Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Executive

The meeting adjourned for tea between 4.10 and 4.45 pm. Following this adjournment the Mayor had to leave the meeting so the chair was taken by the Deputy Chair, Councillor Barbara Driver.

The Chief Executive introduced his report which had been circulated with the agenda. He emphasised that in producing the report he had consulted widely and for the purposes of brevity he had not circulated the consultants report to the meeting although it was available to all members.

He acknowledged that at this stage the role of members was not as clearly defined as some members would like.  However he emphasised that this section 4 report was concerned with the proposed officer structure. The members working group had been set up to help define member involvement going forward.

He emphasised the huge implications arising from the government financial settlement and the Localism Bill. He considered that the recommendations for the officer structure were fit for purpose in the context of the new Coalition government’s agenda which it would be unwise to ignore. Indeed he felt there was no realistic alternative as maintaining the status quo was not an option.

He acknowledged that some members thought that commissioning was just good management and officers should just get on and do it. In his view the important difference was to start with a much clearer idea of the desired outcomes for citizens and the community. Commissioning did not assume there would be no in-house delivery in the future but decisions would be made on the basis of the most effective business case. It opened up opportunities for the voluntary and community sector and it was not a case of all services being transferred to the private sector. He had circulated an outline plan to councillors which provided an indicative timetable for when services would be reviewed.

From his consultation with members, he concluded that members were supportive of the need to reduce the number of Assistant Directors. He emphasised the importance of the role of the Strategic Directors in their management to date of key change projects such as GO and Civic Pride so it was logical for them to take on the commissioning role in the new structure.

Finally he stressed that the project was very much frontloaded and therefore the “one-off’ resource of £80,000 funded from virement as recommended by Cabinet would be very welcome to manage the transition period.

The Leader indicated that his party would be supporting the recommendations. He emphasised that member involvement and public involvement would be key when the future of each service was being considered. He also encouraged members of overview and scrutiny to come forward with their own ideas on how they wish to be involved in the monitoring of the services in the future.

A member expressed concerns that the officer structure had been mapped out but there are was still a big gap in the definition of how members and residents would be involved.  He had raised these concerns back  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14

Report of the Chief Executive

RESOLVED THAT:

1.      The Chief Executive’s proposals for a Strategic Commissioning Council and supporting new Council structure as set out in this report and in Appendices A and B be endorsed

2.      It be recommended that Council approves the Chief Executive’s proposals for a Strategic Commissioning Council and supporting new Council structure as set out in this report and in Appendices A and B

3.      It be recommended that Council set aside a 'one off' resource of £80,000, funded from a virement of the unspent allocation to fund sourcing strategy work streams, to support the significant business change required during 2011/12 in order to deliver some of the councils key projects including GO.

The Leader invited the Chief Executive to introduce his report. The Leader explained that the report had been prepared for the Staff and Support Services Committee and was due to go to Council in December for a final decision.  In view of the importance of the issue he had requested that it was considered by Cabinet to enable them to give their opinion.

The Chief Executive explained how Strategic Commissioning provided a pragmatic response to meet the challenges both nationally and locally. These included the Government initiatives regarding the Big Society and Community Based Budgeting as well as budgetary pressures at a local level, including the need to review discretionary services. The council had already had some good success in joining up with others to deliver shared services and this formed a good basis for Strategic Commissioning going forward.

His report outlined how Strategic Commissioning would provide a framework for future strategy, based on what would work, and how it would provide better outcomes to local people. The new structure would enable strategic choices to be made over the next few years. Strong political leadership would be very important, as would effective scrutiny so it was essential to get members fully engaged. He was aware that some members objected to the title of ‘Strategic Commissioning’ and in response he would encourage them to understand the process rather than the name.

He was aware that several members had expressed concern about the organisation’s ability to cope with the reduced capacity if the senior management structure was reduced too quickly.  To address this concern, he referred to the amendment which had been circulated at the start of the meeting. This recommended that a one-off resource of £80,000 would be made available to fill any capacity gaps. This sum had originally been allocated to the sourcing strategy work streams but had not been spent.

In response to a question from a member, the Chief Executive explained how the council would cope if residents had opposing views regarding how services should be delivered. He suggested that in this situation it would be necessary to take a step back and first clarify the objectives before trying to bring agencies together to reach a common understanding.

Several members of Cabinet spoke on the proposals and covered the following points.

• A member commended Strategic Commissioning as a systematic approach to determine how services should be delivered and achieved cost savings at the same time. This made good sense regardless of the budget situation.  
• Member input would be key, particularly in helping to provide the public view on service delivery.
• The additional funding would provide extra capacity and give the project the best possible start.
• Strategic Commissioning was a difficult concept to sell and this could be facilitated by giving examples where options for service delivery had been considered recently, e.g café provision in the parks.
• It would be important to emphasise that Strategic Commissioning was not another word for privatisation and there were no assumed outcomes.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5

Andrew North, Chief Executive

Having declared an interest, the Assistant Director – Human Resources and Organisational Development excused herself from the meeting.

The Chief Executive introduced the report as circulated with the agenda.  This committee had considered two earlier reports (Feb 2010 / May 2010) on Strategic Commissioning and as such, efforts had been made to reduce the amount of information contained within the report, but given that it would be referred onto Council, a certain level of detail had been necessary.

The initial reports had been philosophical about what Strategic Commissioning could achieve, this report set out proposals for a Strategic Commissioning Council and the supporting organisational structure.

Consultation with trade unions, the Economy and Business Improvement O&S Committee, key partners and Members through seminars and the cross-party working group, had resulted in feedback varying from “it’s just good management” to “this will fundamentally affect the way members work”. 

The full year annual saving as a result of the proposed restructure of the Senior Leadership Team would be £213,000, as set out in item 4 of the Strategic Business Case (Appendix A).  Additional savings could be made by applying commissioning methodology, for example an indicative figure of 10-15% of the operational budgets could achieve an annual saving of £0.8 and £1.2 million, based on the Torbay model.

He then concentrated on the proposed restructure and reminded members that he had recommended changes to the Senior Leadership Team structure to this committee in November 2008 regarding the former Deputy Chief Executive’s retirement, along with 3 others. 

He was confident that this had been a success for the organisation and often wondered how 4 additional Directors had been required, though he did feel that there was still scope for further restructuring.

Appendix B set out the structure being proposed by the Chief Executive. 

Subject to agreement the aim was to implement Phase 1 by April 2011, resulting in a reduction from 8.5 Assistant Directors (the Monitoring Officer was counted as half a post, given that it was shared with Tewkesbury Borough Council), to 6.5.

Phase 2 would see that further reduced by 1 Assistant Director (AD) post and was envisaged for implementation by October 2012.

The Head of Shared Services was marked as ‘if required’ as it very much depended on the extent and range of shared services. 

The proposals identified significant changes, especially to those AD’s directly affected by the changes.

Appendix C contained key points for consideration and he was very grateful to HR and Finance for their input.

The retirement of the AD Community Services would leave one redundant AD and could result in 2 having to apply for 1 post.  As such, there clearly needed to be a process for involving members if there were competition for posts. 

In summary the Chief Executive felt confident that this was the appropriate structure for the future, accepting it was lean, but fit for purpose and long term, would offer capacity to transform services whilst retaining community focus.

In addition to this, the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5