Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Rackett and Councillor Greenslade.

Absent without apologies: Councillor McLeod

There were no disclosures of interest.

The minutes of the last meeting to be submitted for signature.

The minutes of the meeting on 10 January 2012 were agreed and would be signed at the next meeting.

The Executive Director – Services is attending the Task Group to address issues relating to the Council’s current contracts.

Before the meeting, members are asked to consider their experiences of the Council’s current contracts:

- How were Members involved prior to the contract being signed?

- What involvement do Members have now the services are running?

- Do Members know who to approach or who residents should be referred to if complaints are received?

Introduction

The Executive Director- Services introduced her report. The Council’s experience of Watford Community Housing Trust (WCHT) had not been considered as it was set up in a different way. The housing stock had been transferred and WCHT was responsible for delivering social housing like any other Registered Social Landlord.  It was a specific arrangement which would not be used for other services.

How the contracts were set up

The Executive Director- Services listed the ways the Council had approached the contracts to mitigate risks. These included:

·        Being clear about the end product

·        Having discussions with Members at the start of the process

·        Understanding the importance of using technical expertise as the Council only undertakes each process once. Experts could advise the Council on the market.

·        Ensuring knowledge is transferred to the staff before advisers stop working with the Council

·        Understanding the different procurement routes

·        Understanding the importance of having a detailed project plan and change procedure

·        Ensuring that the decision-making arrangements and financial controls were appropriate

·        Proper use of the scheme of delegation and ensuring that it did not delay the process

·        Awareness of the risks and what level of risk can be tolerated and ensuring that the Council has a Plan B. The Plan B for SLM was better than the original plan.

·        Communication was very important, both with staff and users

·        The importance of being an intelligent client so that the Council could avoid risks

The Executive Director- Services confirmed that with SLM the original plan was to find a contractor who would be responsible for the design, build and management of the centres. The market was nervous of this and the approach was changed so that one contractor built the centres and another was brought in to run them.  SLM were involved in the design but not as early as if the original procurement route had been followed.

The Executive Director- Services said that the original idea with the build and management of the Colosseum was that the management contractor, HQ Theatres, would oversee the construction. However the construction contractors, Kier, did not favour this arm’s length management and so the Council oversaw the build instead.

Governance of the contracts

Councillor Johnson asked about how the contract was managed in the absence of a leisure committee.

The Executive Director- Services explained that under the Mayor and Cabinet system with scrutiny there were no longer committees for each service. Outsourced services were managed in the same way as any other service. Quarterly reviews were undertaken with the Portfolio Holder, service objectives were included in the Corporate Plan and issues were reported to Cabinet. For services run by a third party there were clearer mechanisms for changing or terminating the contract if there were problems. There was an impression that delivery by a third party meant less accountability, but this was not the Council’s experience.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Shared Services, Councillor Wylie added that the agendas under the former committee system were strictly managed; it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

The Executive Director – Resources is attending the Task Group to address issues relating to the Council’s current shared services.

Before the meeting, Members are asked to consider their experiences of the Council’s current shared services:

- How were Members involved in the development of the shared services?

- What involvement do Members have in the running of these services?

- How do Members’ relationships with the shared services compare with their relationships with other services?

Introduction

The Executive Director- Resources introduced her report and noted that Watford Borough Council was one of the first in the region to share services.

The background

Central government had been increasing shared services in the civil service and had been focused on Human Resources and Finance. Revenues and Benefits was a heavily transactional service governed by legislation and was also suitable for sharing with another authority.  The decision was made to explore shared services with Dacorum and Three Rivers.

The benefit of talent pooling was an important factor; Three Rivers needed more resilience as their services had been slimmed down and Watford had some gaps in expertise that were covered by consultants.

In 2006, there were a number of workshops with staff from the four services which explored how a shared services programme could be pursued. There was a seminar for Members in September 2007 to which leading councillors and opposition leaders were invited from all three councils. Officers shared with members the advantages and disadvantages of the different options for establishing shared services- outsourcing, in-house shared services or setting up a joint company. The outcome was a clear preference for in-house shared services. The rationale for this was to enable the councils to keep any savings that were identified. 

In December 2007 Dacorum had to withdraw from the programme but it was still viable for Watford to proceed with Three Rivers. The only internal option that the councils had experience of was the establishment of Joint Committee. This meant agreeing to delegate the responsibility for the four services to a Joint Committee.   As the Joint Committee was unable to employ the shared services directly, the councils had to harmonise the terms and conditions of employment. This delayed the programme by a year.

One challenge was that for a time the services had two Heads of Service. This was demoralising for staff who did not know who their boss would ultimately be and caused a delay in developing the ultimate service design. In any future shared services the Head of Service would be appointed as quickly as possible.

Performance of shared services

The Executive Director- Resources posed the question whether the problems in Revenues and Benefits and ICT were a result of shared services. The backlog in the Benefits Section was not caused by the implementation of shared services. Demand had increased incrementally as a consequence of the recession. In fact, the team had benefited from the fact that shared services provided a larger pool of officers to deal with the additional challenges faced.

For ICT, the situation was more complex. The shared service took over an infrastructure at Three Rivers which had been outsourced. The company did not manage the transition well, there were gaps in the documentation of ICT assets and the extent of the requirement to invest in the infrastructure was not known. The result was that as the shared services were being implemented, which included new systems for HR, Finance and Revenues, staff  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

An overview of other authorities and their models of service delivery to be provided to the Task Group.

Members are invited to comment on the learning points to take away from the case studies.

Members are asked to consider which authorities they would like more information on and which they would like to visit.

A questionnaire has been sent to the CIPFA Nearest Neighbours group and the other Hertfordshire districts.  The results will be available at the meeting on 22 February 2012.

It was agreed to postpone this item until the next meeting on Thursday 9 February.

9 February 2012 7pm

22 February 2012 7pm

27 February 2012 7pm

9 February 20127pm

22 February 20127pm

27 February 20127pm