Minutes of the East Durham College Finance and General Purposes Committee Meeting held on 8th February 2024

S Robson (Chair) 

D Butler

M Curry

J Smith 

S Duncan 

J Mitchelson (Vice-Principal Finance and Business Planning)

H McCoy (Assistant Principal Performance)

C Tomlinson (Vice Principal Curriculum & Performance)

S Pritchard (Clerk to the Corporation)

Apologies were received from G Dullage

The chair invited members of the committee to declare any conflicts of interest relevant to the agenda or not already known and none were declared.

AGREED

That the minutes of the meeting held on 4th October 2023 were approved.

A member noted the outstanding audit action regarding failover testing and received confirmation that it was still intending to happen over Easter.  

A member followed up on the outcome of the RAAC survey and it was confirmed that an engineer had tested for RAAC, that no further exploration was recommended and that the cost of exploration was being reclaimed from the DfE.

The Assistant Principal Quality & Performance presented the HR update and in particular fed back on the staff survey which had highlighted a low return rate, which was going to be considered further, and three staff concerns with regard to pay, a lack of understanding of the benefits the College offered, and concerns at a lack of flexibility for working from home.  Managers were tasked with investigating these concerns further and feeding back with a view to implementing ideas and undertaking a further survey in May with the aim of a higher return rate.

The Chair queried whether there was a sectoral comparison and it was noted that whilst that had been available in the past,  that it was now hard to benchmark in the sector.  The Chair queried how the results compared to the previous survey and it was confirmed that the same three concerns were raised but that the response rate is not normally so low.  Work was being done on internal communications.  A member queried if the survey was undertaken after the pay award and it was confirmed that this was the case, but that even though the College had been able to match teachers’ pay awards this year, that the College had historically been unable to provide consolidated pay awards and was therefore still behind the market.  It was noted that CLG are working on a pay proposal that would come to the February board and issues with the increasing National Living Wage were discussed.

A member queried if CLG had modelled the cost of the revised salary structure and it was confirmed it would cost about £500k and information was provided on the aims of the pay award for teaching staff.  It was noted that the College had not yet received its funding allocations and that therefore considerable work would need to be undertaken between February and July when the budget would be signed off.  The committee noted that the College had been selected to speak to the DfE about the impact the last funding increase had on pay and staff morale, and the college had fed back the challenges inflation at the lower end of the pay scales were causing and DfE had said this would be fed back to Treasury, particularly in light of the pivotal role colleges play in addressing skills shortages.

The outcome of the gender pay gap was noted and that generally the college is amongst the best in the region.  It was noted that the report would be published by 31 March 2024.

Action: Assistant Principal to feed back the results of the May survey to the next F&GP committee.

The Committee noted the report.

The Vice Principal Finance and Business Planning presented the report and highlighted the low number of cyber-attacks, that there had been no loss of service and that the data record and data retention policy was being updated and would be brought to a future committee meeting.  It was confirmed that smaller scale tests had been undertaken, despite the delays in undertaking the failover test and that these had been successful.  It was noted that all the servers now have Microsoft protection, and a budgeted windows upgrade had been rolled out.  The profile of DDOS attacks were noted.

The Chair queried if staff received phishing training and it was confirmed that risk-based, targeted training and tests were undertaken for those in key roles and that whilst this had not been done systematically with all staff the intention was to widen the group of individuals subjected to targeted tests.  It was noted that cyber-security would form part of the internal audit plan this year.

Action: VP Finance and Business Planning to feedback on failover testing to the next F&GP committee and to propose amendments to the data record and data retention policy.

The Committee noted the report

The VP Finance and Business Planning presented the management accounts for December 2023 which were confidential. 

The committee noted the report

The VP Finance and Business Planning presented the report and highlighted that compliance was strong overall, key challenges had included a flood that had caused some damage, provided an update on land disposals, opportunities for improvement, and the work being undertaken on a full Estates Strategy.  The plans for preserving some of the glasshouses were noted.

With regard to Teesdale teaching block at Houghall, the current impact of unsuitable heating on staff was noted.  The Chair noted that a gas supply for heating had been chosen as the most workable solution in terms of cost and placement in the college but queried if ground source heating had been considered, particularly in light of the college’s sustainability strategy.  The Chair acknowledged that on a pure cost-benefit analysis gas might look like the easier solution but that this needed to be looked at carefully in terms of long term implications, a capital investment versus long term cost of running and how long the system might last.  It was noted that the board would need to approve any solution owing to the likely costs and would therefore weigh up sustainability, affordability, and what it would mean going forward.

A member noted that costs of building the teaching block at Houghall were now £3m over budget and asked if the DfE had confirmed that it would meet this costs.  It was confirmed that they would do so on the basis that the college was addressing the heating problem at Teesdale but that this would be re-confirmed.  

The committee requested that it reviews the land disposal proposals before they are presented to the board.

The challenges of engaging an external project manager for a capital project were discussed and it was noted that this had caused issues in terms of correlating the timing of decision making to governance requirements for board but that this had been identified and addressed and that the new Director of Estates had proposed that project management be brought in-house.  CLG was discussing how best to do this, but that using this as an opportunity to upskill a member of staff was being considered, and issues including changes to job descriptions and parity were being thought through. 

Action: Director of Estates to report back to the committee on possible solutions for Teesdale and to re-confirm with the DfE that they will meet any overspend on the Houghall teaching block.

The report was noted

There were no further items for discussion and the Chair brought the meeting to a close.