Themes:
- council tax collection
- budget planning
- council development, including corporate IT, workforce strategy, efficiency and sustainability
- customer services
- property and asset management and corporate procurement
- corporate strategy
- response to the government's welfare reforms
- savings through our relationship with partnering boroughs
Minutes:
6.1 Councillor Fiona Colley, Cabinet Member for Finance, Strategy & Performance, stated that the greatest challenge for the council was to set a balanced budget. Currently there was around a £31 million budget gap and the forecast was for similar budget gaps over the next two years. Councillor Colley explained that consultation on the budget had been taking place at community councils, the Pensioners’ Forum and the Youth Council, amongst others, in order to establish priorities. Another challenge was the council’s IT which had been taken over by Capita in June and which had experienced a big change over the preceding weekend. The strategic director of finance & corporate services, Duncan Whitfield, reported that additional people had been put onto the service desk. Councillor Coley added that the call centre would move over the next few weeks and social care systems were yet to move. It was hoped that this would be completed by the end of March 2015. Councillor Colley concluded that a third challenge in her portfolio was modernisation, transforming the way the council did its business. Digital services and multi agency working were a part of this in addition to reducing any duplication across the council.
6.2 Councillor Jasmine Ali asked whether there were working groups to progress the IT project. Councillor Colley explained that a leadership network was in place, every member of which was on a group working on a thematic budget saving area. Work was underway putting together a digital business strategy. Some progress has been made with both the housing repairs system and leaseholders’ accounts being on line. 2800 people had already tried to access the housing portal in order to sign up and, in only two weeks, one hundred repairs requests had already been registered.
6.3 Councillor Anood Al-Samerai indicated that lots of councillors had raised difficulties in managing their emails, for instance many would like emails to come to their iPhones rather than their blackberries. Councillor Colley stated that she would look into this. Councillor Al-Samerai stressed that the needs of councillors might be different to those of staff and that Capita needed to understand this. She also asked what was being done in terms of the pensions fund where the council was investing in, for instance, tobacco companies. The strategic director explained that Capita was instigating a project towards bringing your own devices. This morning he had received documentation that would allow access to Citrix and emails through iPhones and iPads, supported by Capita. The chair asked for an email to be sent from members services informing members about this and sending instructions. In terms of the pensions fund, Councillor Colley agreed that it was wrong to invest in tobacco companies but that, in respect of ethical investment, everyone had a different opinion. The intention was to launch a survey asking for views and this would be fed into any changes to the pension fund. The strategic director added that it would be necessary to keep the survey open for a reasonable length of time in order to reach, for instance, retired members.
6.4 Councillor Al-Samerai hoped that members would get help from Capita with their personal iPads. In terms of allocating funding she asked how the council viewed the role of the voluntary sector and how its value in procurement and commissioning would be retained. Councillor Colley responded that in some areas the voluntary sector delivered better on the ground than the council and in ways which the council could not do. She added that bringing services in-house was not always the right answer in terms of procurement but that the question should always be asked as to whether this would be appropriate. She stressed that Capita would be available to attend a meeting of the committee if that was what members wished.
6.5 Councillor Tom Flynn was concerned that the council had upgraded to a relatively old version of office. Office 365 was set up for bringing your own devices. He stressed the importance of people thinking of digital solutions such as how best to use the council’s Twitter account and apps. He commented that in Southampton it was possible to report something such as fly tipping by GPS location and scanning an item could tell you whether or not it could be recycled. Web-casting publicised what the council did to the biggest number of people. The SE1 Forum had live webcast a meeting of the housing & community safety sub-committee which had been listened to by fifty-seven people. Councillor Colley stated that her biggest concern was how well processes worked end to end. The digital business strategy was very important to this.
6.6 The vice-chair, Councillor Rosie Shimell, returned to the consultation on funding and asked how the outcomes of this would be published and taken on board. Councillor Colley said that there were no interim findings as yet but that she had hoped to report to the cabinet meeting the following week. She was keen to feedback to community councils for example in order to show their impact on decisions. Councillor Martin Seaton commented that it would be very useful to publish feedback to community councils. He also highlighted possible staffing implications. Councillor Colley stressed that the problem facing the council was that it had far less money to spend. There would be implications for staffing but the council would try to avoid compulsory redundancies.
6.7 With respect to procurement, the chair reported that one of the suggestions the committee was looking at was to introduce a policy making it clear that the council’s preferred way of providing a service was in-house and therefore that any other decision needed to be justified. He asked Councillor Colley's opinion on this. Councillor Colley indicated that it was her inclination to agree with this. There had been real successes in-house. However the statement as suggested could be misunderstood and should not mean that everything was always awarded in-house. She would be concerned if that impression was given and would not want to suggest stopping delivery through the voluntary sector. The council needed to be careful how it described any policy but she would favour one where the question was always asked as to whether a service should be run in-house.