Agenda and draft minutes

(1) Councillors Samper and Conolly declared that they were on the board of the East Kent Housing Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). They remained at the meeting and were invited to take part in the discussion on this item.

To confirm the attached Minutes of the meeting of the East Kent (Joint Scrutiny) Committee held on 13 October 2010.

(1) The Chairman explained that the exempt minutes from the meeting of 13 October 2010 would be considered at a later point in the meeting, along with other exempt items.

RESOLVED: that the non-exempt minutes of the meeting held on 13 October 2010 are correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

The Operating Arrangements for the East Kent (Joint Scrutiny) Committee are attached for information.

The Committee noted the Operating Arrangements of the East Kent Joint Scrutiny Committee.

There are no referred items for consideration.

There were no items for consideration.

In accordance with Paragraph 7.1 of the Operating Arrangements, any Member of the Committee may require that an item be placed for consideration on the agenda of the next available meeting.

There are no items for consideration.

There were no items for consideration.

a) An update on East Kent Housing from the Interim Managing Director

b) The 2011-12 Delivery Plan and Action Plan

TO CONSIDER the report of the Interim Managing Director

In attendance for this item will be Brendan Ryan, Interim Managing Director – East Kent Housing

(1) Mr Ryan explained that in ten days time the final setup of East Kent Housing (EKH) would be in operation. This followed the formal decisions taken by the Executives of each of the four participating councils to set up the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) and delegate their housing management functions to it.

(2) On 1 April, 220 staff would transfer to East Kent Housing and there had been much preparation to ensure that there would be continuity of service from the first day of the ALMO’s operation. This meant that there would be the same officers, with the same telephone numbers on the same contracts. There would be a newsletter going out to all the tenants in the following week to update them on the changes, with advance copies circulated to Members during the current week.

(4) Mr Ryan felt that the ALMO had a strong board in place with lots of expertise. The board included:

o         Representatives from the four councils

o         Tenant representatives

o         Independent representatives, including some from London-based ALMOs.

(5) The board had already started to steer the organisation, including setting procedures for health and safety and complaints. There would have to be further work, since the four councils did some things differently, such as complaints. There had so far been a focus on staffing issues, particularly around ensuring that staff were committed to delivering excellent services to tenants. During several workshops involving the staff and the board, there was general acceptance of what the new organisation was going to deliver and how.

(6) Mr Ryan introduced the Delivery Plan, explaining that there would be a new plan for each year in the year ahead. The stakeholders were the tenants, the board and the four councils, and all had had input into the delivery plan that was in front of the Committee.

(7) Tenants would have a say in how the service was run and would be a major driver for improvement. There were mechanisms in place for tenants to influence the process, including a conference that September which would be attended by tenants from all four areas, and a group of tenants for each area had already helped shape the governance of the ALMO. The board would also have an important role to play and the Delivery Plan would be critical for the four councils, since it formed part of the management agreement.

(8) Mr Ryan stated that the focus in the first year would be setting up the new organisation and merging the four different services, and that efficiencies would be delivered in future years. There was a recognition that the four different services, each with its own culture, would need to be brought into a single organisation, delivering the shared goals of the four councils. There would also be a need to move to an integrated IT system, since the organisation would start off with four different systems.

(9) Mr Ryan then talked Members through the eight objectives in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

a) A progress update on East Kent Shared Services, with a particular focus on Human Resources and Staffing

b) The updated Risk Register

c) The updated Project Plan

TO CONSIDER the written update by the Director of Shared Services, with a focus on Human Resources and Staffing issues.

These reports are for the Committee’s information. Any queries raised during this item will be fed back to the author for her responses after the meeting

(1) The Chairman moved that this item be considered in closed session, the motion was not seconded. There was a discussion about why the item needed to be exempt at the request of the author, and it was felt that this might be because the report contained details of staff transfers and the consultation period with staff had not been concluded. Note: There were no members of public or press present for this item.

(2) Disappointment was expressed that Ms Reed was not available to answer questions on the report in person, and concerns were expressed more generally about the fact that over the past year, officers had not always been available to attend meetings of the EKJSC. The Chairman suggested that any questions raised during the discussion be recorded and circulated to the Committee for their approval before being put to Ms Reed for her responses.

(3) The concerns expressed included:

• The Committee would have like to have seen a review of Tranche 1 of the transfer to EK Shared Services, and what lessons had been learned, before seeing the activities of Tranche 2.

• The last time Councillors had sight of the business case, the projected savings had not been enough to go ahead with the project. The Committee therefore wished to see the most up-to-date business case.

• Referring to paragraph 2.6, where the redundancies had been reduced from 50 to 31 FTE, the point was made that this suggested that the projected savings would not be achieved. A Councillor suggested that this was because 19 people had already left their respective councils.

• A Councillor highlighted that renewals and ownership of assets had not been mentioned in the report and asked that these be made clear to the EKJSC.

• Referring to paragraph 2.4, which mentioned a dedicated email address for feedback that required a formal response, a view was expressed that it would have been preferable for staff to be able to air their concerns face-to-face

(4) RESOLVED that:-

a) the East Kent (Joint Scrutiny) Committee note the report and appendices; and

b) the concerns and questions raised by Councillors as set out in paragraph (3) above be passed to Ms Reed and responses be reported back to the Committee.

a) Cost of meetings during 2010/11

b) Effectiveness of EKJSC

TO DISCUSS

(1) An estimate of the costs of administering the East Kent (Joint Scrutiny) Committee during 2010/11 was circulated to all Councillors at the start of the meeting. The costs of the three meetings that were held in this period, comprising the cost of producing and posting the agenda papers and the cost of refreshments, amounted to just over £500 (Dover District Council did not charge for use of the Council Chamber for these meetings). Several Councillors commented that this cost was reasonable.

(2) The Chairman sought to stimulate the debate by asking what the value of EKJSC was, given the fact that scrutiny took place at the local level in the form of each council’s scrutiny committee, and whether the Committee should continue in its current guise. He also referred to a comment made at Canterbury City Council, which suggested that there should be a meeting of the executives, scrutiny committees and officers of the East Kent councils once or twice per year.

(3) Several Councillors expressed a view that the EKJSC was a valuable forum, but lacked the power to be effective. A comment was made that in the future there would be more joint working, including scrutiny, and it was easier and more cost effective to give a report to one meeting instead of all the constituent councils. However, it was felt that the Committee lacked the necessary statutory powers and that there had been a lack of officers at the meetings due to the fact that the Committee could not insist on officers attending.

(4) A view was shared by several Councillors that an advantage of the Committee was that it was an opportunity to meet with Councillors from other councils and gain different perspectives. However, it was also felt that the EKJSC was not able to scrutinise decisions to the same level of detail as was possible in individual councils, and a Councillor suggested that the work of the Committee may contradict local scrutiny. A suggestion was made that local scrutiny committees could cede scrutiny powers to the EKJSC, but there was concern that this might not be legally possible.

(5) It was suggested that there would be value in the EKJSC having a dialogue with scrutiny committees in the individual councils, and the Chairman offered to convene a meeting between each of the chairs, Ms Reed and Mr Ryan to discuss a protocol for the attendance of relevant officers and to coordinate the frequency of the various scrutiny meetings.

(6) Mr Wickenden stated that he had recently attended a Local Government Information Unit seminar, where the EKJSC had been highlighted as an example of the vanguard in partnership working. The Chairman felt that the Committee did have a future and a role to play, and several Councillors agreed with this view, with the proviso that reports needed to be of a higher quality, relevant and substantial with the appropriate officers present.

(7) RESOLVED: that the East Kent Joint Scrutiny Committee:

a) Note the costs of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

There were no items for consideration.