Council and Democracy

Agenda and minutes

Contact: Charlotte Kearsey  01246 345236

Items
No. Item

16.

Declarations of Members' and Officers Interests relating to items on the Agenda

Minutes:

No declarations of interest were received.

17.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Hollingworth.

18.

Forward Plan

Please follow the link below to view the latest Forward Plan:

 

Forward Plan

Minutes:

The Forum considered the Forward Plan.

 

Councillor Fordham enquired about the process of bringing an item from the Forward Plan to a scrutiny meeting. Councillor Fordham was advised that if there was an item he would like to bring to a scrutiny meeting then he should contact the Joint Scrutiny Chairs.

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the Forward Plan be noted.

19.

Scrutiny Monitoring pdf icon PDF 310 KB

Minutes:

The Forum considered the Scrutiny recommendations implementation monitoring schedule.

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the Scrutiny monitoring schedule be noted.

20.

Work Programme for the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum pdf icon PDF 119 KB

Minutes:

The Work Programme for the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum was considered.

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the Work Programme be approved.

21.

Overview and Scrutiny Developments

Minutes:

There was no update.

22.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 361 KB

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum meetings held on 19 November and 17 December, 2020.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum held on 19 November, 2020 and 17 December, 2020 were presented.

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the Minutes be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

23.

Deputy Leader - Climate Change Action Plan pdf icon PDF 85 KB

5.10pm to 5.55pm

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Deputy Leader, Climate Change Officer and Service Director – Leisure, Culture and Community and Wellbeing attended to present a report updating the Committee about the progress of the Climate Change Action Plan adopted by Chesterfield Borough Council (CBC).

 

CBC declared a Climate Emergency on 17 July, 2019 and resolved to establish a Chesterfield Climate Change Working Group to produce an action plan.

 

The action plan was approved by Full Council on 26 February, 2020. The plan was developed with eight themes, each theme had a series of actions which in total amounted to thirty-nine specific actions to support carbon reduction activities.

 

Despite the challenges and impact of Covid-19 over the last year there had been some significant developments across key actions within the climate change action plan.

 

Further to comments received from scrutiny members at the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum meeting on 17 September, 2020 the action plan had been put into a RAG rated format with comments regarding progress against each action and was included at Appendix A of the officer’s report.

 

Covid-19 remained a significant risk to the Council as a whole in relation to capacity and the Climate Change Officer would  continually review progress using the RAG rated format. The wider impact on the Council and any specific impacts in relation to the Climate Change Action Plan would continue to be monitored.

 

The successful appointment of the Climate Change Officer had significantly increased the capacity of the Council to drive forward it’s carbon reduction and sustainability ambitions but it was noted that the Climate Change Officer would be working part time until April 2021. 

 

The communications plan which complemented the action plan would be a key milestone in supporting the wider engagement with the Borough’s communities and would be a core feature of the work of the Climate Change Officer for the first quarter of 2021.

 

Detailed progress for every action was provided in Appendix A  of the officer’s report.

 

Of the 39 actions in the climate change action plan:

·      6 had been completed and currently required no additional work beyond maintenance;

·      26 were rated green and were expected to be delivered as described;

·      7 were rated amber and were expected to be delivered, however, it could be later than originally anticipated but still within the period covered by the action plan;

·      0 were rated red where severe obstacles or challenges existed which rendered the action impossible to deliver on time without significant intervention or modification;

·      0 had been removed because they had been rendered moot due to changes in policy or external factors.

 

The following actions had been completed and did not currently require additional work beyond maintenance:

·      Housing & Buildings, action point 3:  Refresh planning guidance in relation to raising environmental standards for house building locally.

·      Power & Electricity, action point 8: Switch to renewable electricity energy provider.

·      Engagement, action point 31: Use reduce, reuse, recycle in all communications in relation to climate change.

·      Engagement, action point 32: Encourage the use  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

24.

Local Government Act 1972 - Exclusion of Public

To move “That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act".

 

Part 2 (Non Public Information)

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

25.

Cabinet Member for Business Transformation and Customers - ICT and Digital Improvement Programme Update

5.55pm to 6.40pm

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Business Transformation and Customers, the Head of ICT Improvement and the Digital Programme Manager attended to present a report updating the Forum about the progress of the ICT and Digital Improvement Programme.

 

Chesterfield Borough Council approved investment in the ICT Improvement Programme in 2018. The ICT service was brought in-house from the council’s public private partnership arrangement with Arvato in October 2018. Recruitment to a strengthened ICT team and procurement of the Salesforce solution also took place in 2018. Implementation of the identified ICT and digital projects began in 2019.

 

Appendix A of the officer’s report provided a detailed and balanced scorecard which was being used within the programme and the Forum was advised that all targets set for 2021 had been achieved.

 

The high-level outcomes set for the ICT and Digital Improvement Programme up to the financial year 2020/21 were:

·      Outcome 1 - More end to end digital services available: achieved.

Eight key digital projects went live in 2020.

-       Salesforce CRM;

-       Regulatory Services;

-       Digital Services Hub – My Chesterfield.gov.uk;

-       Intuitive suite of e-forms – Revenues and benefits electronic housing benefit applications;

-       Web chat;

-       Test and trace – Self isolation payments (end to end process using Salesforce);

-       Covid-19 related business grants (end to end process using Salesforce).

 

·      Outcome 2 - Increased access channels are available for our residents: achieved. The following additional access channels for residents had been implemented:

-       ‘My Chesterfield’ online – Almost 4500 accounts had been created to date.

-       Web chat – When live between 30-40 chat sessions daily were being averaged.

-       Online forms – the number available had increased from approximately 10 to 50.

-       Website Accessibility – The ICT team had improved the councils accessibility score on the main website Chesterfield.gov.uk from 1.3 to 9.3. The CBC website climbed from 399th place in the rankings to 6th, a rise of 393 places, the single biggest climber ever seen by SiteMorse.

 

·      Outcome 3 – A stable and resilient ICT Infrastructure had been put in place and the ICT team had continued to bolster the infrastructure. The primary focus had been on the migration of core applications to supplier hosting Software-as-aService (SaaS) during 2020. PSN and Cyber Essentials accreditations had also been achieved which supported improved security levels.

 

ICT had delivered an upgraded and resilient internet connection. This had provided the council with 10x the bandwidth than previously available and provided better usability for employees. A second internet connection which terminated at Stonegravels Depot had been implemented to improve internet resilience and availability.

 

The ICT team had accelerated several key workstreams in the ICT and Digital Improvement Programme in response to the Coronavirus pandemic:

·      The ICT team had issued 183 laptops in one weekend at the very beginning of the pandemic to facilitate users who needed to work from home;

·      An outcome of the ICT Improvement programme, scheduled for delivery in 2021, was the replacement of the ageing, physical Mitel phone system on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25.