Information Commissioner’s Office

[Pages:12]Unclassified

Meeting Paper title

Executive Team Date January expenditure report

Monday 13 February 2012

Agenda item Purpose of paper

3.0

Discussion

time

Decision and discussion

10 minutes

Restrictions on public access including staff

Restrictions?

N

If "Y" please give the reason for the restriction below.

Presenter ET sponsor Corporate Plan aim Summary

Who has been consulted?

Christopher Graham

As above

8.12 ? Manage the ICO's finances ensuring we spend wisely, responsibly and accountably.

Over the month more areas of under-spending have been identified, making the likelihood of surrendering surplus DP fee income of up to ?500K all but certain.

In order to mitigate this ET consent is requested for the additional IS development expenditure of ?185K (detailed from page 2 of the report) to be added to the budget.

Not applicable.

Unclassified

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Unclassified

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Information Commissioner's Office

FINANCE REPORT January 2012 (month 10)

Overview

Over the month more areas of under-spending have been identified, making the likelihood of surrendering surplus DP fee income of up to ?500K all but certain.

Income

Grant-in-aid for FOI ?4.5M has been drawn in full.

Fee income for the year to date was ahead of target by ?360K (30Dec2012: ?326K) and notification is currently running a 10 day backlog.

Fees collected were: (?'000)

Tier 1 (?35) Tier 2 (?500) Total

January

2012 1,141

246 1,387

Forecast Variance

1,068 286

1,354

+73 -40 +33

Variance %

+7% -14% +2%

Fees collected for the year to date were:

(?'000)

2011-12 Forecast

Tier 1 (?35)

10,263 9,820

Tier 2 (?500)

2,337 2,420

Total

11,600 12,240

Variance +443 -83 +640

Variance % +5% -3% +5%

Carryover

Forecast carry over is currently ?853K (forecast maximum ?453K). The position has worsened this year primarily as a result of payroll vacancies and surrendered budget from Corporate Affairs.

The budget for 2012-13 has assumed a carry over into next year of ?450K.

Thus there is currently a forecast of surplus funding of ?400K, which added to the ?360K of DP fees collected ahead of target, totals a potential year end surrender to the MOJ of ?760.

The new Framework agreement allows the ICO to retain income against year end creditors so there is potential to reduce the surrender down to say ?500K plus any further under-spending identified by the year end (such as the ICE project mentioned below)

Finance Report: January 2012

1

In order to mitigate this ET consent is requested for the following additional IS development expenditure (?185K.) to be added to the budget.

Proposed expenditure 1

IS ? upgrade Wyse boxes for Windows 7 migrations. The V10 Wyse boxes on desk are no longer sold or supported. At the time of moving to Vdi the V10 was judged to be the most appropriate model. In the last two years three new models have been produced, all with improved performance. In the testing of Windows 7 performance problems have been seen in particular with `type ahead' ? the screen takes time to catch up with the keyboard. Initial tests with one of the new models (P20) has shown that the type ahead problem is fixed. The PHSO has moved from V10 to P20 and realised improved performance. An evaluation of the three new devices can be carried out by IS this financial year and replacement devices purchased ? based on the P20 (the most expensive model) costs would be ?90K - ?100K

Estimated cost: ?100K

Proposed expenditure 2

IS ? Central Disk storage (SAN) performance improvements ? Investigations into the IT performance problems have identified the SAN as a bottle neck. Several configuration changes have been made but not brought about a major improvement. The addition of either Solid state disks to a proportion ~10-25% of the disks or the addition of more hard disk will reduce the bottle neck. A provisional figure of ?25K is being considered. It should be noted that the SAN was purchased for Vdi and that apart from ICE other systems have been migrated to it as part of server virtualisation without additional costs.

Estimated cost: ?25K

Proposed expenditure 3

IS/HR ? We need to upgrade the equipment with home-workers to allow them to use soft phones (these provide the full functionality of the office phone ? number, directory, voicemail, helpline). There is a one off cost for the software build ?5K. For each user the cost of home working kit, soft phone licence, Cisco licence is ~?1K. Based on 25 users (either new home workers or existing home-workers upgrading) total cost may be ?30K

Estimated cost: ?30K

Proposed expenditure 4

IS/Customer Contact ? Wall boards (essentially TV style screens updated with key messages/information). We would need to invest in a software interface which we anticipate would be in the region of ?15K. It is also recommended that the screens themselves are of a higher calibre than the standard LCD flat panel monitor style, so likely cost of screen is ?5K. Likely costs ?20K-?30K.

Estimated cost: ?30K

Finance Report: January 2012

2

Projects

(1) ICE ? Replacement notification system

The ICE project is currently budgeted to spend ?1,050K in the financial year. The Project Teams latest forecast estimates consumption of ?1,040K, with the prospect of accelerating licence expenditure by around ?20K.

Invoiced to date is ?428K. Orders of ?822K have been raised to date.

(2) Relocation of the Wales Regional Office

Agreement has been reached for the MOJ to reimburse ?52K in costs incurred from relocating the Wales Regional Office within Cardiff. Payment has been authorised by the MOJ but not received as at 31 January 2012.

Payroll

The recruitment of a new audit team was budgeted to be in place as of October 2011, and then revised to January 2012.

Following the significant recruitment work for these and other posts many positions have been filled with internal candidates, so the salaries forecast has been significantly reduced for the final quarter of the year.

The forecast has been reduced by ?309K including employers NIC and pension contributions.

Corporate affairs

Since the last update Corporate Affairs have reduced their forecast expenditure by ?55K for on-line and ?97K for design and print projects. Hence there has been a total reduction of ?152K from the forecast this month (a total of ?364K since the initial budget was set in March 2011).

Finance Report: January 2012

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Summary expenditure comments

Area Payroll

Forecast Outturn

?'000

11,282

Forecast YTD

?'000

9,155

Actual YTD

?'000

9,095

Variance

YTD ?'000

-60

Comment

Salaries forecast updated in January 2012 to reflect higher than profiled vacancies.

Human Resources

554

405

365

Overtime spent is ?54K against forecast of ?97K. Overtime will increase (assuming IT available) in the last two months of the year. Notification and Internal Compliance teams are anticipated to require several weekends overtime in order to cope with current workload pressures. -40 The only area of variance is in respect of Learning and Development expenditure of ?85K compared to forecast for the year of ?190K.

By the year end ?28K anticipated to be billed in respect of 360o feedback work

Facilities

1,646 1,104 1,136

+32

In addition it is anticipated the ?65K will be spent on training for the newly recruited Good Practice audit team members.

Currently anticipating at ?52K contribution to property costs for the Wales Regional Office move, which has not yet been received or included in these figures.

Potential for a little under-spending on the repairs (?9K) and stationery budgets (?11K).

Finance Report: January 2012

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IS

3,714 2,415 2,338

Corporate affairs

Legal and professional

956

797

568

677

500

348

Travel &subsistence

Total

382 19,211

318

284

14,694 14,134

Finance Report: January 2012

-77 Service contract costs are behind forecast as a result of performance service credits imposed by the ICO of ?180K to date and a delay in billing the managed print service costs.

Development costs budget is on target to be fully spent, and orders have been raised to achieve this.

Development costs for ICE are on target, but likely to spend on around ?887K by 31 March, rather than the ?1,050K allocated.

-229 -152

Telecommunications costs budget and IS DUIS postage cost budget remain on course to be fully spent.

This area has recently been reviewed in detail by the budget-holders resulting in surrenders ? so remaining budget is anticipated to be spent in full on projects.

Legal costs are ?85K behind forecast. Past experience suggests that Counsel can be quite slow in invoicing, and a year end trawl is now a regular procedure for the ICO to undertake to ensure all of it's liabilities are invoiced by the year end.

Specialist support costs are ?7K behind forecast due to lower take up of forensic support than anticipated.

Research costs are ?25K behind forecast. One project is currently underway and is being billed in four tranches, of which only 1 tranche has been invoiced to date.

Library and subscription budget is ?31K behind forecast ? the on-line

legal library costs of ?35K are now agreed and anticipated to be invoiced in February.

Professional subscriptions are ?4K behind forecast due to delays in being able to pay for Solicitors' Practising Certificates.

-34 Still achieving savings from this area.

-560

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Budget changes for confirmation

The following changes have been made to the forecast in this last quarter of the year, for consideration and approval.

Payments

Payroll

Corporate Affairs

Facilities

Library and subscriptions General administration Conference attendances Specialist assistance

Surplus to next year

December budget ?'000

19,698

Adjustment ?'000

Narrative

-309 -152

-31 +23

Correction of salaries forecast in light of current recruitment

Reassessment of plans and commitments

Reassessment following full charging information on property changes

Resolution of Legal Library on-line

-17 Contingency removed

-4 Contingency removed

3 Final surveyor fees from Wycliffe refurbishment project

+713

-487

Current

forecast ?'000

Change made in

Jan-12

Jan-12

Jan-12

Jan-12

Jan-12 Jan-12 Jan-12

19,211

Trial layouts

In addition to the usual detailed management account table below, this month the following experimental reports are attached.

One report is a reanalysis is spending breaking it down along directorate lines, another breaks down the directorate lines into teams and the final report provides trend information.

This information is provided following comments made in the recent NAO questionnaire exercise run in connection with Financial Management reporting.

Please consider whether presenting this additional information useful and feedback whether you would like to see it in the future.

Finance Report: January 2012

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