Agenda item

The Portfolio Holder for Corporate Services will attend the meeting to give account of his performance against Council targets in his portfolio.

Discussion:

The Portfolio Holder for Corporate Services addressed the committee outlining the main achievements within areas of his portfolio during the past few months:

·        registration services – continued to provide a high level of service and had carried out the digitisation of bereavement and registration records.
The chapel at the crematorium was going to be enlarged and better car parking to be provided. New cremators were to be installed. The service was well managed and proficiency savings had been made. The budget, at the end of the last financial year, had been under spent

·        human resources (HR) – the HR teams had been re-organised and a recent benchmarking exercise had shown that the cost per employee was well below the national average. HR continued to develop its staff who were a motivated workforce in difficult times

·        partnership boards – there had been a re-organisation of the Local Strategic Partnership Board and the new board would meet later in the year. However, the Children’s Trust, the Community Safety Partnership, the Health Partnership and the Prosperity & Enterprise Boards continued to meet

·        ICT – a list of the many projects and work achieved was circulated to the committee. These included ICT have successfully delivered a number of projects including:

• HR self-serve project
• Replacement of Connections, the Council’s intranet site
• New IT components for 17 schools
• New e-audio and e-book service for library users
•  ‘Love Clean Streets’ application for Safer Communities

There were a number of projects in progress including:

• network requirements for the Urban Traffic Management Control system
• technical project management for the Dynamic Bus station.
• Replacement of the theatre booking system
• Close working with the PCT and health agencies to deliver services to the Healthy Living Centres

·        Big Society – the Portfolio Holder stated his intention to hold meetings with voluntary sector organisations and staff working in the community to discuss ideas to take forward. He also advised that he had several ideas that included holding a volunteer fair and recruiting mentors for young people who lacked support at home and struggled academically and were showing signs of socially disruptive behaviour.

Members asked the Portfolio Holder a number of questions and made comments, including:

·        what affect the number of schools transferring to Academy status would have on the council’s HR section, as the Academies could now buy services from other providers that were previously provided by the authority. Members asked for assurance that the council would be marketing its services competitively.

The Portfolio Holder responded that he hoped that the council would employ, in a temporary capacity, a sales person to pro-actively market the services provided by the council

·        the idea of a Volunteers Fair, as part of the work for the Big Society. Members were enthusiastic about this idea but requested that it was rolled out as a road-show into local, community areas as they believed this would have agreater effect and would reach further into the communities

·        Members requested that the notice given with regard to the closure to some services at Bluebell Hill crematorium was advertised well in advance of the closures

·        the provision of alternative options for cremation/burial and that new innovations (eg. willow caskets) and cheaper and more environmentally friendly options are offered as soon as practicable

·        could more money be made available to ICT services in the 2012/2013 budget to update older computer programmes and facilities run by the council

·        following a question at a Full Council meeting, Members had become aware that council staff had recently moved to using an electronic payslip facility and that staff had encountered problems with these when applying for a mortgage. The Portfolio Holder was asked if further investigation had taken place about this problem

Councillor Mason responded that he would look into this further and advise the committee when that work had been completed.

·        training courses should remain available for staff during this economically difficult time and staff should not be concerned at being away from the office, as training was even more important when sections were being run at minimum staffing levels.  

Decision:

The Committee thanked Councillor Mason for attending the meeting and the information and answers he had provided.