Archived decisions
No. |
Recommendation |
Progress |
Target date |
Status |
2.1.4 |
Arrangements should be made as soon as possible for the Service to employ a full time person to provide the web support services, as detailed in the current agreement with the County Council, for the day-to-day support of the Authority's web site. |
Commitment to the use of day-to-day higher level professional support from HCC's IT Services has been reduced. The roles of both the Website Development and Support Manager and the Website Development and Support Assistant are under review with an objective of separating editorial/content management work from technical support/development work. The new technical role will enable us to meet this recommendation. It is anticipated that the review will be completed by December 2008. |
Quarter 4 (2007/08) Revised to quarter 3 (2008/09) |
Ongoing |
2.1.5 |
A benchmarking group should be established building on existing arrangements with other fire and rescue services to build a source of comparable information on the costs of similar services provided through service level agreements. |
Work has commenced (August 2008) to examine the scope within the SE Region for shared service provision - this is likely to include some support service functions. |
Work to be done during quarters 1-3 (2008/09) |
Ongoing |
2.2 |
Further advice should be obtained as to the extent to which the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 oblige the Authority to undertake a full tendering exercise, prior to any decisions being made in respect of the following recommendations of the consultant's report. |
It appears that the value of the management cost elements of providing the various support services under the individual SLAs would be below the thresholds for European Union procurement regulations. The cost of preparing full tendering documentation and detailed user specifications for most of the services would be excessive compared to the value of each service. This is mainly because we would not be able to engage the professional expertise we would normally obtain (via the SLAs) from HCC as it has a vested interest - it would need to be sought from an independent consultant. In September 2007, the Authority resolved that : 1. Notwithstanding the conclusion that the various service level agreements with Hampshire County Council appear to satisfy one or more of the exclusions, under the relevant procurement regulations; the opportunity be taken to occasionally expose some of those services to market-testing and/or full competitive tendering as a means of ensuring and demonstrating that they continue to offer best value. 2. The Clerk be asked to consider whether it would be in the Authority's best interests to seek an arrangement under Section 113 of the Local Government Act 1972 to recognise and regularise the extent and benefits of services provided to the Authority under the current service level agreements. The Clerk has now considered this issue and Service Level Agreements are now being updated to reflect the arrangements under S113 as per the advice provided. |
Quarter 3 2008/09 |
Completed Completed |
2.2.1 |
The provision of various support services provided by Hampshire County Council should be established under a strategic service partnership with a single set of documents that describe the services delivered in a clearer and simplified way with emphasis on shared values, outcomes and consistent quality standards for all services. This to be achieved by 1 April 2007. |
Overarching partnership principles have been drafted and are currently being consulted upon with relevant parties. |
Quarter 2 (2007/08) Revised to Quarter 2 (2008/09) Further revised to Quarter 3 (2008/09) |
Ongoing |
2.2.4 |
The partnership should include the delivery of efficiency savings as one of the key new partnership principles rather than presume that rates and charges should simply be raised by the rate of inflation each year and agreement on the achievement of targeted efficiency savings should take place at each annual review. |
Agreed. We expect `open book' accounting to take place so that the potential to identify scope for efficiency gains is enhanced. Efficiencies made will be recorded on the Annual Efficiency Statement. |
From Quarter 1 (2008/09) |
Completed |