Archived decisions

ITEM 3

AT A MEETING of the POLICY AND RESOURCES POLICY REVIEW COMMITTEE of the COUNTY COUNCIL held at The Castle, Winchester on 31 October, 2006

PRESENT:

Councillors:

p M.F. Cartwright (Chairman)

Also present: J.K. Glen, Executive Member for Human Resources

1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

It was noted that Councillor Kelly's apologies were by reason of her being engaged on other County Council business.

2 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members were mindful that, where they believed they had a personal or personal prejudicial interest in any matter to be considered at the meeting, they should, normally at the time of debate, declare their interest and, having regard to the circumstances described in paragraphs 9,10,11 and 12 of the County Council's Code of Conduct, consider whether to leave the meeting whilst the matter was discussed. No such interests were declared by Members.

3 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the former Policy and Resources Scrutiny and Select Committee held on 5 June, 2006 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

4 CHAIRMAN'S COMMUNICATIONS

The Chairman welcomed to the meeting Sarah Fisher from DEFRA; he expressed regret at the absence of the Director of Human Resources; he explained that responsibility for scrutiny would now be placed in the Policy Unit of the Chief Executive's Department, with Denise Holden taking over from Share D'All. The Committee joined with the Chairman in expressing thanks to Share for her guidance in the development of the County Council's scrutiny function.

5 APPROACH TO FINANCIAL SCRUTINY

The Committee considered the report of the County Treasurer (Item 3 in the Minute Book) which gave details of the process and times at which the Committee might most effectively scrutinise the budget and significant financial issues. The Committee requested that their January, 2007 meeting should be moved to about two weeks later so that they could review the budget proposals put forward by Executive Members before they went to Cabinet, thereby enabling effective financial scrutiny. They endorsed the proposed pattern for them to look at financial issues and identified several specific items on which they asked the County Treasurer for more information.

RESOLVED:

(i) That the approach to financial scrutiny be endorsed on the basis set out in the report, with suitable items coming to the committee in January, April, July and October, informed by periodic dispatches of financial information at appropriate intervals from which members can identify subjects for further investigation.


(ii) That the committee's January meeting be rearranged for about two weeks later than the 16 January meeting scheduled, to enable effective scrutiny of budget proposals before they go to Cabinet.


(iii) That the County Treasurer be asked to provide more details on the following topics:-


· Insurance Claims.


· Consultancy Costs.


· Feasibility Studies : Costs vs Outcomes.


· Reasons for over and underspendings.


· Virement.


· Young Carers' Budget

6 POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR WORK PLAN OF THE COMMITTEE

The Committee considered a schedule prepared by the Chief Executive (Item 3(b) in the Minute Book) setting out a range of topics in provisional priority order which had emerged from the briefing for the new committee held on 11 September. To that had been added a few topics which had emerged since then, and it was possible that topics related to human resources might need to be included.

The Committee also had before them a briefing note by the Chief Executive "Strong and Prosperous Communities : Key Areas of Interest for Policy Review Committees" (Item 3(c) in the Minute Book) which sought to align the priority topics for scrutiny with the key themes contained in the recently published white paper. The latter document was added to the Committee's agenda with the consent of the Chairman under Section 100(B)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 in order to enable the Committee to give initial consideration to the implications of the White Paper and its relationship to their scrutiny programme.

RESOLVED:

(i) That the key areas of interest for scrutiny from the White Paper "Strong and Prosperous Communities" be endorsed and that officers and members give further consideration to priorities within the lists, to enable a full work programme to be formulated at their December and January meetings.


(ii) That further consideration be given to the following areas for inclusion in the work programme:


· Progress with the SWIFT system and its impact on adult services budget.


· Ashburton Court refurbishment - possible recycling and reuse of existing furniture and equipment.


· Possible joint working by means of a Panel comprising members from all five Policy Review Committees, to look at IT issues in a cross-cutting way.


· Need to avoid duplication between the work of Policy and Resources PRC and other PRCs.

7 OUTCOME REPORT - ICT SCRUTINY

The Committee considered a report by the Inquiry Panel Chairman, Councillor Baulk (Item 4 in the Minute Book). It was noted that the former Policy and Resources Scrutiny and Select Committee had established a Panel under his chairmanship to look in detail at various aspects of ICT. That Panel had reported in January, 2006 with recommendations which were adopted, and Councillor Baulk as e-champion had been commissioned to undertake further research on ICT related subjects, particularly the relationships between central and departmental ICT structures. That report had been ready in July and would have been considered then but for the cancellation of the committee's July meeting, so to some extent many of its recommendations had been overtaken by events. It was noted that most of the recommendations set out below could be implemented by the Head of IT Services but the Committee insisted that the merger of the help desks provided by EdICT and IT Services should proceed and that there should be a recommendation to that effect to the Executive Member for Policy and Resources if necessary.

RESOLVED:

That the following approach to ICT be endorsed.

(i) That IT sections within departments should consider renaming themselves with a title that reflects their real role rather than one that gives the impression that they are mini-IT Services Departments; there should also be some uniformity in the job titles.


(ii) That it be a RECOMMENDATION to the Executive Member for Policy and Resources.

That as long as the level of service received by schools from EdICT does not suffer then the committee is strongly of the view that the merger of the EdICT and IT Services Helpdesks must proceed as quickly as possible.


(iii) That IT Services and the departments need to consider the quality of the service they are providing when dealing with problems from staff, how this questionable duplication can be resolved and a method to ensure that statistics are shared.


(iv) That IT Services must be more aware of the "openness" of the relationships they have with the different departments and do everything to ensure that the same level of quality and service is experienced by each department.


(v) That the quality of the consultancy offered by IT Services be addressed; that the perception of a consultant lottery must not be allowed to continue; and that the least experienced consultants should be kept away from the front-line until they can work at a high standard.


(vi) That IT Services must stop charging for providing estimates/quotes for projects and should stop providing estimates but, having confidence in the quality of the service they provide and the staff they have, should be giving quotes.


(vii) That it be a RECOMMENDATION to Cabinet:

That proper communication be undertaken between senior officers and staff especially those staff whose jobs are directly affected by the contact centre, and that a seminar be promptly arranged to bring all members up-to-date on the contact centre project.


(viii) That having gone through reorganisation, IT Services and their relationship with departments be reviewed again by the Committee within the next 6 to 12 months.

8 SCRUTINY STUDY INTO PROJECT INTEGRA AND WASTE MANAGEMENT

It was reported that responses from the Executive Member for Environment and Project Integra, arising from the recommendations adopted by the County Council in December, 2005, would be put before the December meeting of the Committee to enable them to monitor the outcome of this scrutiny study undertaken by the former Policy and Resources Scrutiny Select Committee.

9 PROPOSALS FOR TASK AND FINISH WORK GROUPS

The Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive (Item 5 in the Minute Book) listing requests from the other four Policy Review Committees for Task and Finish Groups to undertake detailed in-depth study of specific topics and to rank those in order of priority.

RESOLVED:

That all four proposals:

· Ranking mechanism for local bus services.


· Motorway diversion routes.


· School admissions policy.


· Libraries and Information Services.


Be approved and that scrutiny officers be authorised to proceed with making the detailed arrangements as soon as possible, and that members of the committee be notified of the dates agreed.

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