Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member Corporate Services (20 mins)

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services introduced the update report on Strategic Commissioning which had been requested by the committee. Members were reminded that Council had agreed the ambition of leading the community by taking a commissioning approach by April 2012. This would be driven by the needs of people and place, in order to improve wellbeing, the economy and the environment, and use resources efficiently and effectively. During the last six months, the council had made great progress in turning its ambition into reality which was set out in the report.

In his introduction, he referred to paragraph 3.3.1 and the work of the cross party member group which had now been disbanded. Of their original objectives, the scrutiny review was now taking forward the definitions of the scrutiny process for a commissioned service. The other important question was how the decision was made on which area should be next for the commissioning approach. As this decision had to be taken in the context of the corporate plan and available resources, he had asked the Group Leaders to consider this with advice from the Director Commissioning and the Chief Executive. He did not believe a formula approach could be adopted and the decision must be made on what was right for the situation which applied at that time.

The chair suggested that future reports should give details of comparative costs of a service before and after commissioning, success measures and whether the council had made any profit on services they had taken on.

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services was keen to emphasise that the council was a non profit-making organisation and although finance was a very important factor, the outcomes being delivered from the commissioned service were equally important success measures. Resilience was also a key factor in ensuring that the provision of the service was sustainable.

Councillor Cooper was concerned that the cross-party member working group had been disbanded. He felt strongly that there should be member involvement in the commissioning programme at a strategic and planning level.  There did not appear to be a plan and although he had requested this, it had not been provided to him. He questioned the difference between a departmental review and a commissioning exercise as the review of built environment seemed to be the former and there had been no changes as a result.

In response the Cabinet Member Corporate Services said that the way in which the council now does business follows a commissioning approach. This was being rolled out across the authority and there would be an ongoing learning process. As he had already indicated the Group Leaders would be responsible for agreeing the high level strategic plan for future commissioning.

The Director Commissioning said that in her experience the review of Built Environment had been very different to any review she had previously been involved in. It had started by defining outcomes and had consulted with stakeholders including a full day session with them. The review had concluded that in-house provision was best at this time but this would be retested in 2013. A service specification was currently being written for Built Environment to specify the outcomes that should be delivered from the service.  This was a completely different approach and would be implemented on 1 April 2012 once agreed by the member working group. Traditionally such reviews had started with the mindset that the council was the best option for providing the service. In the commissioning process there was no such assumption.

Councillor Wall questioned how successful the programme had actually been. He was concerned that there was no strategic plan and if a key benefit of the commissioning programme was to develop the marketplace, as a member he couldn't see what the council was doing to achieve that. The programme highlight report circulated with the papers  indicated an amber status for developing knowledge and skills for members and employees and he found that a  concern. The programme also needed to define its critical success factors. 

Councillor McLain questioned why the built environment review had been started given the full knowledge that the government plans for legislation on planning fees were still uncertain. He also suggested that the Local Authority Company was joint working and not commissioning. He was concerned about the reduction in the scope of the future work on the Leisure and Culture review. It appeared to be concentrating on areas such as catering at the Town Hall whereas the obvious target for the commissioning approach was in the provision of leisure services. He was happy to support the commissioning programme but felt it was important to focus on the right things.

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services acknowledged that commissioning had been a learning process and both the built environment and the leisure and culture review had been heavy on resources and time.  Therefore it was important that learning points from these were incorporated into future plans. The built environment review had been necessary because of the changes coming through and had been carried out in a commissioning way. The council was already reaping the benefits of the efficiency savings that had been made as a result of the systems thinking exercise. The members’ skills audit was really important and he encouraged members to complete it if they had not done so already.  Quite a lot of work had been done already in developing the marketplace particularly in working with the third sector. Following the systems thinking exercise, it does become more apparent which delivery options might be suitable and therefore some soft market testing could be done at this stage. There would then be a decision point regarding which options would be explored in more detail.

In response to a challenge that this decision point should be more transparent, he reminded members that all commissioning projects were supported by a member working group where any member could challenge the outcomes or delivery options to be pursue. In addition overview and scrutiny committees could ask any commissioning project to come to a meeting and provide members with an opportunity to ask questions and challenge.

Councillor Massey welcomed the report as the first time members had been able to see such details on progress.  He was pleased to see the diversity of options being looked at and encouraged by the range of delivery mechanisms.  He welcomed a report in six months time to highlight further progress.

The chair commented on the lack of reference in the report to staff morale and requested that this be included in a future report. The report should set out the resource costs of carrying out the commissioning exercise and the impact on staff once implemented.

Resolved that a further report be brought back to the committee in six months time and members advise the Democratic Services Manager on any specific information they require to be in the report.