Agenda item

Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Corporate Support Services and Performance Management, and Ms T Oliver, Director of Strategic Development and Public Access will attend the meeting from 11.00am to 11.30am to answer Members’ questions on this item.   

(Mr R W Gough, Cabinet Member for Support Services and Performance Management and Mrs T Oliver, Director of Strategic Development and Public Access were in attendance for this item to answer questions from Members of the Committee)

(1)   The Chairman asked why this decision was classed as ‘urgent’ and what the outcome would be for the staff involved.

(2)   Mr Gough explained that the strong advice from Legal Services was that as the TUPE issue arose, or was very likely to arise, officers were to proceed on the basis described within the Kent Digital Service document (contained within the agenda papers).

(3)   In response to a question about the employees affected Mr Gough explained that they were employed by Ten Alps.

(4)   Mrs Oliver explained that in terms of the notice period, advice was taken from Legal Services and Personnel, and conditions on the contracts meant that Ten Alps were not put in breach of any such conditions.   The Chairman explained that her understanding was that agreement had been reached with Kent TV that there were no penalties for finishing the contract on 31 March 2010.  Mrs Oliver confirmed that this was correct although there may be some redundancy costs to KCC as a result of restructuring the team of staff who transferred to KCC.  8 staff transferred to KCC from Ten Alps on 1 April 2010.  A consultation process was currently underway.  The staff in the new team would be creating content such as the ‘What’s on’ guide, enhancing democracy, tourism and working with visit Kent.  Mr Gough reminded the Committee that Kent Digital Service had a fixed budget of £250k to cover what’s on, webcasting, staffing, technical support etc.

(5)    The Chairman referred to the recent refresh of the website and asked whether there was the ability to stream videos.  Mrs Oliver explained that a streaming facility was available through the webcasting contract and Kent TV and therefore it did not seem sensible to create a third way of streaming content as this would effectively be paying 3 times for the same service.  Following the decision not to proceed with Kent TV the cheapest option was to retain some of the contracts which Ten Alps had with external contractors to deliver the streaming facility.  Mrs Oliver confirmed that ‘What’s on’ would be accessible externally and via kent.gov, the current webcasting contract had been extended with the current provider, ‘public-I’.  Once the staff consultation process had been finalised the Council would look at how to enhance the webcasting service.

(6)   Mr Scholes asked that, regarding income generation, costs were indicative, what was the likelihood of income generation and could that money be used elsewhere.  Mrs Oliver explained that any additional income might fund additional projects such as battle of the bands, or the ‘Hollywould’ drama, that would be beyond the core remit for the new digital service.  These additional projects would be commissioned from other agencies or other parts of KCC.  Mr Gough explained that the intention was to stick to the £250,000 as a net cost. 

(7)   Mr Parry raised concerns about the level of Member involvement in the process, particularly regarding the development of the new kent.gov website; it would have been preferable to involve Members earlier on in the process.  Mr Gough confirmed he, his Deputy Cabinet Members and a number of other Members had been involved in both the kent.gov website and the new digital service.   

(8)   There were queries about who would be able to upload content to the website, and the links with ‘YouTube’.  Mrs Oliver explained that residents would not be able to upload their own video content directly but it could be sent in to the team and it would be uploaded for them.  Content would continue to be embedded on a platform such as ‘YouTube’ and played through the digital service as it did through Kent TV.  Mr Gough added that further debate and engagement with Members was important.  It might be possible to use the original website group or the Strategic Communications Group to discuss with Members.  There were concerns that the Strategic Communications Group was a technical group and Member input was limited, the Corporate Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committee might be a more appropriate forum. 

(9)   Mr Kite queried the idea of superblogs, these were worth looking into and were dynamic online communities.  The difficulty facing the council was how interesting blogs and websites could be without news but nothing was ruled out. 

(10)                      The Chairman explained that there were concerns about the number of groups which were dealing with similar issues, the Member Information Group which had been pushing for a Members’ Portal and improved communications to Members, an Accessing Democracy Select Committee much of which remained unimplemented, and discussions were being had about the live emailing of questions into Committee meetings.  There was a need to bring these items together in one place for discussion. 

(11)                      The Committee were advised that the consultation process with staff was ongoing and to beware of discussing issues which might affect those Members of staff.

(12)                      Mr Bayford asked that a note be provided, following the conclusion of the staff consultation, explaining the process in terms of what was undertaken, why it was undertaken in that way and the cost of the process.  Mr Gough explained that TUPE was the process advised by Legal Services and Personnel Services. 

(13)                      Mrs Stockell queried the lack of voting function within Kent Digital Service.  Mrs Oliver explained that the voting function was not available, although it could be added in the future.  The Chairman explained that there may be other ways to use a voting function through the Council’s computer systems. 

(14)                      Mr Christie asked that a copy of the legal advice regarding the need to use TUPE be provided.  Presumably once the contract with Ten Alps was lost an alternative would have been to make the associated staff redundant.  Mrs Oliver explained that all options were explored with Legal Services, Personnel Services and Procurement Services; the option described by the Member might have laid the Council open to legal challenges because the digital service was likely to continue. 

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee:

1. Thank Mr Gough and Mrs Oliver for attending the meeting and answering Members’ questions;
2. Ask that a note be provided once the staff consultation period has finished, explaining the process in terms of what was undertaken, why it was undertaken in that way and the cost of the process;
3. Ask that a copy of the legal advice regarding the need to use TUPE be provided.