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, Councillor Mason, gave a presentation on the following areas:

·        Bereavement and registration services – continued to deliver high levels of service. The Kent Family History Society continued to provide volunteers to help digitise the records for Bereavement and Registration Services and the Landscape Group continued to maintain the cemetery grounds to a high standard. The mercury abatement works at the crematorium were now underway, together with improvements to the car park and chapel and the removal of the existing cremators. A Governance Board had been set up, chaired by the Portfolio Holder, and a cross-party group of Members had visited and would visit the crematorium on a three monthly basis.

·        Human Resources (HR) – benchmarking comparisons against other Local Authorities showed Medway favourably with the HR cost per head of employee at £104 and the national average at £177. The Corporate training budget remained at £213,000.

·        Local Strategic Partnership(LSP) – the LSP Board had not met for 18 months due to the changes in the NHS and police service. However, the Chief Executive of the council continued to meet partners on a regular basis. The LSP lead partnerships continued to meet and were taking forward deliver on the key LSP priorities. There was no legal requirement to continue this formalised partnership but Medway had not yet decided whether to disband it, or not.

·        Sustainable Community Strategy – the current strategy ran until 2026 setting out the priorities being taken forward by the lead partnerships.

·        Big Society – the Portfolio Holder advised that last year he had proposed several ideas, which he was still developing, such as elderly people using their experiences and knowledge to give practical training and encouragement to young people excluded from school. He also proposed another event to thank volunteers from around Medway for the work they carried out. He had met the Chief Executives of Medway Citizens Advice Bureau and MHS Homes and he hoped to meet the Head of Business Development at Mid Kent College in order to raise sponsorship for these events.

·        ICT – the service had been extremely busy and, in conjunction with the Head of Service, he had written to all ICT staff to thank them for their dedication and commitment.

The committee asked:

·        The Portfolio Holder to investigate the ease of access on the council’s website for information on planning applications and also how to access social services.

·        What back-up plans were in place during the closure of the crematorium for mercury abatement works?

the Portfolio Holder advised that the staff at the crematorium were doing everything possible to keep things running as smoothly as possible but that there would inevitably be some impact whilst the works were ongoing.

·        Did the improvement plans at the crematorium include a waiting room, as other crematoria had, which was especially useful in bad weather conditions?

Councillor Mason advised that there were no plans for a waiting room to be provided during the current improvement works.

·        What communications strategy had been put in place to notify the public of the closure of the crematorium and the reasons for it?

The Portfolio Holder advised that he had requested that signage was established at the entrance to the crematorium and that publicity was to be placed in the Medway Matters newsletter.

·        Why had it taken four years to begin the mercury abatement works at the crematorium, to be completed only just within the legal timescale set by the government?

Councillor Mason informed Members that, legally, the mercury abatement works had to be completed by December 2012. The timing had been because all Local Authorities had to make the improvements within the period of time set by the government. Only a limited number of companies had the expertise to carry out the necessary works, and were unable to carry all the works out at the same time and this had been the reason for the timing in Medway.

·        What learning and development opportunities were available within the council, not related to Better for Less? Members requested a breakdown of the last budgetary year and the training budget for non-Better for Less training

Councillor Mason agreed to provide this information to the committee via a Briefing Note.

·        Would the Triangle Youth Awards continue, as they had previously been a great success?

Councillor Mason advised that he believed the Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services, Councillor Wicks, was happy for these awards to continue.
 

Decision:

The Portfolio Holder was thanked for his presentation.