Members are asked to consider whether they have personal or prejudicial interests in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state what they are.

Members are reminded that they should also declare, pursuant to paragraph 18 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules, whether they are subject to a party whip in connection with any item(s) to be considered and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of the whipping arrangement.

Members were asked to consider whether they had a personal or prejudicial interest in any matters to be considered at the meeting and, if so, to declare them and state what they were. Members were reminded that they should also declare, pursuant to paragraph 18 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules, whether they were subject to a party whip in connection with any matter to be considered and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of the whipping arrangement.

No such declarations were made.

At Cabinet on 16th October a number of budget savings were proposed and the following resolution was agreed:

“(1) Cabinet recognises that these are difficult times financially for everyone and that it must do all it can to ensure that Wirral’s Council Tax Payers are not faced with the additional burden of high Council Tax increases. Cabinet understands the need to make urgent savings in order to close Wirral’s budget gap and therefore recommends the following.”

Cabinet asked that these items be referred to the relevant Overview & Scrutiny Committee for their consideration. There are two proposals which fall within the remit of this Overview & Scrutiny Committee. These are:

• Increased income from Registrars - £47,000
• Student Awards no longer being processed in One Stop Shops - £50,000

Attached are two reports from the Director of Law, HR and Asset Management on the ‘Registrars’ item

Also attached a report from the Director of Finance with information on the ‘Student Awards’ item.

Cabinet at its meeting on 16th October (minute 219 refers) proposed a number of budget savings and asked that these items be referred to the relevant Overview & Scrutiny Committee for their consideration. There were two proposals which fell within the remit of this Overview & Scrutiny Committee. These were:

• Increased income from Registrars - £47,000
• Student Awards no longer being processed in One Stop Shops - £50,000

In connection with the first of the proposals, the Director of Law, HR and Asset Management submitted two reports which had been considered by Cabinet. The first of these contained a proposal to decommission the marriage room at Birkenhead Town Hall, and introduce a new scale of fees for marriage and civil partnership ceremonies at Birkenhead Town Hall and the Round Room at Wallasey Town Hall. It was proposed that Wirral Register Office marriage room would become the Superintendent Registrar’s office at Birkenhead Town Hall. Small marriage parties of up to 6 people could use this room for the statutory fee of £43.50.

The current marriage room would be redesignated as an Approved Premise and as such the authority would be able to set a discretionary fee. This would allow a similar charge to be levied for The Round Room in Wallasey which was already an approved premise.

The fees for the ceremony rooms at Birkenhead and Wallasey would be:

Monday to Thursday    £70.00

Friday  £90.00

Saturday (Mornings only)  £114.00

It was anticipated that this would generate an additional income of £14,000.

The second report contained a proposal to introduce a ‘priority service’ for customers who wished to pay for certificates from the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in order to receive their certificates within an hour. It was proposed that customers would be offered a choice of two services:

• For the standard fee of £7 the customer could return to the Register Office the following day or choose to have their certificate posted to them.
• For an additional fee of £18 the certificate would be issued to them within an hour.

This service would be offered to all customers, except requests for family history certificates where a reference was not included due to the research time involved. It was anticipated that this priority service would generate an additional income of £33,750.

The Director responded to a number of comments from Members on each report.

The Director of Finance submitted a report on the ‘student awards’ proposal. The Government had announced the transfer of the scheme from local authorities to the Student Loans Company, a Non Departmental Public Body based in Darlington, in July 2006. This issue had been reported to Cabinet in March 2007 and March 2008. The agreed transition plan managed the reducing workload, ensuring service standards were maintained whilst planning for staff reductions. These reductions would need to take place with effect from December 2008 as the Authority would deal with approximately 3800 students’ applications in 2009/10 with further reductions running through to April 2011.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.