Agenda item

Report No: OAS/FH/17/007

The Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance has been invited to the meeting to provide an annual account on his portfolio and to answer questions from the Committee.

[Councillor Brian Harvey arrived at 6.13pm, during the consideration of this item.

Councillor Reg Silvester arrived at 6.15pm, during the consideration of this item.]

As set out in the Council’s Constitution, at every ordinary Overview and Scrutiny meeting at least one Cabinet Member would be invited to attend to give an account of his or her portfolio and answer questions from the Committee.  Therefore, to carry out this constitutional requirement, members were asked to consider the responsibilities of the Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance, who had been invited to the meeting.

The Committee was reminded that on 10 March 2016, the Committee received a presentation from the Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance, setting out responsibilities covered under the portfolio.

At this meeting, the Portfolio Holder for Resources and Performance had been invited to the meeting to provide a follow-up presentation on his portfolio.  Report No: OAS/FH/17/007 set out the focus of the follow-up presentation, which was to:

• Outline the main challenges faced during the first year;

• Outline some key successes and any failures during the first year and any lessons learned; and

• Set out the vision for the Portfolio through to 2019, and whether on target to meet that vision.

Councillor Stephen Edwards opened his verbal update by thanking the Committee for the invitation and introduced two new members of staff under his portfolio areas, Leah Mickleborough, Service Manager (Democratic Services/Monitoring Officer) and Kevin Taylor, Service Manager (ICT).  He then provided a number of examples covering HR, Legal and Democratic Services by outlining challenges faced; successes and lessons learnt; and the vision through to 2019, such as:

·         Staffing: attracting high calibre people to the organisations; recruitment of key technical staff; and staff turnover - 8.74% (challenge);

·         Member Development: looking to improve training sessions to attract members.  Across St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Forest Heath District Council since April 2016, only 25% of members had not attended any training  (challenge); 

The Cabinet Member sought ideas from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on how to attract members  to attend training.

·         Loss of the four year financial settlement grant from Government (challenge);

·         ICT security (challenge);

·         Balancing the budget (success);

·         Appointed Service Manager for ICT (success);

·         New Shared Legal Service (success);

·         Continue to deliver a self-sustaining Medium Term Financial Strategy (vision);

·         New and extended income streams (vision);

·         Internal Audit providing ongoing assurances (vision).

The Assistant Director (Resources and Performance) informed the Committee that the West Suffolk Information Strategy programmed to be presented to the Committee in November 2017.  Officers would be seeking nominations at the Committee’s April 2017 meeting for members to sit on a Joint Task and Finish Group to help shape the Strategy.

Members discussed the update and asked a number of questions of the Cabinet Member and officers, to which comprehensive responses were provided.  Discussions were held on the difficulties around recruitment; employee recruitment packages; the councils pay-line and how it would meet the living wage by 2020; and the councils employer brand.

In particular the Committee discussed the importance of member development, which was the duty of all members to keep their training up to date, and questioned what was being done to encourage members to attend training events/development sessions and whether on-lone training modules had been considered.

The Assistant Director (HR, Legal and Democratic Services) informed the Committee that timings of training events was an issue for members.  The current member development programme needed to be refreshed and reviewed to include a range of options to suit all members.  It was suggested that Member Development could be a future piece of work for scrutiny to review with the Joint Member Development Group. 

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member for the follow-up update on his portfolio.

There being no decisions required, the Committee noted the contents of the portfolio update and discussion held on future scrutiny reviews for  Member Development and a Joint Task and Finish Group for the West Suffolk Information Strategy.