaluate growth bids which are consistent with new and emerging policy directives;
· The use of existing budgets to project indicative figures for the following two years;
· The use of strategic level sensitivity analysis to project varying levels of Council Tax increases and assumptions on the Revenue Support Grant Settlement.

Prudential Code
The Policy and Technical Team is responsible for ensuring that the Authority complies with the CIPFA Prudential Code.

The Prudential Code requires that local authorities self regulate the affordability, prudence and sustainability of their capital expenditure and borrowing plans, by setting estimates and limits in the form of prudential indicators. It also requires that treasury management practices are in accordance with good practice. 

Prudential Indicators are approved by Council as part of the annual revenue budget approval process, prior to the start of the financial year.

FINANCIAL POLICY DIVISION

SERVICE EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT TEAM (SEIT)

Welcome to the Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council Service Efficiency Improvement Team webpage.

The Service Efficiency Improvement Team is part of the Financial Policy Division in the Resources Department of the Council.  It works alongside two other Teams in the Division – the Corporate Procurement Unit and the Policy and Technical Team.  The aim of the Team is:

“To assist the Authority in determining the best use of its resources with a view to providing efficient and citizen-focussed services.”

This means, we work with all departments to identify where services can be provided more efficiently or to a higher standard, for the benefit of the citizens of Blaenau Gwent.

Why We Do What We Do

There is a duty placed on all Welsh local authorities under the Local Government Act 1999 to:

”Make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which they exercise their functions, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”.

The Welsh Assembly promoted this further in 2004, by explaining its vision for public services in ‘Making the Connections: Delivering Better Services for Wales’ Report.  This Report set a target for each local authority to make 1% efficiency gains every year for the five years 2005-2010.  Most importantly for the citizens of Wales, the aim of targeting value for money improvements is to free up resources for use in delivering further improvements in public services.  It is not about making spending cuts that result in reductions in public services

More recently, in 2006, a review by Sir Jeremy Beecham resulted in a report entitled ‘Beyond Boundaries’.  This review encourages local authorities to actively seek out ambitious new approaches and best practices elsewhere to find new ways of providing services either to improve performance or make savings.  It promotes a ‘Citizen Focussed’ approach, for which communicating effectively with citizens is essential.

How We Go About It

Service areas across the Authority have already been undertaking a whole range of projects designed to improve services for the public and also to achieve efficiencies.  However, the increasing emphasis on efficiencies together with new budget pressures has meant that more time and resources were needed to focus on this area.

As a result, the Service Efficiency Improvement Team was specifically created to help the Authority address these challenges and the Team will be working closely with Service and Policy Managers to examine innovative new ways of providing services, in order to make efficiency savings and improvements in service delivery. 

To determine which areas need to be looked at most urgently, the Team will be analysing various factors of each service, including; financial information, performance information, the results of any Regulators comments and reports, the view of the service department and customer opinion.  

During 2005/06, the Authority completed a number of successful projects which contributed towards efficiency savings and improvements in services.  The way the Authority has procured its services has been, and continues to be, an important element of these savings.  Other projects include:

Partnering with Cardiff Council to deliver the new Contact Centre – C2BG
The re-structuring of Children’s Services to ensure the needs of the Authority’s most vulnerable children are met.
A review of the system for verifying Council Tax Single Person Discount.
A restructuring of the Authority’s Insurance Programme
A review of recruitment advertising

Virtual Policy Network – Value for Money Group

The Team is also responsible for co-ordinating a Value for Money Group, which utilises the Authority’s innovative concept of a ‘Virtual Policy Network’   (made up of officers across all departments of the Authority).  This promotes closer working between departments and utilises the experience and knowledge of a wider group of people. The Value for Money Group is tasked with undertaking a range of projects that aim to contribute to the Efficiency Target set by the Welsh Assembly Government.  The first three projects to be completed resulted in anticipated savings of over £300,000.

Central Record of Efficiency Gains

In response to the Making the Connections initiative, the Team is also tasked with recording all the efficiency/cash savings being made across the Authority and to check progress against the target set by the Welsh Assembly.  Efficiencies are classified in the following areas :

Smarter Procurement
Streamlining Support Functions
Shaping Public Services
Better Use of Staff Time, Skills and Expertise.

There is currently a wide range of projects underway, which are aimed at providing improved services to the public.  This includes partnering with other authorities (for example, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen are currently working on a joint waste procurement project) and also other sectors (for example, Social Services are working with Barnardos and have introduced a service for children with disabilities).