Agenda item

To receive a written report from the Executive Member for Corporate Services, and to question the Executive Member thereon, provided any such questions are registered in accordance with the timescales and procedures set out in Standing Order 8.2.1.

A written report was received from Cllr Moore, the Executive Member for Corporate Services.

 

Notice had been received of twelve questions on the report, submitted by Members in accordance with Standing Orders.  The first ten questions were put and answered as follows:

 

(i)         From Cllr Hyman:

“Can the Executive Member expand upon the factors which have resulted in what appears very significant improvement in the final accounts processes compared to where we were 2-3 years ago?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“The finance team has worked extremely hard in delivering significant improvements over the past two years, and this is down to their skill and commitment.  Over the last two years, project plans have been in place, there has been excellent teamwork, close working with external audit, and a highly professional approach from all staff concerned.

I’m sure all members of Audit & Governance Committee will share my belief that our officers’ passion, and I mean passion, for the Accounts has been a major factor in this improvement.

On a personal note, I have never before, in my thirty-one years in accountancy, met an officer who can get so excited about financial regulations and procedures.  The entire finance team deserve our thanks.”

 

(ii)        From Cllr Gunnell:

“Can the Executive Member explain why he has allowed three vacancies to exist out in a corporate procurement team of six, why he has seen fit to replace those permanent members of staff with two agency staff and how much they have cost the local taxpayer over the period of their employment?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“I am surprised Cllr. Gunnell has asked me about Procurement, as this was all detailed out in a paper to Executive on 7^th September, and I would have expected that she would be aware of the details.  While it is true that the Procurement team has an establishment of 6 ftes and are carrying 2 vacancies due to staff turnover and one secondment, this has only been a temporary measure while the “More for York” blueprint has been developed.  During this time no recruitment has taken place, to avoid potentially recruiting permanent staff with the wrong skills to operate in an outmoded model of delivery.

The exact balance between permanent staff and temporary specialists will be defined over the coming months as we do further detailed analysis of our category spend and identify how much work is needed in each category. The detailed technical methodology of how procurement can drive out savings is set out in a revised Procurement Blueprint.

Despite this, the Procurement workstream has made good progress and the in year target savings of £400k to the General Fund have already been over achieved by £259k - a total of £659k savings. In addition to this a further £927k savings have been made that will accrue to the Direct Schools Grant.  That  totals £1.586,000.  I would suggest that this far outweighs the cost of employment of the temporary staff.

The long-term efficiencies that can be delivered by more effective procurement vastly outstrip the modest existing targets, and the current situation can be seen as “invest to save”.  Once the model has been developed it is expected that there will be recruitment, or redeployment into the necessary roles.”

 

(iii)       From Cllr Sunderland:

“Given the economic pressures, and in particular increased benefit claimants, how is the benefit service responding to this, and what challenges does the Portfolio holder envisage in the next couple of years?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“Members will note, despite the significant pressures faced over the last twelve months, the benefits service has responded well, and has made significant improvements in performance.  As workload potentially grows, we will need to keep under review our performance, and ensure we are able to respond to any issues.  I am confident the service can respond to these pressures, even against a tight financial situation.”

 

(iv)       From Cllr Gunnell:

“Can the Executive Member for Corporate Services outline the steps taken to ensure that all staff, including management, are fully briefed on the Equality Act 2010 that came into force on the 1^st October 2010.  Will he also explain the major implications of the Act to Council?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“I will provide the member with a written response, as the question was only received at 5pm yesterday and it is too short a time to respond fully.  I have spoken to the Monitoring Officer about the need to allow more time for answers to be formulated.”

 

(v)        From Cllr Holvey:

“Does the Executive Member for Corporate Services consider that the Council is well placed to deal with the financial challenges facing this Council in coming years?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“We have put in place a medium term financial strategy, which is supported by the More for York Programme.  When we introduced the More for York Programme, some eighteen months ago, there were those that questioned whether it could deliver true efficiency savings, some even commenting it was merely a cuts programme.  The evidence is there for all to see of not only savings, but also service improvement.  I am pleased that my own Portfolio has provided significant financial benefits to the Council both this year, and continuing into next year and beyond, yet at the same time made improvements in service.

The management of the Council’s finances remains strong, and despite considerable pressures we came within budget last year and are working on achieving the same this year.  We do however face unprecedented financial challenges in coming years, which will require continued focus upon the Council’s finances, and challenging how we provide all services across the Council.”

 

(vi)       From Cllr Gunnell:

“Will the Executive Member for Corporate Services confirm the current number of FTE employees per directorate, which directorates are providing apprenticeships and how many?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

            “I will provide the Member with a written response.”

 

(vii)      From Cllr Hogg:

“Could the Executive Member advise what contribution ICT has made to the development of the new Explore at the Central Library?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“The new Explore York Library Learning Centre opened late May of this year and brings together a modern city centre Library with a full and vibrant programme of learning.  ICT staff and its managed network service provider worked very closely with Fiona Williams and her staff to design and implement the necessary ICT components that supported the transformation and use of the building and its service.

This included the provision of more than thirty new Public Access Internet PC’s including provision for accessibility facilities for customer with visual impairment.  A wireless network has been installed which enables access to the Internet for customers from their own portable device such as a mobile phone or a laptop and public scanning facilities have been provided, enabling the transfer of documents and images into the available desktop publishing applications on the public PCs.

The transformation of the Central Library is a great example of an organisation that can achieve very effective cross directorate working.   The result is an excellent combination of the what's best about working and living in York as we now have an old and historic building that is being used to deliver 21st century services.”

 

(viii)     From Cllr Gunnell:

“Will the Executive Member for Corporate Services outline the process for consulting with the public on the council budget for 2011/12, as well as the extent to which they will be consulted compared with recent years?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“In terms of consulting on the budget process, York is only statutorily required to consult with business owners. However, as well as meeting this obligation, the administration has a strong commitment to voluntarily consulting with residents, which this year will take the form of an exercise in the December issue of Your City, a web based questionnaire and face to face meetings with members of the public and the Talkabout panel.  The Council will also be consulting with equalities groups on any impacts arising from the process.”

 

(ix)       From Cllr Aspden:

“Could the Executive Member advise what contribution ICT is making to the development of the York Contact Centre, in relation to requests for front-line services?”

 

The Executive Member replied:

“Working with colleagues from Communities & Neighbourhoods and the More4York Programme, the internal ICT Systems Design team have designed a developed a very revolutionary suite of technologies to support and sustain the re-engineered business processes for the Communities & Neighbourhoods directorate. The project seeks to improve upon work conducted as part of Easy@york and is focusing primarily on achieving greater information sharing between front and back office departments through the use and integration of the Customer Relationship Management system & mobile technology.

The key improvements to the front office - the York Customer Centre - are that the process of logging a service request has been made simpler and more effective for a customer service representative and will enable the delivery of a far better experience for our citizens.

The key improvements to the back office (Communities & Neighbourhoods) section are that the system will perform automatic allocation of service requests raised by our citizens directly to geographically based operational teams through the use of mobile technology - by providing staff with a hand-held or cab mounted device that delivers their work directly to them in the field.

This will improve staff scheduling by using intelligent rules about the area of the city a staff member covers, to ensure the work gets to the right person first time; using fixed schedule information to decide if a service request can be taken care of by a member of staff’s routine work pattern (for example street sweeping), leading to a cost reduction in being reactive to the work; providing the ability to work the results of both routine work and reactive service requests in to management information will present the opportunity to analyse the patterns of incidents and amend the fixed schedules to pre-empt where the reactive problems will occur, thereby giving the service a better chance to react to the incident without creating extra work or, ideally, to deal with a problem before it is reported.”

 

(x)        From Cllr Merrett:

“With regards to revenues and benefits services and their fitness for purpose in 2010/11, can the Executive Member:

a)            indicate the numbers of York claimants who will be negatively affected by the Government's announced changes to Housing Benefit maximum payments from next year, and by how much (please give in bands of £10/week);

b)            indicate how many York residents will be at risk of losing their homes as a result of next year's housing benefit changes, and outline how the benefits service will be working with Communities and Neighbourhoods and external agencies to minimise the number of consequential evictions of those affected?”

c)            indicate how many York benefit claimants the absolute £500 a week cap would affect, and, if any, the potential impacts for those cases.

 

The Executive Member replied:

“I will provide the Member with a written response.”

 

The time limit for this item having expired, written responses were provided to the remaining questions after the meeting, as follows:

 

(xi)       From Cllr Merrett:

“With regard to the Government's announcements and reductions to York's budgets and the estimated savings requirement of £12 million in 2011/12, does this figure take into account the impact of the Government's 'New Homes Bonus scheme', and would he confirm the expected impact on York, given that Bonuses will be top-sliced out of the total local government grant paid by Communities and Local Government to Local Authorities annually?”

 

Reply

“The figure doesn't take account of the new homes bonus scheme as we don't yet know the impact this scheme might have. No firm details relating to the scheme, on which quantification of costs or benefits could be based, have been released yet and a consultation paper is expected after the Spending Review.”

 

(xii)      From Cllr Merrett:

“In regard to 'COLIN', can the Executive Member confirm what user surveys are, or will be, undertaken to see if users find the new set up beneficial and easy to use?”

 

Reply

“Staff in marketing and communications, and the ICT web and intranet development team, are currently conducting a continuous feedback campaign with staff across the authority.  Users are being asked to e-mail the COLIN mailbox with their suggestions and comments.”

In addition, the teams are collecting feedback as part of the office walkabouts which are going on this week.  The teams will be feeding comments back into the development process to ensure that COLIN is, as it is designed to be, intuitively easy to use.  It is also planned to do a section in the next staff survey (early next year) which will ask for feedback on COLIN, as well as online polls to ask the question.

CouncilNet (the existing intranet) will be switched off from the end of this year, so it is important to take this time to make sure staff are happy with using COLIN.  The walkabouts and other planned communications activity are being organised to support this.  I can already say that the walkabouts are meeting with a very positive response from the greater majority of staff.”