Agenda and minutes

Members are invited to declare at this stage of the meeting any relevant financial or other interest in the items on the agenda.

None declared.

None.

The minutes are attached.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 22 January be approved as an accurate record of the meeting.

Item 6, Update: Brent One Oracle Project

Ben Spinks, Assistant Chief Executive, informed members that Brent One Oracle project would go live soon although they still did not have a definite date. He added that there were still ongoing discussions taking place with the other five boroughs involved to ensure that the system was reliable and robust. Members sought clarification as to whether the project would now be over budget and it was agreed that an update would be presented at the next meeting.

Item 7, Civic Centre and Move to the Civic Centre – Programme Updates

At the previous meeting members had asked for an update on improvements to exits from the Civic Centre. Officers stated that they would contact Richard Barrett regarding this and pass on the information to members.

Mark Fairchild, Team Leader Performance, introduced the Performance and Finance Review of Quarter 2, explaining that they were about to enter Quarter 3. He explained that 37% of the Council’s overall performance was on target or just below target and that 27% was below target and classified as red. He then outlined each area of the Council, starting with Adult Social Care. Members were informed that Adult Social Care were not currently meeting the 86% target for completion of Mental Health assessments within four weeks and that this was being addressed through phase one of a two-stage project. In regards to Children and Families, it was explained that 12 out of the 15 secondary schools in Brent had been judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding and that in Quarter 2, the number of primary schools deemed to be inadequate had now improved from three to two. It was added that there were action plans in place to ensure that the remaining two schools continued to were improve. Members were also informed that as the Council had more in house Foster Carers they were using less independent foster carers that cost the council more money. Currently 87 children were placed with independent foster carers which was less than the target of 97.

The highlights for Environment and Neighbourhoods were that sport visits were 10% over target and there had been a marked increase in the number of flytipping inspections and investigations. It was noted that Brent were in top 25% of London Boroughs for household recycling and for the number of kilograms of waste recycled. It was hoped that once the new Public Realm contract came into place that they would introduce a number of measures to improve recycling. The highlights identified for Regeneration and Growth were that 98% of repairs were completed on the first visit which exceeded the target of 95%. Also the number of people being placed in temporary accommodation was less than anticipated but it was noted that the full impact of welfare reform had not been established yet. It was added that Council Tax collection was on target for Quarter 2 and Quarter 3. Members were then informed that planning applications were taking, on average, longer than 8 weeks but there were a number of factors that were contributing to this including officer hand over to BIBS and the move to the Civic Centre. It was also taking longer than hoped to process new benefit claims as they were still managing a backlog of claims created in Quarter 1.

The forecast was that there would be an under spend in Quarter 2 of 0.1 million but there had been an overspend of 0.7 million in Quarter 1. However this was offset by higher than anticipated level of grant money.

In response to questions raised Mark Fairchild informed members that he would find out who set the 86% target for mental health assessments. He also undertook to provide a briefing note from Children and Families  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

This report provides Members with an update on the One Council Programme.

Irene Bremang, Programme Management Office Manager, provided Members with an update on the current status of the One Council Programme including detail regarding individual projects. It was explained that since the last update in October 2013 that a further nine projects had been completed and that there were now only four projects that were live. Two of those projects, the One Oracle project and the Working with Families Phase 3 project, were at red status. The One Oracle project had been given red status as they were some risks and issues that still needed to be resolved as Brent were working in partnership with 5 other boroughs. The Working with Families project had progressed to phase 3 after phase 2 had completed in October 2013. Phase 3 was focused on completing the delivery of the Troubled Families initiative. It was rated red as they needed to improve engagement across the partner agencies in Brent and improve levels of outcomes. The Assistant Chief Executive had recently become the Project Sponsor for this project which will help to ensure that these issues were addressed.

Due to only having 4 projects left, the number of risks at a programme level had significantly reduced. The two main programme-level risks were the delivery of additional financial benefits in 2014/15 and partnership engagement. The total number of risks reported by each individual One Council project had also significantly decreased. In September 2013 there were 114 risks across all live projects. This had decreased to 49 reported risks in February 2014 and had decreased further in March 2014. The main type of risk reported related to the transfer of improvements from the One Council project to the operational team concerned and ensuring that those changes were embedded.

It was noted that the One Council Programme had delivered service improvement, transformations and budget savings in the previous four years. However it was also acknowledged that due to the Council continuing to face a budget deficit that there was a need for a second phase of the One Council Programme. Development of the second phase had already begun and two new projects had been approved. The One Council Programme Board were aware that as the next phase of the Programme was being developed there would have to be considerations given to delivery resources. For example whether it would be sustainable to continue to use internal staff or whether they needed to recruit a dedicated team of project managers.

In terms of governance of the Programme, CMT had acted as the One Council  Strategic Programme Board from June 2013 to January 2014 which had provided stability to programme during a time of change in the organisation. The Interim Chief Executive was now the overall Programme Sponsor and the Assistant Chief Executive had assumed the role of Programme Director and the Chair of the One Council Programme Board.

Members were informed of the financial benefits of the Programme thus far. It was highlighted that the estimated savings for 2014/15 was now  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

This report provides Members with a summary of the key deliverables achieved as a result of the Future of Customer Services project.

Margaret Read, Operational Director Brent Customer Services, introduced the report which provided a summary of the key deliverables achieved as a result of the Future of Customer Services Project. The Project had set out to achieve a more strategic approach to ensure that the Council’s customer contact resources matched the customer demand. The first objective of the Project was to bring together disparate points of contact into an integrated customer services environment to ensure that most enquires were resolved at first point of contact and that customers were only required to give their information once to avoid duplication and delay. To achieve this objective, they had, amongst a number of other initiatives, reviewed the list of published telephone numbers for the Council and had reduced the number from 154 to 89. They had also reduced the number of published email addresses for services from 95 to 87. They had also consolidated face to face contact into two customer services centre in the Civic Centre and in Willesden. The central call centre was now handling around 25% of all calls coming into the Council and the digital post room was scanning 93% of post. The web team had been brought within Customer Services team and there had been a fundamental review and redesign of the Council’s web site. There were new governance arrangements that ensured that the content was displayed in a coherent way and was more user friendly. They recognised that there was still more work to be done to improve the website based on customer feedback.

They had also achieved their second objective to ensure financial savings as they had saved 1.49 million in 2012/13 and 1.64 million in future years. They were continuing to modernise the service further and would provide the committee with an update regarding this in the new financial year.

In response to questions raised by the Committee Margaret Read stated that a number of other boroughs had also recently reworked their website. Therefore Brent had been communicating with them to learn from them what had worked well so they could use this information to inform the Brent access strategy. Margaret Read informed Members that she would let them know whether they should contact the street care team or the contact centre when reporting illegally dumped waste. She added that this was likely to be clarified under the new Public Realm contract but that she would confirm with Members. Members also requested an update on the trade waste arrangements under the new contract. It was confirmed that there were no indirect legal implications arising from the project and that she would provide the Committee with a full copy of the EIA completed in relation to the project. She also stated that she would inform Members how the post room dealt with registered post.

Members were informed that the Customer Services team had learnt a number of lessons regarding customer services arrangements from the Civic Centre that would be put in to practice in the new  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The work programme is attached.

The date of the next meeting of the One Council Overview and Scrutiny committee will be confirmed at the Annual Council Meeting scheduled for 4 June 2014.

Notice of items raised under this heading must be given in writing to the Democratic Services Manager or his representative before the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 64.

Members of the Committee wanted it to be noted that they were disappointed at the absence of any other political party at the meeting and at the lack of attendance of relevant lead members at the Committee over the year.