Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Cllr Bill Roberts, Cllr Ricky Rogers and Cllr Jacqui Lay.

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the last meeting of the Organisation and Resources Select Committee held on 15 July 2010.

The minutes of the meeting held on 15 July 2010 were approved and signed as a correct record.

As the national changes would impact on local authorities scrutiny would need to ensure a corporate focus was taken on all scrutiny work.

To remind members to declare any personal or prejudicial interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee at the relevant time.

No declarations of interest were received.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

If you would like to make a statement at this meeting on any item on this agenda, please register to do so at least 10 minutes prior to the meeting.  Up to 3 speakers are permitted to speak for up to 3 minutes each on any agenda item.  Please contact the officer named above for any further clarification.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question should give written notice (including details of any question) to the officer named above by 12:00 noon on Tuesday 14 September 2010.

There was no public participation.

An update on HR matters is provided from the Service Director for Human Resources and Organisational Development.  The Committee is asked to note the update and comment as appropriate.

The Portfolio Holder for Customer Care and Service Director will be in attendance to present the update and answer questions.

The Service Director for HR and Organisational Development attended the meeting to present the update on HR related matters as requested at the Committee’s previous meeting on 15 July 2010.

The Corporate Director for Resources and Portfolio Holder for Customer Care were also in attendance to answer questions arising.

The following information was received:

a)         Pay Harmonisation and associated matters

At the Committee’s meeting in May it was clarified that school support staff were now required to be included in the harmonisation process.  This increased employee numbers from approximately 6k to 12k.  As a result, the potential cost implications also doubled.  Due to the financial constraints and pressures now faced by the council and cost implications to incorporate the additional employees, pay harmonisation was now to be achieved through implementation of Wiltshire Council pay and conditions with protection for TUPED staff.

It was expected that the council would reach pay harmonisation within 18 months as the number of staff who transferred to Wiltshire Council on 1 October 2009 on TUPED conditions was now less than 1100.  The reorganisation of the Council was also likely to affect the numbers remaining as staff transferred onto standard terms and conditions.  A review would take place in the latter half of 2011 to ascertain the number of staff remaining on TUPED conditions.

            Discussions were underway with Union representatives regarding future changes within the authority taking into consideration the financial constraints ahead.  

Although the results of the comprehensive spending review were still to be announced it was expected that the proposed 25% reduction in funding would result in a loss of £122m to the local authority.  Therefore scrutiny would need to ensure a corporate focus of its work for example on commissioning and procurement to ensure it delivered on efficiency targets.

The Council would look to achieve cost savings of £40m in 2011/12 against four key areas: procurement, people management, service review and improvement and income generation.  These would be formally documented within a business plan to be delivered to Cabinet before the end of December and Full Council in February 2011.

As part of the proposed people management cost savings, LGR terms relating to appointment and severance were being reviewed.  These would be the subject of report to the Staffing Policy Committee in October.

b)         People Strategy

The Leadership Development Programme

            Clarification was provided that the Programme budget had been agreed prior to the government’s announcements on proposed budgetary reductions to local authorities and had been funded through reallocation of existing budgets for 2009/10.

            Of the current £851k budget, £236k had already been committed to year end from the combined Leadership and Management Development funding and applied to approximately 800 managers across the organisation;       £174k had been allocated against HR on line systems training, the management trainee scheme and employee survey; £25k had been allocated for occupational health to provide staff support and a further £30k had been agreed for an employee systems programme.

            The Service Director confirmed that a meeting was scheduled to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92.

The Committee is asked to note and comment as appropriate on the update provided on the Library Services Review.  A report is scheduled to be considered by Cabinet on 19 October 2010.

The Cabinet Member for Libraries and Business Lead and Project Manager for Library Services will be in attendance to answer any questions arising.

The committee was asked to consider the update provided in relation to the Library Services Review.

The Cabinet member for community services, Project Manager - Business Change and new Head of Libraries (from 1 October) were in attendance to present the update and answer questions arising.

Clarification was provided by the Cabinet member that the consultation process was being carried out to understand the needs of the customer to ensure libraries were sustainable for the future. 

Following the consultation process, which was still underway, a report would be prepared for consideration by Cabinet.  It was expected that the report would be completed by the end of October and submitted to Cabinet at it’s next meeting on 16 November.

Libraries should be recognised as a valuable resource for shared service provision with both the health service and police authority accessible through some facilities.  Discussions were taking place to further expand on this to continue to meet the needs of the community as well as providing value for money.  Neighbouring councils had also been approached to investigate ways of working together to further reduce costs, i.e combined book purchases. 

The committee proposed that clarity on core opening hours (to include Saturday opening) would ensure the service was used to its maximum and that the mobile library service was vital for rural locations.

The committee also acknowledged that presentations on the Library Services Review were being made to the Area Boards across Wiltshire but some councillors felt that the information provided and the purpose of the review where cost savings of £500k were required (£250k per year) could have been made clearer.

Clarification was provided that savings of £250k would be reached by the end of the current financial year through natural staff wastage. 

The Chairman proposed that a scrutiny exercise should be undertaken to consider the report prior to its submission to Cabinet in November and called for scrutiny representatives accordingly. 

Resolved:

1)         To thank the Officers and the Cabinet member for the update.

2)        To undertake a rapid scrutiny exercise to consider the Library Services Review report prior to it’s consideration by Cabinet in November.  Membership of the Group to consist of Cllr Christopher Devine, Cllr Nigel Carter, Cllr Jonathon Seed and Cllr Jon Hubbard.  A further member would be added in due course.

The Committee is asked to note the Task Group and Rapid Scrutiny updates provided and comment as appropriate.

The Committee was asked to consider the updates provided on the current Task Groups and Rapid Scrutiny Exercises under the responsibility of the Committee.  The updates provided included the annual report from the Budget and Performance Task Group and final report of the Member Support in the Locality Task Group.

Further information was provided as follows:

Budget and Performance

The Chairman of the Task Group thanked the Senior Scrutiny Officer for the preparation of the report and requested that the Committee adopt the recommendations contained therein.

The recommendations made included that the Task Group should be abolished with the Organisation and Resources Select Committee responsible for monitoring corporate financial issues and Resources department spend.  The other Select Committees would take responsibility for relevant service budgetary issues.  Formal reporting would be by exception.

Ensuing discussion included that the Overview & Scrutiny Liaison Board, whose membership included the Chairman and Vice Chairman from each of the Select Committees, would ensure that an open dialogue remained across all committees to address any issues arising.

Officers were congratulated on ensuring that overall spend did not exceed the budget at year end taking into consideration the departure of the S151 Officer and additional cost pressures (which included the growth in the winter gritting programme and additional resources required for the climate change programme).

Clarification was provided that a new Interim Director of Finance had now been appointed and was expected to be in post for between 6 to 12 months whilst a structure review was undertaken.

Resolved:

To endorse the recommendations made by the Task Group and that the revised scrutiny arrangements for budget and performance monitoring be reviewed in 12 months time.

Member Support in the Locality

The Member Support in the Locality Task Group had been established to consider the level of support provided to Councillors. 

The final report provided details of the recommendations made by the Group and summary of Councillor responses to the survey circulated on support available to resolve casework and community area issues.

Clarification was provided that area boards now had a dedicated press officer within the Communications team to assist with their casework. 

Issues raised included that the potential blurring of roles between Community Area Managers and Democratic Services Officers had been addressed through a managers meeting between the two teams and that the paper contacts directory was now unlikely to be available to Councillors by 1 November as recommended.

Resolved:

1)        That the committee endorsed the recommendations made noting that the paper contacts directory may not be available for 1 November 2010.

2)        That a review on member support in the locality would be undertaken by the Committee in 12 months.

Workplace Transformation Programme

The Corporate Director – Resources confirmed that the Workplace Transformation Programme had been reviewed in the light of financial pressures but reported that the programme would remain unchanged with expected savings to the council of £4.5m per year.  Clarification was also provided that discussions continued regarding the PFI project with Jarvis in relation to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 94.

The following Boards have scrutiny representation.  This item has been included in the agenda to allow members to provide the Committee with updates where appropriate. 

The following Project Board updates were provided:

Pay Harmonisation

Cllr Ricky Rogers was the Committee’s representative on this Project Board and had been advised of the developments reported earlier under minute 92 a). 

Agency Contract

A copy of the recent Cabinet Member delegated decision was circulated. Clarification was provided that the cost of employing temporary consultancy and agency staff was £8-9m per year.  The council was expected to reduce the number of agency staff employed by 50% by March 2011 as part of its budget savings. This would need to be monitored in the future through an appropriate scrutiny mechanism.

Resolved:

That scrutiny representatives on the Project Boards would be requested to provide written updates to the Committee where appropriate.

A copy of the draft Forward Work Programme is attached for consideration.

The Committee was requested to consider the Forward Work Programme provided.

Resolved:

To note the Forward Work Plan

18 November 2010.

18 November 2010.

Any other items of business which the Chairman agrees to consider as a matter of urgency.

There were no urgent items.