1.        PURPOSE OF REPORT AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.1      At the last meeting of the Committee Members requested that a report outlining the current level of staff recharges from the Council be brought to this meeting.                                                                                        

2.        INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

2.1     Maidstone Borough Council provides support to the activities of the Trust in a number of different areas such as management of the Estate activities, finance, property services and grounds maintenance.

2.2     As the accounts of the Trust are currently integrated into the Council’s financial management system the costs of these services are charged to the Trust via the Council’s internal recharging system.

3.        CURRENT RECHARGES                                                                                                                        

3.1   Appendix A sets out the estimated recharges from the Council to the Trust for 2017/18. These figures represent staff salaries (including employers National Insurance and pension contributions) along with an allocation of associated overheads such as office accommodation, telephones and computer charges. The charges will be reviewed in the Autumn as part of the Council’s budget setting process, and they will be adjusted at the end of the year to reflect outturn figures.                                                                                                    

3.2   The time allocations are generally based around percentage allocations of staff time, although the finance allocation does take into account other factors such as number of invoices paid and insurance claims processed.                                                                                                          

3.3   The charge from Parks & Leisure to the Café/Visitor Centre includes the Council management fee of £20,780 as agreed by the Committee in December 2014. This represents the Council’s charge for managing the estate and the staff directly employed by the Trust such as the Cobtree Manager and the staff at the café/visitor centre. The other charges from Parks & Leisure are for indirect additional activities such as contract management, preparation for and attendance at committee meetings and processing invoices for payment.                                                                                                           

3.4   The charge from Grounds Maintenance represents the operative(s) engaged in activities at the Manor Park on an ongoing basis.                                                                                  

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4.        FUTURE RECHARGES                                                                                           

4.1      Members will be aware from the Financial Position Report elsewhere on this agenda that it is proposed that a separate financial management system be established for the accounts of the Trust. This would impact on the recharges as they would need to be taken out of the Council system and dealt with separately.                                                                                                             

4.2                  It is proposed that a further report be brought to the Committee once a clear way forward is established regarding the financial management system, but it is likely that the Council would recharge the Trust via invoices. This would present an opportunity for a review of the current recharges and the methodology used as it is acknowledged that it may not completely reflect the level of work done by the Council on behalf of the Trust. It may be appropriate to establish some form of Service Level Agreement going forward to ensure any recharges to the Trust are accurate and reflect the level of service provided by the Council.                   

5.        AVAILABLE OPTIONS

6.        PREFERRED OPTION AND REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

7.       CONSULTATION RESULTS AND PREVIOUS COMMITTEE FEEDBACK

7.1    The Committee had previously requested that this report be brought before them.

8.       NEXT STEPS: COMMUNICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECISION

8.1     Officers will bring a further report to the Committee on this subject.

9.       CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS

10.    REPORT APPENDICES

The following documents are to be published with this report and form part of the report:

·         Appendix A: Current Recharges

11.    BACKGROUND PAPERS

None.