Given difficult economic conditions, you might think that our public bodies would be dilligent about ensuring that they collect any money owed, rather than relying on additional income from direct taxation.
Well, over at the Avon & Somerset Constabulary Police Authority (ASPOLA) they take a different view:
The Authority experiences very low levels of write offs, reflecting the works done throughout the Constabulary to recover debts and maintain accurate accounting records. The recovery of debt forms part of the financial health indicators, reported on quarterly to this Committee and seen elsewhere on this agenda. It has not been possible to capture performance here to date but work is ongoing with Southwest One to ensure this is achieved for future reports.
The SAP accounting system will be implemented in April 2009. This change in system has triggered a need to identify and review a number of balances so that any unrecoverable or irreconcilable balances are removed. This is in order that only balances which are explainable and valid will be uploaded into the new system. [...]
As a result of this review it is recommended that £29,215 (5.2% of total outstanding greater than thirty days old) of debt is written-off.
Category of Debt
- Debt in excess of 3 years old (£12,820)
- Debt between 1 and 3 years old individually less than £250 (£1,624)
- Debt between 1 and 3 years old more than £250 (£14,771)
The ASPOLA Treasurer reports that even with a 4% increase in Council Tax, the Police will still be short of cash. But they won't be getting a 4% increase. I'm not a fan of central government micro-management of local bodies, but it would appear that the Constabulary's Council Tax precept for 09/10 will be (sensibly) capped at 3%. This seems a funny time to be writing off millions>debt.
Looking at the ASPOLA Financial report from last week (27 Jan 09):
OPERATIONAL DISTRICTS [report an] overspend of £1,009k.
OPERATIONAL SUPPORT [...] shows an over spend of over £779k.
ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT [...] overspend of £149k [...]
Major incidents: are forecasting a £542k over spend. This relates entirely to Operation Vulcanise [i.e. Andrew Ibrahim] and is net of grant received in respect of the forensic costs for this.
Note - although they haven't got a conviction in Operation Vulcanise yet, Avon & Somerset's Corporate Communications Department did get a Silver Award from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Judges' comments:
The entry revealed a highly professional communications approach to a very sensitive and controversial issue. The need to act responsibly, swiftly and in a community sensitive manner, all came through strongly. The level of engagement with local cultural groups must also be praised. The results clearly showed that local community felt both consulted and informed.
At least the Detectives saved some money. Well, sort of:
HQ CID: is currently projecting to underspend by £151k. What would have been very large savings in both officer and staff pay have been offset to a large degree by a £425k over spend on ‘Equipment & other’. Some of the costs [include] £232k of communications equipment, £36k of informant costs and £61k of telecoms enquiries.
"Police Informant" seems to be a job with good prospects next year.
Last year, ASPOLA was bragging about the huge savings to be made from their new deal with private-public-ish Shared Services provider SouthWest One (see this blog). This year they report under the heading "INTELLIGENT CLIENT":
The Constabulary has been a member of the South West One (SW1) Joint Venture since March 2008. The seconded staff and departments within this venture are now under the reporting responsibility of the Intelligent Client function. The major budget variations comprising the £307k overspend forecast are as follows[:]
Organisational Development team and Strategic alliances: The net position on these budgets is showing an over spend of £52k.
Information systems [...] over spend of £123k.
Southwest One continues to make progress with the investment in SAP. They have recognised the challenges in delivering SAP across four organisations and hence the implementation has been delayed by two months to April 2009 for Finance and Procurement and June 2009 for HR and Payroll. We continue to ensure the spend remains within profile and budget. [...]
But at least the money is being collected.
Payments received: At this point in time it is not possible to capture information on actual performance. We are working with Southwest One to capture this information in time for the next report.
Oh dear.
One odd thing: the ASPOLA report from 27th January reckons that the Council Taxbase - the total number of council properties - is only going to rise by 0.5%. Bristol City Council is preparing their budget on the assumption of a 1.1% increase in the Taxbase. I'm surprised that urban Bristol is expecting more than double the increase in households of the rest of the former Avon area.
