Agenda and minutes

No declarations of interest were received.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Blakemore, Borrell, Caulfield, L Collins, Coy, T Gilby and Hollingworth.

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

Forward Plan

The Forum considered the Forward Plan. A concern was raised that key decisions were not being published on the forward plan with enough notice to allow for pre-decision scrutiny. The Chair explained that a compromise was needed as it was not always possible to have advance notice of upcoming decisions and reiterated that scrutiny members could speak with the Joint Chairs between meetings if any items were added to the forward plan that scrutiny may wish to be involved in.

RESOLVED –

That the Forward Plan be noted.

The Scrutiny Monitoring Schedule was considered. The Chair noted that HS2 was the only item for monitoring by the Forum and an update had been scheduled for later in the year.

RESOLVED –

That the Scrutiny Monitoring Schedule be noted.

The Forum considered the Work Programme for 2022/23. The Chair noted that, following a recent East Midlands Scrutiny Network (EMSN) meeting, a new approach to budget scrutiny would be trialled which would involve splitting into groups to focus on key themes.

Members also discussed the timing of the Climate Change Action Plan update and asked whether an interim update on actions 44 and 45 of the plan, the commissioning of two reports on becoming climate neutral which were due to have been completed, could be provided in September ahead of the full update in November to allow for timelier engagement with scrutiny.

RESOLVED –

1.    That the Work Programme be noted.

2.    That the new approach to budget scrutiny be trialled.

3.    That an interim update on the Climate Change Action Plan be requested for the September meeting.

The Chair and Senior and Democratic Scrutiny Officer attended the EMSN meeting on 24 June, 2022 which was held in person at Erewash Borough Council. The meeting focussed on budget scrutiny and included a presentation from West Northamptonshire Council followed by a group activity to share best practice ideas for scrutinising budgets.

The next EMSN would be held in Oakham, Rutland on 30 September, 2022. All scrutiny members were invited to attend.

RESOLVED –

That the update be noted.

The Minutes of the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum held on 12 May, 2022 were presented.

*RESOLVED –

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

5.05pm to 5.20pm

The Senior Democratic and Scrutiny Officer presented the draft Scrutiny Annual Report which detailed the work of the council’s Overview and Scrutiny function during 2021/22.

It was requested that the Forward Plan information in section 3 of the report be amended to reflect the resolution at the Community, Customer and Organisational Scrutiny Committee where concerns were expressed about the timing of items being added to the Forward Plan impacting the ability for effective pre-decision scrutiny (Minute No. 46, 2021/22).

RESOLVED –

That the Scrutiny Annual Report be approved for submission to Full Council subject to the amendment to the Forward Plan section of the report.

5.20pm to 6.05pm

The Cabinet Member for Business Transformation and Customers, Service Director – Digital, HR and Customers, Head of Digital and Technology and Head of HR attended to present a report updating members on the ICT and Digital Improvement Programme.

The Service Director explained that since the last report to the Forum in January 2020, there had been some staff changes and two new officers had been appointed to the posts of Head of Digital and Technology, which included ICT, and Head of HR, which included organisational development.

The ICT and Digital Improvement Programme began in 2018 when it was approved by Full Council to return the Arvato service back in house. The programme was ambitious and would see investment over a period of time to improve and enhance the technology that the Council used to deliver services.

The ICT programme consisted of four workstreams:

1.   People – focusing on insourcing ICT, increasing ICT skills and knowledge, creating a digital change team and redesigning sections of the organisation to deliver savings achieved through channel shift, automation, and new ways of working.

2.   Digital – focusing on implementing the Salesforce Platform, implementing the ‘My Chesterfield’ digital portal, implementing e-billing within Revenues and Benefits services and consolidating more services into the Customer Services function.

3.   Applications – focusing on reviewing, replacing, or upgrading ICT applications and implementing a systems integrations tool.

4.   Enabling technology – focusing on replacing ageing and unsupported ICT infrastructure, increasing ICT security, migrating ICT infrastructure to the cloud, implementing Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, implementing a single-sign-on solution and replacing telephony infrastructure.

The Service Director explained that a number of emergency upgrades to systems and changes to plans in order to work in an agile way were required to respond to the challenges of the Covid19 pandemic. This enabled the Council to continue to deliver services to customers and drive transformational change whilst working from home.

Appendix 1 of the officer’s report showed the status of all projects in the improvement programme at a glance. The majority of the projects were blue or green which identified them as either completed or close to completion. Six projects were labelled as amber as they had been planned and resourced but were to be delivered later in the year. One project was labelled red as it was still to be scheduled for delivery. Additional projects had been added into the programme including energy rebates and covid business grants as a result of the pandemic, and updating the staff caution list database. The Service Director explained that more consideration was needed regarding the impact of new services that generated customer contacts, such as the covid business grants and energy rebates, as these were additional activities which impacted on the delivery of the improvement programme.

The budget for the project was included in Appendix 2 of the officer’s report which showed that the programme was within budget and the savings were above target for the current stage of the programme delivery. A more  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.