To receive any disclosures of interest.

None.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the Joint Shared Services Committee held on 3 November 2010.

The Minutes of the meetings of the Joint Shared Services Committee held on 30 November 2010 were confirmed as a correct record and were signed by the Chairman.

To announce items of other business notified to the Secretary of the Joint Committee, together with the special circumstances which justify their consideration as a matter of urgency. The Chairman to rule on the admission of such items. (Note: If other confidential business is approved under this item, it will also be necessary to specify the class of exempt or confidential information in the additional item(s)).

None.

This report provides an update on the performance of the shared services in the current year and gives details of the Committee’s forward budgets.

This report provided an update on the performance of the shared services in the current year.

Members were referred to

http://www.trw-sharedservices.org.uk/ccm/portal/ which provided details on performance management, performance indicators and budget information for each shared service.  This information was also available at the meeting and the Heads of Service answered Members’ questions and provided detail on remedial action that was being taken to improve performance which was failing short of target.

Revenue and Benefits

The Head of Revenue and Benefits updated Members on progress with the outstanding caseloads in Revenues and Benefits, staffing and the initial findings of comparing the service to other Local Authorities.  At the November meeting it was reported that investigations were taking place on the option of working with Meritec dealing with outstanding cases. This was to seek to reduce the cost of agency staff.

The current agency providing temporary staff was aware of the Council’s intentions and had suggested that they would be willing to renegotiate their rates if it meant keeping the business.

Two benefit assessor vacancies had been advertised with 24 applications received.  6 people had been selected to interview on 13 January 2011.

The Policy Quality and Training Team Leader post approved in September had also been advertised and two internal applications had been received.

Data had been provided to a national benchmarking group from other Local Authorities with similar caseloads.  The benchmarking group had taken into account all staff with an involvement in Benefits Administration, ranging from scanning teams to assessors to fraud and overpayment recovery.  The number of cases per FTE for the shared service was 414.  More investigation was needed to see how workflow affected these figures.

In an effort to further unify the two authorities, a series of Team Development Days had been arranged for the end of January/beginning of February. These days had already been run successfully in Human Resources and it was hoped they would achieve similar results.  The cost of these Development Days had already been budgeted for as part of the implementation so there was no additional cost to the shared service

The new Revenues Manager, Kevin Stewart had now joined, bringing a wealth of local government experience at a high level as well as recent experience with the Audit Commission. He had already been working on improvements to the service and would provide added impetus in introducing necessary changes.

Members made the following points:

The current head count was estimated at 30.5 FTE but with agency staff included would be more like 40 staff.  In response, the Head of Revenue and Benefits advised that the additional staff had been used to clear the backlog of cases until the end of March.

The benchmarking information was useful but Members requested that expenditure figures on the cost of each benefit claim processed be attached to the minutes.

The Council Tax collection in Three Rivers was above target but slightly below target for Watford. 

Business rates collection was below target for both Three Rivers  ...  view the full minutes text for item JSS33/08

Members requested that the date of the next meeting be changed with possible new dates circulated to the Committee.

RESOLVED:

that the date of the next meeting 28 February 2011 be changed and new dates be circulated to the Committee for agreement.