Archived decisions
Hampshire County Council
Policy and Resources Scrutiny and Select Committee Item
11 April 2005
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT FOR LOCAL MEMBERS
Report of Cllr Cartwright & Cllr Wall
Officer Contact: Share D'All, Chief Executive's Department.
e-mail: [email protected] Tel: 01962 846634
1. The Aim:
The objective is to ensure that Councillors are informed about actions which impact on their local Divisions in such a way and time that they have a chance to input to them and communicate about them with to their community. The focus is on actions either intended or taken by the County, or by other parties about which anyone in the organisation has knowledge.
2. Context:
It is important to note that County Councillors are, in effect, part-time workers who give a lot of their time on a voluntary basis with a very wide timetable. They have very minimal administrative support centrally and, rarely any locally and spent a large amount of time `out and about'. All these factors mean that their need is for easy access to information in a timely way.
3. The Issues:
3.1. Information Linked to Decision Making:
i) Knowing about Decisions Beforehand in order to Influence
The current system for informing and consulting local members of issues in their Division about which decisions are made is inconsistent across departments and, at best, consists of inviting Councillors to comment on proposals as part of the pre-decision process and largely does not involve them in the pre-briefing process.
It relies upon a Forward Plan which is created as a four month rolling programme, its not sufficiently detailed and only covers Key decisions which, by their nature, are not those which only affect one local area (unless there is a high budget implication). The majority of consultation with local people undertaken by the organisation is carried out in isolation from the local Councillor
ii) Being informed about Decisions Made
The current method of recording decisions means that unless you know which meeting they were made at and on what date it is very difficult to find them
iii) Being Kept Informed about Implementation
Councillors have expressed considerable exasperation at not being kept up to date with the implementation of local decisions and service changes etc, especially where they are at variation with original plans, as members of their communities often ask and expect their Councillor to be able to update them on such things and it causes considerable embarrassment and loss of credibility when they only have out of date, or no, information
3.2. Knowing Who to Contact:
i) Contact Details of Officers
The loss of the old handbook due to a move to electronic information has been very inconvenient for Councillors who are out and about in the community and a need simple method to enable them to contact people without relying on access to a computer.
As Councillors only have access to the Internet (Hantsweb) rather than the Intranet (Hantsnet) their access to electronic contacts details of Officers is limited and feedback from several sources (as well as Councillors) is that such information is not designed in a customer friendly way and is difficult to find and navigate even if you already know who you are looking for.
When trying to find out who is responsible for things the current expectation that people start with the Chief Officer and get referred down is not appreciated as it is indirect and must be time consuming for senior staff as well as Councillors
ii) Having Contact with Officers
Councillors have found that that their contact with local officers has reduced in the current structure. This has exacerbated the above problem as well as reinforcing the perceived culture that Officers are not aware of the role of the Councillor, or its importance, and therefore do not think of informing them about things
3.3. Information Members Want:
i) General Issues
There is an organisational issue around collecting and collating information on a local basis as currently information is collected within services and not collated on a geographic basis. This is something that is being looked at already for a number of reasons as there is a shift in demand for information to be accessible on a local basis.
Due to the E-Government agenda there has also been a strong shift towards information being collected and supplied electronically rather than in paper form. It would be true to say that Hampshire County Council is progressing in its quest to maximise the benefits of electronic information so that it is retrievable in a flexible way but this is not a short process.
This also raises issues of culture in the sense that Councillors are not all confident or comfortable with searching and retrieving information electronically and thus find it takes longer even when the information is available.
ii) Types of Information Required:
Aside from the decision-related issues mentioned above, Councillors at the Policy & Resources Scrutiny and Select Committee have identified the following topics as being those about which they wish to be kept informed:
· Changes to transport services (Bus / train etc)
· Changes or removal of non-HCC Local Services (i.e. Post Offices, Community Shops etc)
· Building schemes
· Grants Given (especially to schools)
· Planning Applications & anything going to the Regulatory Committee
· Environmental Schemes / Projects
· Any local service variations (especially Libraries / highways - issues of local interest)
· Serious Incidents in local area
· Updates on key projects such as:
o Crime Partnerships / Early Years / Social Services
iii) Accessibility & Availability of Information
It is acknowledged that the most effective means of providing flexible information would be to improve our electronic information management and provisions. It would be useful to be able to seek information by both of the following:
· Locality (i.e. within Division & District boundaries)
_ This raises the issue of Officers being able to identify which Division / district projects and services fall into as there is not a simple way of finding this out at present which then makes it a much more complex process to know who to inform about what
· Community of Interest or subject
3.4. Cultural Issues:
i) Officers Informing Councillors
It is recognised that there is currently little awareness of the role of Councillors by Officers below the most senior levels except where people have a specific role in supporting Members.
There is currently no overall induction process for the organisation except for the Manager's role induction which does not currently include reference to the role of Councillors. Departmental Induction processes rarely deal with this as an issue.
This is not helped by the fact that although it is possible to find out the names of who Councillors are and their Divisions using the Hantsnet system it is not so easy to track back and find out which Division people, projects and buildings fall into.
ii) Councillors Informing Each Other
Councillors represent the County at almost 300 local organisations, many of whom cover more than one Division. However, there is currently no culture, consistent practice or expectation that Councillors keep each other informed about issues that are raised by these groups and may be of local interest
iii) Councillors Researching Information
Many Councillors are not used to researching information, particularly electronically, and tend to have an expectation that Officers will be proactive in providing it. This may not always be a shared expectation but therefore leaves a gap between the need of Councillors to have information and Officers ability or time to supply it.
4. Actions Already In Process & Additional Recommendations:
4.1. Information Linked to Decision Making:
i) Knowing about Decisions Beforehand in order to Influence
This issue is a fundamental one in the Review of Democratic processes and will be picked up as part of the recommendations. Clearly these need to include:
_ improving forwards plan to contain locality information; more detail and non-key decisions where they affect localities. It also needs to be written in a more `user friendly' way and may need to cover a longer time-span to enable better participation
_ more comprehensive process for involving local members in local decisions which gives local members a clear and timely mechanism for commenting to decision makers before the decision is made; thus allowing influence.
Additional Recommendation:
Need to identify ways to link County Councillors together with consultation of the community and community engagement by officers in order to co-ordinate input to decision making
ii) Being informed about Decisions Made
Again this will be picked up as part of the Review of Democratic structures. The important issues are that it should enable people to search and find information about decisions on the basis of:
_ location (district & Division)
_ subject and
_ decision maker
iii) Being Kept Informed about Implementation
It is felt that this only becomes important when there is variance from the implementation timescales or actions that were agreed - this should be picked up in recommendations in 3.4(i).
4.2. Knowing Who to Contact:
i) Contact Details of Officers
It has been agreed by the Corporate Management Team that we will provide a handbook for members as part of the Induction process. It will be provided as a hard copy and available electronically. It will contain:
· Contact Details for Officers (including `Out of Hours' contact numbers for services)
· Useful internal & external Web addresses for accessing information
The need to enable Councillors to access the Intranet (Hantsnet) as well as the Internet (Hantsweb) is being looked at as this would make accessing information that is already on the system a lot easier.
ii) Having Contact with Officers
As part of the re-vamped Induction process for Councillors ALL councillors will be included in a phase which will introduce them to local services provided by the County Council in their area and the Officers linked to them
Consideration is also being given to this as part of the review of Democratic structures and processes
4.3. Information Members Want:
i) General Issues
It is intended to set as a standard that all Councillors will have access to electronic communication which works effectively with our internal systems. A variety of packages are being looked at to meet the diverse needs.
ii) Types of Information Required
An email alert system is being looked into which would enable Councillors to select topics of interest or to be alerted to emails which relate to their Division.
The types of information identified also need to be included in the proposals in 3.4(i)
iii) Accessibility & Availability of Information
_ The need to be able to provide many forms of information and data on a geographic as well as subject basis is being emphasised in several areas. Many departments have staff who research and provide information related to their specialist area and the need to collate this information centrally as a Corporate Resource being looked into.
_ Grants database has fields for location & Cllr but no money to develop (suggest funding)
_ There are plans to provide GIS maps on the Web so that it is possible to look at the geographic context of buildings and projects (this would probably require Broadband to access).
_ There has been a recent discovery of a useful web function (external) which enables people to find out who their democratic representatives in all tiers are (and contact them) by simply putting in their postcode. At present it identifies the County Councillor but does not enable email contact. The site is called www.writetothem.com
Additional Recommendations:
_ Any centralised resource of collated information needs to be accessible to Members as well as Officers.
_ Information needs to be provided on a District basis as a minimum - by Division where relevant and possible
_ The additional funding to enable the use of the District; Division ; Local Councillor fields of the Grants Database to be used for reporting should be provided (estimated at £450)
_ We explore linking in with this system so that our Councillors can be identified and contacted in this simple way (useful for officers and the public). Use of photos may also be worth considering.
4.4. Cultural Issues:
i) Officers Informing Councillors
a) Induction of Officers:
Whilst it is acknowledged that there has been an intention to create a corporate induction process which would include introduction of the democratic role and aspects of the organisation our recommendation would be that this is raised in priority level so that:
The manager's Role Induction does include a section on the role of Councillors and how managers need to interact with it
There is consideration given to the best mechanism to include appropriate understanding of the democratic aspects of the organisation in the induction of ALL officers
b) Communication Campaign:
To create a stronger understanding of the democratic role of the organisation and the part of Councillors with existing staff we propose a `Your Councillor is Interested' Campaign. The objective would be:
_ To reinforce the democratic as well as service delivery objectives of the organisation
_ To clarify the role of County Councillors and how this sits alongside officer roles
_ To identify the issues about which Officers need to be keeping Councillors informed - and how
_ To identify ways in which Officers and Members should be working together
It is recommended that this Communication Campaign would initially be aimed at our own staff but there would be benefits to considering how such a campaign could also be targeted at the Public in order to clarify the Councillors role.
Initial discussions with Corporate Communications have identified that this could be done with minimal expense but it is proposed that they be approached to recommend costed options for such a campaign.
ii) Councillors Informing Each Other
Whilst all Councillors have a Council webpage these are not currently well developed. Work is being done on developing Members websites in such as way as to make them more functional and easy to update, the intention is to pilot this after the election.
It is agreed that a useful part of this development would be to explore the following which would potentially make it easier for members to keep each other informed :
_ Members Bulletin Board linked to the main Member website
_ Members distribution lists
The cultural issues of members sharing information is something to be picked up within party groups
iii) Councillors Researching Information
Many of the above developments, once implemented, should make it more possible for Members to find information that is on the system and the Members Handbook will contain useful website addresses for external research as well.
All councillors will be offered training / coaching in using electronic search systems and finding their way around Hantsweb/net as part of their induction
Additional Recommendations:
_ Despite the above improvements, it is still felt that the issue of making best use of limited Member time provokes consideration of making a research function available to Councillors. In many Councils this is provided via Political Assistants who are available to all Councillors through their party groups, so that each party group would have their own Political Assistant. The recommendation is that we explore this option.
_ It would also be useful to develop a good system of internal and external links as part of the Member website
5. Summary of Recommendations:
We recommend that the Policy & Resources Scrutiny & Select Committee support all of the initiatives above which should together improve many of the current weaknesses in the system. In addition we propose the Committee puts the following recommendations forward to Cabinet for their consideration:
5.1. We explore ways to link County Councillors together with consultation of the community and community engagement by officers in order to co-ordinate input to decision making
5.2. Any centralised resource of collated information needs to be accessible to Members as well as Officers.
5.3. Information needs to be provided on a District basis as a minimum -and by Division where relevant and possible
5.4. Additional funding is provided to enable the use of the District; Division; Local Councillor fields of the Grants Database to be used for reporting (estimated at £450).
5.5. We explore linking in with the www.writetothem.com system so that our Councillors can be identified and contacted in this simple way (useful for officers and the public). Use of photos may also be worth considering.
5.6. Induction of Officers:
i) The Manager's Role Induction is adapted to include a section on the role of Councillors and how managers need to interact with it
ii) There is consideration given to the best mechanism to include appropriate understanding of the democratic aspects of the organisation in the induction of ALL officers
5.7. Corporate Communications are asked to produce some costed options for a `Your Councillor is Interested' Campaign which would be initially targeted at our own staff to achieve the following objectives:
_ To reinforce the democratic as well as service delivery objectives of the organisation
_ To clarify the role of County Councillors and how this sits alongside officer roles
_ To identify the issues about which Officers need to be keeping Councillors informed - and how
_ To identify ways in which Officers and Members should be working together
5.8. We explore the possibility of providing Political Assistants who serve Party Groups in researching and providing information to support their role
5.9. We develop a good system of internal and external links as part of the Member website
Background Papers: (Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972)
The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.
NB the list excludes
1. Published works
2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.
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