Agenda item

5:05pm

The Executive Director, James Drury, and the Transformation Programme Manager attended to provide members with a progress update on the Great Place, Great Service (GPGS) programme. The Executive Director informed the committee of the progress made on GPGS projects and the areas of improvement that were being worked on. GPGS had identified that reviews were needed to examine how the Council ran certain services including ICT, Support Services, customer service and rent collection.

The Procurement partnership with the NHS started in January 2016. Though there had been teething problems during the initial few months, 36 contracts had been managed by the NHS of which 8 had been completed with savings of £37k achieved by the partnership to date. The council’s new Customer, Commissioning and Change Manager had joined the corporate management team in June 2016 and would drive the commercial side of GPGS. In addition, the new Information Assurance Officer post had been filled and the post holder was due to start in August 2016.

Progress was also provided on:

·        Smarter Working – Town Hall restack, flexible working

·        Estate Rationalisation

·        ICT Infrastructure

·        Website/Intranet

·        Commercialisation

·        Change Readiness and Change Management

Members asked about the rent collection contract with Arvato and whether the performance indicators were too low and needed to be renegotiated. Members had concerns with the timings and frequency of visits to tenants for rent recovery and asked if changes were to be made to the process. Members also commented that as tenants do not receive rent books anymore, it was more difficult for them to keep a track of their rent, particularly elderly tenants.

The Executive Director advised that the letting process had recently been updated to include a financial assessment; this would provide a clearer picture of the prospective tenant’s financial circumstances and reduce rent arrears on introductory tenancies. When there is a visible impact, consideration would be given to making changes to the performance indicators. However, there was also a need for the different teams involved with tenancies to work better together to share information so a full picture behind a tenants’ debt could be seen. Ongoing work was being undertaken to look into how and when visits to tenants were conducted and a small tenant’s group had been set up to review the letters sent out by rent recovery.

Members raised concerns about the levels of asbestos discovered in the Town Hall and asked whether asbestos tests were carried out when work was undertaken in the basement and if the current tenants would be affected by the planned works associated with the Town Hall restack.

The Transformation Programme Manager advised that targeted tests had been undertaken prior to work being carried out in the basement. The Executive Director added that the asbestos is more concentrated on the lower floors of the Town Hall and the tenants in the basement would be consulted if they were to be affected.

Members were pleased to hear that the new Information Assurance Officer had been recruited and asked if the extra work taken on by the Council would lead to renegotiations of the contract with Arvato. The Executive Director replied that though the Council is taking back some Information Assurance work, since the original contract was created with Arvato the requirements have become more demanding and would not have been expected in the original contract therefore it would be unwise to enter into renegotiations at this stage.

The Chair thanked the Executive Director and Transformation Programme Manager for the progress report.

RESOLVED –

1)   That the update be noted.

2)   That an update on GPGS be brought to the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum in January, 2017.

3)   That an update on the questions raised by Members be brought to the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum in January, 2017.