To receive any disclosures of interest.

None.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the Joint Shared Services Committee held on 10 January 2011.

The Minutes of the meetings of the Joint Shared Services Committee held on 10 January 2011 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)).

The Chairman ruled that the following report which had not been available for five clear days before the meeting was of sufficient urgency to be considered by the Committee for the reason indicated:

Items 5 – Performance Management 2010/11 – Addendum on Internal Audit

To enable ongoing financial control.

This report provides an update on the performance of the shared service in the current year.

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

Finance

The Head of Finance reported that all the bank reconciliations and journal entries had been completed.  Members received and noted the latest performance indicators and details on the bank reconciliations.

Human Resources

The Head of HR advised that the next quarterly performance indicators would be available at the end of March.  At the last meeting it was reported that one part-time employee faced compulsory redundancy at Three Rivers but that employee had now been redeployed within the Council so there would be no compulsory redundancies at Three Rivers.

There were 20 potential redundancies at Watford and consideration was being given to backfill any vacancies to offset the need for compulsory redundancy.

ICT

The Head of ICT advised that a report would be prepared on the Infrastructure Review project on the harmonisation of software applications to include options for the Uniform/IDOX system.  Contact had been made with the supplier and the Council were awaiting proposals.  The report would also include the capital implications for 2011/12 onwards.  The outcome and conclusions of the independent ICT review would be reported to the next meeting of the Joint Committee.

On CRM alignment, work was planned to replace the system in the next financial year with consideration being given to LAGAN (Watford’s CRM system).

With regard to the restructuring of the ICT team, a paper had been presented to both management teams.  There were 5 vacancies within the team which had been offered to Watford to staff, facing compulsory redundancy, but no interest had been shown.  The posts would be advertised in the next week.

With regard to the servers which needed replacing (there were currently approximately 70 at Watford and 35 at Three Rivers) Members requested that consideration be given to consolidate the servers and put together a replacement programme.  Members noted there was an ongoing cost in the budget each year to replace the servers.  The Head of Service reported that this would be an ongoing requirement because the new servers came with a 3 year warranty as standard but servers could start developing faults after this time.

Members advised they had been experiencing problems accessing the Shared Services Intranet, Council emails and systems and requested that an update be provided at the next meeting.

Revenue and Benefits

Members were updated on progress with the outstanding caseload in Revenue and Benefits staffing and the request to further compare the service to other Local Authorities in terms of cost per claim.

At the January meeting the Committee were advised about the investigations into the option of Meritec dealing with outstanding caseloads.  Since the meeting, the Council had been approached by the company that provided the existing agency staff with a proposal that if they were to revise their rates this would make them a more viable proposition.  Meritec had quoted £22 per hour and the existing agency had reduced  ...  view the full minutes text for item JSS38/08

This report seeks agreement to service plans for the medium term.

This report sought agreement to the service plans for the medium term and followed the format used last year. The Performance Indicators would be provided separately at each Committee meeting.  The service plans included details on the key challenges each service faced next year. 

Finance

The Head of Finance advised the service had undertaken a cost reduction exercise making significant reductions in their budget.  The Finance team would continue to face the challenges in the coming year to reduce budgets and implement efficiencies.

Work would be progressed over the next year to review Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which had been implemented two years ago.

On workforce planning, there had been success in recruiting new people to the team.  The next big challenges would be the closing of accounts and satisfactory audit clearance.

            The collection fund would be incorporated in the Finance service.

Human Resources

The Head of HR advised that the Health and Safety service was now being provided by Herts County Council two days a week with one day at Watford and one day at Three Rivers at a cost of £24,000 a year. 

Looking into the future of the Human Resources service work was progressing to sell the HR service externally.  A business case was being prepared for another Council to use the HR services and an approach had been made to manage a Parish Council.  On the harmonisation of both Councils’ terms and conditions from 1 April 2012, proposals would be presented to staff in the next few weeks but there had been concerns at Watford on dress code and annual leave.  A feasibility study would be provided at the end of month to the management team at Three Rivers on NJC job evaluation.

ICT

The Head of ICT advised that the restructure of ICT was complete with improvements being made to first point of contact and call resolutions.  A bench marking exercise would be undertaken in May with details available in September.

Staff training would be provided to ensure best practice was being observed to deliver the ICT services.

ICT’s SLA’s would to be revisited with departments during the next financial year.

Members requested that a mechanism for prioritising and delivering the ICT Projects be prepared with a report presented at the next meeting.

Revenue and Benefits

The Head of Revenue and Benefits highlighted details in the service plan on the future of services, risks and benchmarking against other local authorities in Hertfordshire.  The Government had indicated that a new universal credit system could be implemented in October 2013.

RESOLVED:-

(1)     that the ICT budget for staff development be carried over into 2011/12 budget;

(2)     that a mechanism for prioritising and delivering the ICT Projects be prepared with a report presented at the next meeting;

The next meeting would be held on Monday 13 June at Three Rivers House.

RESOLVED:

that the date be noted.