Agenda item

Report of the Leader

 

The Mayor invited Members to consider suspending standing orders to enable the Leader to speak for longer than the 10 minutes laid down in the Council Procedure Rules. Upon a vote this was agreed.

 

The Leader started by thanking Members and Officers across the council for their contribution in enabling him to bring this report today in support of what was a very key decision for this Council.

 

He began by responding to the question of why he was recommending to Council that they enter into the 2020 Vision parternership structure (2020). 

 

The first reason was financial and with the ongoing financial pressures on local government budgets it was necessary to look at alternative solutions in order to avoid future cuts in services. The 2020 report detailed the significant projected savings over the period of the MTFS with potential additional savings from the formation of a local authority company.

 

The second reason was that this council had a track record of sharing services and with the success of GO and ICT shared services it was the logical step to build on these existing arrangements in 2020.

 

He acknowledged that there were concerns about the potential political and cultural differences across the four councils and also that Cheltenham was an urban authority going into partnership with three rural authorities. However he could reassure members that services that were special or unique to Cheltenham, in particular those delivered by REST and the Cheltenham Trust, were not going into the 2020 arrangements.

 

Customer services, revenues and benefits and property services had been identified within the project as the next services to be considered for sharing. He added that this detailed work would begin shortly with a report being brought to Cabinet at some stage in the New Year. He highlighted that members would be involved in this process.

 

He emphasised that before any future services were moved into 2020 there would need to be a full report to Cabinet, including a business case and alternative options, which would have to be agreed before any future transfer of services takes place. The recommendation agreed by Cabinet stated that Cabinet would receive and have to approve further business case briefings and proposed Service Level Agreements for these services under consideration.

 

There was the potential for staff to be transferred into a Local Authority company which would assist with the pensions’ deficit and a further business case for this would be brought back next year.

 

He stressed the importance of Cheltenham maintaining its own democratic governance in the new arrangements.

 

He explained that 2020 would be governed by a Joint Committee with two members represented from each authority. Cabinet proposed that the current Cabinet Member Corporate Services, Councillor Walklett, undertake one of these roles. He was the current council representative on the member governance board and the CBC representative on the Joint Monitoring and Liaison Group for GOSS. The Leader highlighted the suggestion from Overview and Scrutiny Committee that the second member on the Joint Committee could be a cross party representative. He had raised this with the other councils but he hadn't had any responses in support of this. Consequently he proposed that Councillor Flynn, as the chair of the Appointments Committee, should be the Council's second representative. He would welcome the formation of a cross-party group of members to look at how effective scrutiny might be operated in the new arrangements.

 

The Joint Committee would be responsible for overall financial policies and potential HR policies. The Leader referred members to the amended recommendation 5 which now included the introduction of a protocol which would require the Joint Committee to defer any item relating to changes to employment terms and conditions where it was unlikely to be passed by unanimous decision in order to seek a resolution to the matter.  The Leader added that whilst rationalisation of HR terms and conditions would be useful, to have a mechanism in place to deal with any issues was a sensible approach. As indicated in the report, senior staff at this council would be excluded from the delegation of HR functions to the Joint Committee.

 

The Leader reported that the post of Managing Director of the Partnership had been ringfenced to the Chief Executives of Cheltenham and Cotswolds/West Oxfordshire Councils. He explained that the current Chief Executive of Cheltenham had not expressed an interest in being considered for this position. The position of CEX would be deleted at the council but as a consequence the post of Head of Paid Service would be required at Cheltenham and would be the subject of an internal recruitment process by the Council’s Appointments Committee. A key role for the Head of Paid Service would be to ensure that Cheltenham gets the services they expect from 2020.

 

If the recommendations in the report were agreed by Council today, the existing shared service arrangements for GO Shared Services and ICT Shared Services would be undertaken by the Joint Partnership Structure from April 2016.

 

He concluded that it had been a long process to get to this stage and he appreciated that members still had some concerns. He felt that the review by Overview and Scrutiny had been very useful in stepping back and reviewing the whole process and he felt members should be comforted by the O&S conclusions that they should support 2020 going forward. The current recommendations did not exclude other partners joining the arrangements in the future. On that basis he commended the report to Council.

 

The Mayor invited members to ask questions on the report and the following responses were given by the Leader:

 

•           In response to a request for clarification, the Leader confirmed that the second recommendation agreed by Cabinet did not predetermine future Cabinet decisions and a report would have to be brought to Cabinet and agreed prior to any delegation of further services to the 2020 Vision Joint Committee.

•           There was a proposed mechanism for call-in by scrutiny of a decision made by the Joint Committee and if such a call-in was requested by more than one authority this would automatically trigger some type of shared call-in arrangement.

•           The reference in the Legal Implications referred to the amendment of arrangements with Ubico, The Cheltenham Trust and CBH.  This would be necessary as those organisations were currently making use of services which were already shared and in future they would be provided by 2020 hence this needed to be reflected in the formal agreements.

•           He advised that there was no clash with devolution plans for Gloucestershire, even though one of the 2020 partners was outside the county. This was because 2020 Vision was concerned with the delivery of services. He added that it would be important for this council to ensure it had the capacity to negotiate with the County Council on devolution proposals, particularly with regard to any delegation of powers or funding to the districts.

•           A Member commented that it was unusual to be making the Chief Executive redundant and at the same time recruiting a new Managing Director for REST and asked whether any thought been given to internal reallocation of responsibilities. Another Member questioned why the appointment to the Head of Paid Service should be an internal recruitment process?

In response, the Leader advised the internal recruitment was partly due to the fact that this was a temporary situation which required an interim process. There were complications regarding the government funding and the advice received was that a chief executive post should be made redundant. The appointment of the MD for REST would strengthen the structure and provide resilience.

•           A Member highlighted that the redundancy costs for the Chief Executive's post amounted to £180,000 of public money and there was a lot of public disquiet about senior officers being made redundant and then taking up work with another council. Was there a compromise agreement in place which would prevent the Chief Executive coming back to work with any council in Gloucestershire either as a consultant or a paid employee?

The Leader advised that he would be happy to check that out and advise members accordingly.

 

Having completed questions, the Mayor invited members to debate the report.

 

Councillor Tim Harman spoke as Leader of the Conservative Group and Chair of Overview and Scrutiny. He acknowledged the great financial challenges facing the council and the solution that 2020 offered in balancing the MTFS. He felt the proposals in the report had not gone unquestioned and there had been a robust debate. 

 

He referred to the  request from scrutiny that a member of the non-ruling party at the council should be represented on the Vision 2020 Joint Committee to ensure that scrutiny had a stake in the process. He appreciated that the Leader had discussed this with the other councils in the partnership and he would not object to the recommendation that Councillor Flynn was appointed to the Joint Committee provided the council's own scrutiny arrangements were robust.

 

He noted that the issue of devolution had been raised and he accepted that it was a different process. However he felt that 2020 would put this council in a better position for the future in any new arrangements for devolution. There would be shared expertise across the councils in addition to the financial savings from 2020 and the arrangements would ensure that the people of Cheltenham will have value for money from their council services. On that basis his group would support the recommendations.

 

The Cabinet Member Finance referred to the fact that existing shared services with Ubico and GOSS made the council an annual saving of £2.7 m annually. With Government core funding reduced from £8.8 m to £4.6 m between 2009 and 2015 and likely to be further cut between 25 % and 40 % over the next 4 years, further radical efficiency savings needed to be made without cutting services. With evidence that the four councils concerned were already making shared services work so well 2020 Vision represented further new ways of working which had been supported by Government via the £3.8 m Transformation Challenge Fund. He reported that Vision 2020 would generate £581 000 of savings annually increasing to £800 000 per annum if a Teckal company was established and these figures had been endorsed by CIPFA.  The Cabinet Member paid tribute to the hard work invested in the 2020 project by all officers involved. 

 

A Member referred to 2020 as Goplus as it was building on the the success of GO and four years ago when GO was first agreed, the options for sharing further services and becoming a local authority company had already being suggested. The government funding had now made this option possible and he stressed the extra resilience and opportunities for staff that the new arrangements would bring. It was important that there would be a decision point before any service was moved into the new arrangements and that had been clearly addressed in the recommendations. He highlighted that the Constitution allowed for reports from Joint Committees at Council and he felt that there should be regular reports from all Joint Committees in future.

 

Some Members felt they could support the recommendations but still had concerns. One Member said that whilst it seemed sensible for the existing GOSS and ICT Shared Services to be transferred to the Partnership, he expressed a note of caution regarding other services such as Revenue and Benefits and Customer Services. He considered that one of the strengths of the current Customer Services team was that they knew the town well and so were in a good position to respond to telephone enquiries. He contrasted this with the potential scenario of a shared call centre in Witney as a money-saving exercise but one where staff would not know the area. He was pleased that REST services remained with the council and Cheltenham focussed as they had little in common with the three rural authorities involved and delivery of those services had a key impact on the people of Cheltenham.  A member also suggested that the appointment of the Head of Paid Service should be undertaken quickly as in his view the council could not afford to be left with a power vacuum. This would also enable early resolution of any potential conflict between that role and the role of the current Head of Paid Service.  He felt the organisation needed a very clear head to avoid confusion and in order to get the best out of the new structure.

 

Another Member indicated that although he would support the recommendations he was still on the sceptical list.   His major concern was that given his experience as a backbench Councillor for a party in administration or opposition, he sometimes found this a frustrating role because of the way the democratic process operated.  His fear was that there would be more power and influence in the hands of the Joint Committee and the ability of a backbench Councillor to get involved would be moved further away from them. He supported the move of ICT and GO into the new arrangements and highlighted the need for improvements to the scrutiny process to support 2020. He was disappointed with the result that opposition groups would not be represented on the Joint Committee but accepted that it had to be reciprocal across all four councils before this could be put in place. He welcomed the Leader's suggestion that a cross party group should be set up alongside the Joint Committee to consider the scrutiny arrangements. He also welcomed the confirmation that a report would be brought back to Cabinet on any future services being considered for 2020, as 2020 may not be the best option in every circumstance. He considered REST was a set of very Cheltenham focused services which must be retained on that basis. There was a role for scrutiny in ensuring that REST delivered benefits from the extensive systems thinking work that had been carried out.  Similarly the cemetery and crematorium service should remain with this council.

 

Another member echoed this note of caution that there should be a very sound business case before any service was moved into 2020. There would also need to be a great deal of care in setting up the scrutiny arrangements to ensure they were effective in a new larger organisation.

 

A Member spoke in support of 2020 in terms of the budget savings and highlighted the need for the role of the non-Cabinet member to be considered alongside the Joint Committee. He felt that it was important that the council continued to look for other ways of balancing the budget and suggested that the council should look carefully at the use of the land west of Cheltenham which could help safeguard future employment.

 

In his summing up the Leader thanked Members for their comments. He agreed to continue to explore the membership of the Joint Committee with the partner councils and he encouraged members to talk to their party colleagues in other councils and seek to persuade them of the value of this proposal. He supported the suggestion that joint committees should report regularly to Council and he would also consider other ways of maximising information to all Members. 

 

Upon a vote the recommendations in the report with the addition of Councillor Flynn in recommendation 15 were carried.

Voting (For 32 with 2 abstentions)

 

RESOLVED THAT

 

1.    The Authority enter into the shared services partnership structure described in Appendix 2.

2.    the consequential revised senior management structure for this Authority as set out in section 7 be endorsed.

3.    the 2020 Vision Business Case at Appendix 3 be approved.

4.    the Commissioning Strategy at Appendix 5 be adopted.

5.    the 2020 Vision Joint Committee be established in accordance with Sections 101 and 102 of the Local Government Act 1972, and the Local Authorities (Arrangement for the Discharge of Functions) (England) Regulations 2012 made under Section 9EA, 9EB and 105 of the Local Government Act 2000, with draft Constitution at Appendix 6 including a protocol which requires the Joint Committee to defer any item relating to changes to employment terms and conditions where it is unlikely to be passed by unanimous decision in order to seek a resolution to the matter.

6.    authority be delegated to the Chief Executive in consultation with the Leader, the Section 151 Officer and the Borough Solicitor to finalise and complete the Inter Authority Agreement (including the Constitution) and other documentation on terms to be approved by the Borough Solicitor and to take all necessary steps to create the 2020 Vision Joint Committee by April 2016.

7.    It be agreed that the existing 2020 Vision Member Governance Board arrangements will continue until the 2020 Vision Joint Committee is created.

8.    Upon establishment of the 2020 Vision Joint Committee

8.1          To authorise the delegation to the 2020 Vision Joint Committee those functions of the Authority as described in the draft Constitution for the 2020 Vision Joint Committee, subject to retained decisions as set out in section 10 of this report

8.2          To agree to appoint Forest of Dean District Council as Administering Authority to provide administration support to the Joint Committee

8.3          To agree to appoint Cotswold District Council as the Accountable Body to provide financial support to the Joint Committee and enter into any contracts required on behalf of the Joint Committee

8.4          To agree to appoint the following councils to provide the following functions of the Joint Committee;

Forest of Dean District Council – Monitoring Officer

Cotswold District Council – S151 Finance Officer

Forest of Dean District Council – Clerk to the Joint Committee

9.    the appointment of David Neudegg as Partnership Managing Director be confirmed.

10.  It be agreed to make available such of this Authority’s staff as are necessary for the 2020 Vision Joint Committee to fulfil the functions which the Authority delegates to it

11.  the revised senior management structure for this Authority as set out in section 7 (which includes the deletion of the post of Chief Executive and consequential costs) be approved for consultation with affected staff and recognised trade unions with a proposed implementation date of 28 March 2016.

12.  the Chief Executive be authorised to undertake all necessary processes for the introduction of the revised senior management structure and to make any changes to the structure arising from consultation provided that such changes fall within the budget and overall parameters of the structure (as referenced in this report).

13.  It be agreed to internally recruit to the post of Head of Paid Service (who it is anticipated will also become the Returning Officer/Electoral Registration Officer from 23 May 2016) and it be noted that the appointment to the post will be undertaken by Appointments and Remuneration Committee with final approval resting with Council.

14.  It be agreed that, in the event of it being necessary to second any of the Authority’s staff in order to facilitate the functions which it delegates to the 2020 Vision Joint Committee, the Head of Paid Service be authorised to approve such secondment.

15.  Councillor Walklett and Councillor Flynn be appointed as the Authority’s Members on the 2020 Vision Joint Committee.

16.  the Democratic Services Manager, in consultation with the Borough Solicitor, be authorised to make such changes to the Constitution as are necessary to reflect and facilitate the implementation of the recommendations in this report.