Agenda item

Cabinet Member Corporate Services

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services hoped all members had taken the opportunity to read his email dated the 22 February 2011, in which he had outlined the current position of the Council in its move to become a strategic commissioning authority.

A members working group had been established some time ago and was originally tasked with assessing the rationale behind the move to strategic commissioning. 

In December 2010 Council agreed the move to strategic commissioning and associated changes to the Council structures.

The working group were now focussing on member roles and he was attending the meeting in this instance to seek the views and comments of the committee on who should be involved, when and how.

He was confident that this was an opportunity to enhance the role of all members.  Commissioning required knowledge of needs of the community and members had a role in feeding back from their wards, constituents and the town in general. 

The relevant Cabinet Member(s) would sit on the Programme Board for each commissioning exercise and maintain a dialogue with all Councillors to ensure that they were all fully engaged.  He was also keen to see Cabinet Working Groups established to support these reviews.

Whilst Cabinet Members were accountable, Overview & Scrutiny (O&S) had a role in monitoring services and ensuring the outcomes were being delivered. 

Establishing member roles and a way of approaching commissioning exercises with which all members were comfortable was crucial.  No decisions had yet been made, it was an evolving process and as such he urged members to respond to his email. 

The working group had discussed the current three committee O&S structure and whether this was the right way forward and whether there was an opportunity to change the structure, though it was not for Cabinet to decide how scrutiny was organised.  The County had a different model for O&S, elements of which could be used. 

Working groups were focussed, interesting and could prove more effective, enabling more open dialogue on options.  The Budget Working Group could prove a useful example.

The Chairman felt that it was important to maintain an open dialogue and challenged all members to respond to the email from the Cabinet Member Corporate Services.   He suggested that co-optees would offer valuable insight and asked that they be sent a copy of the email. 

He assured members that this was merely an introduction to strategic commissioning and more detail would be provided next time.  The next few months would be important in establishing a successful process of member involvement. 

A member raised the importance of transparency in the decision making process when the Council commissioned services.

With reference to the future O&S structure he considered that working groups of interested and knowledgeable members for specific topics would be a sensible approach. 

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services suggested that Cabinet Members would approach all members to express an interest and tease out a manageable sized group.  Given that members would be expected to be totally open and discuss private thoughts and opinions, trust would be a critical component of any such discussions. 

Another important consideration should be officer support which the Council may not have available to provide. 

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member for having provided an introduction and confirmed that a further update would be scheduled for the next meeting (9 May).