To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from the following Members, for the reasons where stated:

            Councillor D Sage                   -           Unwell

Councillor D T Hardacre        

Councillor P Williams 

Councillor J Ward      

To receive declarations of personal and prejudicial interest (if any) from Members/Officers in accordance with the provisions of the Members’ Code of Conduct adopted by Council from1st September 2008.

None

The Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council, referred Members to Minute 54 of the previous meeting of the Joint Committee, where it was resolved that the election of the Vice-Chairperson be deferred to today’s meeting.

            In the absence of the Chairperson, he asked for nominations.

            It was duly moved, seconded and carried unanimously that Councillor B Stephens be nominated to fill this role for the forthcoming year.

            RESOLVED:               That Councillor B Stephens be elected Vice-Chairperson of the Catalogue Supplies Service Joint Committee for the forthcoming year.

            Councillor Stephens took the Chair, and thanked Members for their backing of confidence

            in appointing him in this role.

To receive the minutes of a meeting of the Catalogue Supplies Service Joint Committee held on the 26 June 2014.

RESOLVED:         That the minutes of the meeting of the Catalogue Supplies Service Joint Committee of 26 June 2014 were approved as a true and accurate record.

            In terms of Minute 57 and the fifth paragraph on page 43 of the minutes, the Corporate Procurement Manager - Bridgend County Borough Council confirmed that the Officer Group were now receiving monthly reports on debt management.

            He also added that in the first report on the agenda, where there was an update on sickness absence, this now also included a breakdown of sickness in terms of gender, and this trend would continue in future such reports, as requested by Members/Officers.

The Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council, presented a  report that updated members regarding the service trading and operational performance from 1^st April to 31^st August 2014.

He advised that Table 1 in 4.1.1.showed turnover for the 5 month period with a modest overall service growth of 0.23% against target to the end of August.

Stores turnover has shown an increase of 5% whilst catalogue directs were down by 12.5%.

The growth has been achieved through increased sales to Cardiff (up 250%) and Vale (up 60%) schools, with modest growth for independents and Swansea.

Each of the 4 trading partners has shown a downturn resulting from overall budget cuts, thelate easter holiday period and a lack of project work. (catalogue directs)

Table 3 shows that BCBC has fallen by 10%, Caerphilly by 14.5%, Merthyr by 25.5% and RCT by 12.5%

The Head of Procurement - Caerphilly County Borough Council, noted that catalogue direct trade was down and asked what the reasons were for this, and what could be done if anything to improve trade in this area.

The Business Operations Manager Joint Supplies Service, Bridgend County Borough Council confirmed that this would rise near end of financial year, February/March 2015, when there would be the usual increase in the purchase of furniture for schools etc.  In terms of looking to improve trade in this area he felt there was nothing that really could be carried out to guarantee this only to ensure prices remain competitive in comparison with the Joint Service trading competitors.

The Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council, then continued  by confirming that year to date Income had risen from £561,000 to £587,000 and is £58K above target.

Table 5 in the report profiled expenditure and income.

Total expenditure year to date was £522,000, broken down as indicated, and the projected outturn for the year was running at a £39,000 underspend.

Variances of note are:

·           Employee underspend of £43,000 (due to manager post and a delay in recruiting the Purchasing Officer post)

·           Premises underspend of £11,000 (due to another service sharing building remaining in situ)

·           An overspend of £12,000 resulting from an undercharge for audit fees for 2013 and 2014.

Net income was projected as per target at £1,363,000 although almost half of this had been achieved within the first 5 months of trading.

The overall surplus was currently £146,000 with the projected end of year surplus of £134,000. This was £39K above target, and this compared with a trading surplus of £107,000 at same period in 2013, he added.

The Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council then reminded Members that a number of core PI’s are collected and reported to the Joint Committee for monitoring, and some of these confirmed that there was:-

·           A stock availability for first time pick - 96.38 against target of 96%

·           A stockholding value - currently £672k or 9.75 weeks against target of 8 weeks as we stock up for new school term. In the first week  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

            The Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council, advised that this report was intended to advise Members of progress and proposed changes to the JSS Constitution, as the existing version was no longer fit for purpose in several key areas.

At the Joint Committee on 26 June 2014, the Chairperson requested Officers to prepare a draft version for consideration at today’s meeting.

The report so presented, highlighted the key principles agreed by Officers, which if endorsed by Members would form the basis of formal legal drafting of the document.

He explained that Members should note that there are two documents in existence. One is the original document dated 4 April 1996, included within the report as Appendix 1. This has been signed under seal by all four Authorities and is the only document held by the host Authorities Legal department, who are the document owners.

A later document was drafted in 1997, however, it appeared that this was neither dated or sealed, and has never been formally completed and sealed.

The Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council stated that when considering the changes to be made, it was felt that fine tuning Deed of Variation was not an option.

            A number of key principles were proposed based on the 1996 document therefore, these included:-

§   Bridgend County Borough Council to continue to act as the host organisation.

§   The new agreement being effective for a 3 year period with a 12 month extension option to link in with Local Government re-organisation.

§   Termination will be amended to a provision for any party giving a minimum of 12 months’ notice. This will allow sufficient time for other members to consider its future.

Where just one partner decides to terminate and the organisation continues to trade, a compensatory payment based on stock valuation less any liabilities incurred will be made to that partner.

§   If closure does occur, the value of reserves less any liabilities due (staff costs, creditors etc.) will be reimbursed on a percentage of population basis. The baseline for the population measure will be defined in the agreement

§   Reference to seconded staff will be removed as all staff are now employed by BCBC on behalf of the Joint Committee.

§   A schedule of Officer Group posts will be included in the document together with those of staff employed by the JSS and the responsibilities of the Management Committee and the Officer Group will be made clear in the document, together with the frequency of meetings.

Reporting lines would also be made clear via flowcharts.

§   A mechanism for appointing new posts will need to be outlined. It was proposed that all posts below Principal Officer will be managed by BCBC with reference back to the Officer Group and JSS Committee after the appointment has been made. The Officer Group will be consulted regarding the appointment of all Principal Officer posts.

§   Finally confirmed the Corporate Procurement Manager, Bridgend County Borough Council in order to make  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Finance Manager, Technical and Corporate submitted a report, the purpose of which was to present the Joint Committee’s Statement of Accounts for the financial year ended 31 March 2014

She confirmed that the (unaudited) Statement of Accounts was reported to the Joint Committee on the 26 June 2014 and were placed on public deposit and subject to audit by KPMG, the auditors appointed for the Joint Committee by the Wales Audit Office.

She then explained that KPMG, had carried out their audit of the 2013-14 Statement of Accounts and have made some minor amendments including some suggested minor presentational adjustments and additions to the disclosures which had been incorporated into the financial statements. The surplus for the year remained at £176,000, with total reserves of £1,005,000 which included an accumulated surplus of £920,000 as at 31 March 2014.  The revised Statement of Accounts was attached as Appendix 1 to the report.

            The Finance Manager Technical and Corporate stated that the only significant change to the Statement of Accounts was a reclassification of a provision of £23k against inventory balance to appropriately net off against the inventory balance as the provision balance is not separable from inventory. This adjustment did not have any impact on the surplus she added.

The mutual responsibilities of auditor and the audited body were expressed in the two other appended documents. The letter of representation, which was attached as Appendix 2 to the report, confirms to the best of one’s knowledge and belief, having made appropriate enquiries of other officers of the Catalogue Supplies Joint Committee, certain assurances to the auditors regarding the financial statements for Catalogue Supplies Joint Committee for the year ended 31 March 2014.

The auditors had prepared an “Audit of Financial Statements to the report for 2013-14”, which appeared as Appendix 3, which summarised the key issues identified during the consideration of the statement of accounts and annual governance statement.

RESOLVED:            That the Joint Committee:

(1)     Approved the audited Statement of Accounts for 2013-14 at Appendix 1 to the report.

(2)     Noted and agreed the Letter of Representation to be provided to KPMG and the Wales Audit Office at Appendix 2 to the report.

(3)    Noted the auditors’ Audit of Financial Statements Report for 2013-14 at Appendix 3 to the report.

            The Finance Manager Technical and Corporate presented a report, the purpose of which was to inform the Joint Committee of the unrecoverable debts over £1,000 which had been written off during the 2013-14 financial year.

            She explained that the Joint Committee’s accounts included a provision sufficient to cover all long-standing debt and a proportion of recent debt, which was generally collected in total within six weeks. The level of provision was reviewed on an annual basis to ensure it is maintained at a sufficient level.

The process for the authorisation of write-off’s was dependent on the value of debt as outlined in bullet point format in paragraph 3.4 of the report.

            The Finance Manager and Technical and Corporate went on to state that a review of the achievability of the payment of aged outstanding debts greater than £1,000 had been undertaken.

            Only one account which met this criteria was approved for write off during 2013-14, namely  a debt raised in March 2009 for a gross amount of £2,875 in respect of ‘catalogue sponsorship’ which was no longer recoverable and therefore has been written off. The debtor had gone into liquidation and as such County Borough Supplies were advised by the Administrators that payment will not be made.

            She concluded her submission, by advising that there were no financial implications regarding the report, as a provision was held for aged outstanding debts.

RESOLVED:           That the Joint Committee noted the bad debts written off in the 2013- 14 financial year.

To consider any other urgent item(s) of business in respect of which notice has been given in accordance with Part 4 (paragraph 4) of the Council Procedure Rules and which the person presiding at the meeting is of the opinion should by reason of special circumstances be transacted at the meeting as a matter of urgency.

The report relating to the following item is not for publication as it contains exempt

information as defined in Paragraph 14 of Part 4 and Paragraph 21 of Part 5 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information)(Variation) (Wales) Order 2007.

If following the application of the public interest test the Joint Committee resolves pursuant to the Act to consider this item in private, the public will be excluded from the meeting during such consideration.

RESOLVED:   That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation)(Wales) Order 2007 that the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following item as the minutes contained exempt information as defined by Paragraph 14 of Part 4 and Paragraph 21 of Part 5 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

                                               Following the application of the public interest test it was resolved that pursuant to the Act referred to above to consider the exempt minutes of the Joint Committee in private, with the public excluded from the meeting, as it was considered that in the circumstances the public interest in maintaining this exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information because of the prejudice disclosure would cause to the individuals concerned by virtue of Paragraph 14 of Part 4 and Paragraph 21 of Part 5 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

To receive the exempt minutes of a meeting of the Catalogue Supplies Service Joint Committee held on the 26 June 2014.