The Director of Finance submitted a response to the issues identified from the 2007/08 Audit Commission Value for Money Profile of Wirral, compared with its nearest neighbours, which had been reported to the Cabinet on 23 July.  He explained that, as part of its use of resources assessment, the Audit Commission had pointed to areas of high spending within the authority and had asked that the Council give the reasons why, indicate what changes it proposed to make and what future action it proposed.

On a motion by Councillor Holbrook, duly seconded, it was -

Resolved - That

(1) Cabinet welcomes the report which shows that the Council continues to make further progress in delivering value for money.

(2) Cabinet confirms that:

(i)  the cost profiles reflect Council spending on policy priorities, for example, in improving the Borough’s level of recycling;

(ii)  the cost profiles do not always represent the best way of determining whether a service is value for money, for example the operation of the Fair Debt Policy, or where comparisons on a cost per transaction or per client basis show good performance, as in the case of housing and council tax benefit;

(3) Cabinet further notes the improving trends in children’s social care and looked-after children, and the actions taken in adult social care.

(4) however, Cabinet requests that the Director of Adult Social Services provides to a subsequent Cabinet meeting a more detailed breakdown of the actions undertaken in respect of the matters in Appendices A7 to A10. Cabinet notes in the interim that the same overall set of figures, agreed as part of the budgetary efficiencies for 2008/09 and a three-year figure for the development of locality-based integrated teams, has been repeated in each of those appendices because of the individual impact on each area. Cabinet confirms for the sake of clarity that these are single, overall figures and not multiple efficiencies of the same amount.