The Scottish Government

MINUTES OF SCOTSTAT WORKING GROUP ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE STATISTICS (WGLGFS) Wednesday 24 November 2004 AT 10.30

CONFERENCE ROOM 9, VICTORIA QUAY

Present: Dave Signorini - (SE, LGF Stats) Chair
Neil White - (SE, LGF Stats)
Stevan Croasdale -(SE,ASD6)
Hilary Pearce -(SE,LGF&P)
Sarah Parkin - (SE,LGF&P)
Hugh Coleman - (Aberdeen City Council, CoSLA)
Neil Reid - (South Lanarkshire Council, CoSLA)
Paul Hughes - (North Lanarkshire Council, CoSLA)
Gillian Woodcock - (Angus Council, CoSLA)
Graeme Strachan - (Assesser, Edinburgh)
Joyce Roberts - (SE, FCS)

Observers: Margaret Sellar - (SE, LGF Stats)
Nigel Fender - (SE, LGF Stats) Secretary

Apologies: Stephen Herbert - (Scottish Parliament Centre)
John Valentine - (SE,LGF Stats)
Graham Hope - (West Lothian, CoSLA)
Don Peebles - (CIPFA)
Robert Gibson - (Fife Council, CoSLA)

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Dave thanked everyone for attending. This has been the only meeting this year. The last was 3rd December 2003. The main items this session are to talk about the purpose of the working group and about the change to recent returns especially the new Capital Payment Return.

2. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING (HELD ON 15th DECEMBER 2003)

Capital Reporting Forms

2.1 The revision of the CPRs has taken place. The new returns have been issued to Local Authorities and now include info for actual payments and receipts for current quarter and forecast information for current year and next 3 financial years. The return also asks for Prudential Indicators. The new returns are now reported on an accruals basis rather than cash.

Council Tax Collection

2.2 Dave said that the consultation with Local Authorities has had a mixed response. The view was expressed that having more another published set of data could be confusing. No plans for another publication at present.
2.3 PPP Costs on LFRs - add a line to collect PPP. Neil spoke to the Financial Partnership Unit. This data is already held by them and so there is no need to pursue this point.

Meeting notification

2.4 Dave said that we should circulate meeting agenda and any relevant info 2 weeks prior to meeting.

3 PURPOSE AND REMIT OF WORKING GROUP

3.1 The original purpose of the working group was to discuss specific issues relating to the Local Authority financial returns that are issued by the Scottish Executive. The aim was to identify statistical information which is required by all parties, taking into account the needs of consumers and the burdens upon suppliers.

3.2 Although the group was initially very productive in reviewing the LFRs, recently the output has reduced and some members do not always feel they are the correct representative from their Local Authority.

3.3 Feedback from the Local Authorities is very useful, however, and that link must be maintained, although the group membership should be more fluid.
3.4 It was decided that the group should cover a wider range of activities, with external representatives from Local Authorities changing depending on the specific task at hand.

ACTION: Dave to write to Directors of Finance to notify them that in future we will contact them to ask for appropriate people to attend and contribute, on a more task-specific basis.

4 PROPOSED REVIEW OF CAPITAL PAYMENTS RETURNS

4.1 Hugh and Paul both felt that there was too much worked involved in getting the quarterly figures. Dave pointed out that quarterly data is required to meet the HM Treasury requirements for the Pre-Budget Report and the Budget.
4.2 Gillian queried the section asking for actual CFCR, as they do not know how much capital expenditure they need to finance through CFCR until later in the year. Joyce stated that finance require actual figures especially supported borrowing, but council members said that they just pro-rata the SB figure. Hilary also stated that the Fire Boards also complete returns for the Justice Division and we would have to watch out that we are not duplicating data.

4.3 Given the above there is a need for review. The group agreed that it would be useful to convene a group of capital experts to take this forward.

ACTION: Neil to convene a group to look at the CPR

5 TIMETABLE FOR 2005-06 FINANCIAL RETURNS

5.1 Dave explained that we are bringing the SLGFS publication forward by 3 months and thus it was crucial that we received the data by the timescale and with no loss to the quality.

5.2 It was agreed that the September deadline for the LFR's was acceptable as most councils have had their accounts audited by then, although Hugh stated that it was October for his area. 30th June being the deadline for submission to Audit Scotland of accounts. It was thought that the 3rd September date was realistic.

5.3 Neil Reid asked if we could give councils notice of any sections of forms that would not be changing thus allowing the councils to get started on them earlier. Dave Signorini replied that we could make the covering letter clearer to highlight the changes from the previous return.

5.4 Dave also pointed out that from 1 January 2005, under the Freedom of Information Act we are likely to release upon request any data that we hold to the public domain even if it has yet to be checked or validated.

6 REVALUATION 2005-06: NDR DATA COLLECTION

6.1 This revised return has been discussed with the Scottish Assessor Association to measure general growth and shrinkage in taxable base and to see how this compares in individual areas. No objections to rolling out this return in 2005.

7 AOB

FRS 17

7.1 There would be an analysis of the FRS 17 data which has been reported on the recent Local Financial Returns and Dave asked if anybody had any comments on the reporting of FRS on the LFRs.

7.2 Paul stated that the figures given for this can fluctuate drastically explaining that this year the figure was a credit, but the year before they were reporting debits. The group felt that it was best to keep FRS 17 costs separate from the rest of the expenditure data.

ACTION: LGF Statistics will produce an analysis of the effects of the FRS 17 for circulation.

8 DATE OF NEXT MEETING

8.1 This would take place around March 2005, to consider the revised LFRs.