Agenda item
One Council programme update
The report is attached separately.
Minutes:
Phil Newby introduced the report, stating that the committee would receive regular updates on the One Council programme during the year. He announced that £11.8m gross savings had been achieved by the programme during 2010/11, with a further £28m savings forecast for 2011/12 and it needed to achieve 60% of the savings required overall. Phil Newby then drew Members’ attention to the various categories that the programme’s projects fell under. Referring to the cross council projects, he informed the committee that this included focusing on areas such as how customers accessed services and reducing face to face contract and looking at other contact techniques such as the internet and an improved telephone system. Another area was ways of working, of which the key driver was the move to the Civic Centre project which would lead to fundamental changes in the way staff worked and make the best uses of the technologies available to them. Support services were also being reviewed and it was noted that there was a big push within London to bring support services together for local authorities to share and the council was involved in a consortium with other local authorities in respect of Oracle. Strategic use of property was another priority, led by the strategic property project which aimed to make the most effective use of property and this was due to report back to the Programme Board in August. Consideration of how the council charges for services had been undertaken by the income maximisation project and the Commercial Opportunities Board would continue to identify opportunities for maximising income where appropriate.
Phil Newby then outlined some single directorate projects which involved reviewing process, commissioning on services and fundamentally changing a service and also some examples of multi directorate projects. There were also two partnership projects, including the transfer of public health from the Primary Care Trust to the council which would involve integration between Adult Social Care and Brent NHS and a more integrated approach to Health and Social Care which would focus on a preventative approach. Phil Newby drew Members’ attention to the savings targets from 2010-2014 and the RAG status as set out in the report.
Phil Newby advised the committee that there would be moves to extend the programme in the following year to deliver increased savings and the dependencies between the projects needed to be closely managed. Consultants would be used where they could provide skills to staff that the council did not have so that projects could be supported wholly in-house in the future. In addition, the programme had been boosted by the appointment of 14 council officers to the Project Management Pool from across the council and they would be allocated projects on a secondment basis.
During discussion, Councillor Lorber enquired about the RAG status of the waste and street cleaning review and commented that residents had yet to receive direct information of the changes to the service that would commence on 1 October. He asked how the message would be conveyed to residents, commenting that there had been effective communication in respect of this when compulsory recycling had been introduced. He sought clarification as to why the initial target of savings had been increased from £50m over four years to £90m to £100m and further details with regard to savings achieved for 2010/11 and future forecast savings were required.
The Chair enquired what steps were being taken to address projects that were not achieving their savings targets and at what stage would the Programme Board intervene. It was queried whether reducing staff would impact upon delivering customer service related projects. Information was sought on how residents were being consulted with regard to changes to services and how would their responses be fed back. The Chair also asked if additional costs would be involved with regard to transferring some public health responsibilities from Brent NHS.
With the approval of the Chair, Councillor S Choudhary addressed the committee and he queried whether there was any risk that the costs involved in respect of the four facilitating and enabling initiatives outlined in the report would outweigh the benefits.
In reply to the issues raised, Phil Newby advised that where projects were underachieving, the Programme Board would identify the issues causing prevention of progress and the projects concerned would be required to report back to the Board on a more frequent basis. The Project Management Office demanded rigorous reporting of each project and would intervene immediately and alert the Programme Board where there were concerns about a specific project. In respect of projects at red RAG status, children’s social care transformation was complicated by unpredictable patterns in demand. With regard to waste and street cleansing review, new proposals were to be put to the July Executive following negotiations with the contractor, Veolia. Overall, the long term saving prospects for this project were good, but there were specific problems this year that needed to be addressed. Phil Newby added that the model that the project was based on involved changing residents’ behaviour, however the Programme Board needed to be satisfied that the initial investment would be rewarded with the necessary savings. He acknowledged concerns raised by Councillor Lorber in respect of publicising changes to waste and street cleansing and would take this up with Environment and Neighbourhood Services who were producing a marketing strategy. Phil Newby added that the committee may want to consider inviting officers from Environment and Neighbourhood Services to the next meeting to provide an update on progress with this project, which Members agreed to.
With regard to customer service, Phil Newby explained that services were being looked at as a whole and from a customer point of view. By taking a customer-focused approach and being more efficient, an improved customer service could be achieved. A commonsense and logical approach would be taken to consulting with residents and taking into account their feedback, however it would not be possible to please all residents especially in the context of the savings that needed to be made. There would be a closure report on completion of each project which would give the opportunity to look at where improvements could be made on future projects. In respect of transferring public health functions from NHS Brent to the council, Phil Newby advised that the budget should follow who was undertaking the function and that funding would be ring-fenced. Discussions were taking place with NHS Brent with regard to the definition of public health and future provision and it was expected that the council would assume public health responsibilities in 2013. Public Health England also had some responsibilities in this area.
Phil Newby advised that there had been a huge increase in the savings required since the One Council programme had initially been launched and more projects needed to be bought into the programme to deliver the savings necessary. There had been some success in the West London partnerships in respect of procurement, but not in combining services with other local authorities to date. However, there were a number of discussions at both West London and specific borough level in combining to increase purchasing power and such measures were gaining momentum. Phil Newby confirmed that the benefits of the four facilitating and enabling initiatives would far outweigh any costs involved and the preventative approach being taken would save money over a longer term time frame.
Supporting documents: