Agenda item

– Report by Leader of the Council; and Group Managing Director)

(1)       The Chairman declared consideration of this matter to be urgent on the grounds that members had before them a supplementary report which contained relevant information which members needed to consider at this meeting and prior to this matter also being reported to the Scrutiny Board and the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee.

(2)       This report together with the supplementary report outlined the work to date on a programme to ensure that the County Council continued to deliver successfully in the face of the most significant changes facing local government in the external financial and policy context.

(3)       Mr Carter said making no changes to the way the Council operated was not an option and it needed to develop and focus its services against the background of the expected reductions in grants arising from the Comprehensive Spending Review.  This therefore presented a significant opportunity to reshape and configure the services which the County Council provided by breaking down silos, avoiding duplication and moving to a ‘one organisation’ authority. Katherine Kerswell spoke of the need for the Council to redesign its services in order to meet the challenges which lay ahead. That work needed to cover changes in available finances as well as in responsibilities and would be reflected in the Council’s Medium Term Plan which under the heading ‘Bold Steps for Kent’ would promote the Councils three prime ambitions focused around delivering quality and service. To advance this ambitious programme, service pathways would have to redesigned in order to meet the future needs of the Council and its customers and the proposal was therefore to reshape the Councils 4 service Directorates and to bring back office support into one corporate directorate. These changes were needed to keep and grow the success which the Council already enjoyed and she commended to Cabinet the move to formal consultation on the proposals detailed in the reports before Cabinet.

(4)       During the course of discussion Mrs Hohler spoke about the feed back from staff during the informal consultative stage which indicated an appetite for change with a general view of wanting to ‘put the customer first’. Mr Chard spoke of the challenges which lay ahead and the need for change in order to meet those challenges. Mr Simmonds spoke of the financial challenges and the need to harness the experience of staff who had seen the Council through challenging reviews. Mr King spoke of the need for change and the need for the council to be responsive to those changes. Mr Carter concluded the discussion by reminding the meeting that this was the start of a formal consultation of the change proposals and that final decisions would be taken by the full Council at its meeting in December.

(5)       Cabinet resolved to note the reports before it and endorsed the draft structure proposals for formal consultation until 3 December 2010. The outcome of the consultation process would then be reported for decision to the meeting of the County Council taking place on 16 December 2010.