Agenda item

The Chairman welcomed Councillors R. J. Laight, Bromsgrove District Council, Chairman and P. Tomlinson, Wychavon District Council, Vice-Chairman of the Joint Worcestershire Regulatory Services Scrutiny Task Group who would present the Committee with the task group’s final report and recommendations.

 

Councillor Laight gave his thanks to all Members of the Task Group and was of the opinion that the work of the Task Group although hard, had been conducted without any political influence in the Task Group discussions, deliberations or conclusions.  Councillor Laight gave his sincere thanks to Councillor J. Raine, Malvern Hills District Council for his valuable input into the Task Group’s final report.  Councillor Laight also conveyed his thanks to Worcestershire Shared Service Joint Committee Members and senior officers (from Bromsgrove District Council and Redditch Borough Council), who had been invited and attended Task Group meetings to provide evidence as witnesses throughout the Task Group process.

 

Councillor Tomlinson then delivered a presentation on the Joint Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) Scrutiny Task Group.  The presentation provided background information on the original proposal from Wychavon District Council in July 2012 and the four specific areas covered in the final report:-

 

·         WRS Performance and Communications

·         Financing of WRS

·         Governance of WRS

·         Lessons Learned

 

Councillor Tomlinson highlighted what had been achieved at the time of the Task Group’s report.  That the Joint Committee had managed to reduce the overall budget from £7.2 million to £4.6 million in a short period of time making significant savings for all partner authorities.  Staffing had been reduced from 154 to 99.5 Full Time Equivalent posts.

 

Councillor Tomlinson briefly explained the reasons for each of the Task Group’s recommendations.  The Task Group saw themselves as a critical friend and had suggested recommendations that could help with improvements to WRS.  The intention was none other than to come up with recommendations that helped the Joint Committee and therefore benefitted county residents.  As mirrored in the private sector, ethical principles that the Joint Committee should adopt in order to ensure that the customer was first.

 

Following on from the presentation Councillor Laight stated that as Chairman of the Task Group it was clearly established that WRS was a world class service that was recognised throughout the United Kingdom as a leader in partnership working.

 

There was detailed discussion on the recommendations contained within the report.  Joint Committee Members questioned the suggested governance arrangements and were of the opinion that any changes to governance arrangements should be considered following the outcome of the Strategic Partnering project, this would provide a more cohesive idea of the governance arrangements required.  Members also questioned why Joint Committee meetings should be held at the base of WRS, as the host authority currently provided support for Joint Committee meetings.  With regard to Members appointed to the Joint Committee for a period of two years; Joint Committee Members felt this was not practical since political parties could change within that two year timescale.  Members agreed that the current quorum for meetings ensured fair political representation from each partner authority and were of the opinion that this would not be the case if the quorum was reduced to five representatives in attendance as suggested in recommendation 7.

 

In response Councillor Tomlinson informed the Committee that the Task Group had not taken into account the Strategic Partnering Project when looking at WRS, the Task Group had looked at WRS as it stood.  The revised of quorum of five had been recommended so that decisions to be made could be concentrated on and there was no pressure on Joint Committee Members to attend meetings.

 

The Joint Committee then considered the recommendations of the Task Group in detail.

 

Recommendation 1

 

Performance Management Information should continue to be made available for Members’ consideration at every meeting of the Joint Committee and be sufficiently high on the agenda to be discussed in detail.

 

This was approved.

 

Recommendation 2

 

Twelve months after the new contact centre arrangements for WRS have been introduced, replacing the use of the Worcestershire Hub; the Joint Committee should review the effectiveness of these arrangements for communicating with the public.  

 

This was approved.

 

Recommendation 3

 

The web-pages of each partner authority should be regularly monitored to ensure they are kept up to date, with the inclusion of a prominent and obvious link to the WRS website.

 

This was approved.

 

Recommendation 4

 

The purpose, content and circulation of the WRS newsletter should be thoroughly reviewed, with a view to it providing a more systematic and comprehensive account of the work and performance of the shared service and with the content and format being agreed by the Joint Committee. 

 

The purpose, content and circulation of the WRS newsletter should be thoroughly reviewed, with a view to it providing a more systematic and comprehensive account of the work and performance of the shared service, this part of the recommendation was approved; but Members decided that there was not a need for the content and format of the WRS Newsletter to be approved by the Joint Committee.

 

Recommendation 5

 

That WRS have a designated member of staff to act as a Member Liaison Officer and as a single point of contact to signpost Member enquiries.

 

This was approved.

 

Recommendation 6

 

In order to reduce the focus on financial considerations which currently play a major part in influencing partner participation, to the detriment of other equally important aspects of the service, the following should be addressed:

 

(a)  A new business model for WRS be developed through the Chief Executives’ Panel, building on the proposals already being produced by the Panel.  

(b)  Consideration be given to the option for partner authorities to purchase an “out of hours service”.

 

This was noted.

 

Recommendation 7

 

A new strategic decision making board for WRS should replace the Joint Committee, comprising one elected member per partner authority and supported by senior officers. This should be called the WRS Board.

(a)  Meetings of this Board should take place at the base of WRS.

(b)  Responsibility for attendance at Board meetings should lie with each authority’s representative, and the quorum for meetings proceeding should be set at 5 representatives in attendance.

(c)  Meetings of the Board should take place bi-monthly.

(d)  Elected members appointed to the Board should be provided with an induction programme and sufficient on-going training to enable them to fulfil their role effectively.

(e)  Members appointed to the Board be expected to serve a minimum of two years to ensure continuity.

(f)   The Chair of the WRS Board should be elected annually by the members of the Board.

 

Recommendation 8

The Management Board be disbanded, with the WRS Management Team taking the lead responsibility for operational decision making under the leadership of the Head of Regulatory Services.

 

Recommendation 9

 

(a)  The Head of WRS should be fully accountable to the WRS Board (as the strategic decision making body). 

(b)  The Chief Executive of the host authority to act in a mentoring role as and when necessary.

 

Recommendation 10

 

(a)  All decisions made by the WRS Board be formally reported back to all elected members of the partner authorities in a timely manner. 

(b)  Attention should be paid to communicating updates about any planned changes to WRS services to all elected members of partner authorities.

(c)  The agendas and minutes of all WRS Board meetings should also be uploaded on to the WRS website in a timely fashion.

 

Members agreed that officers be tasked to bring forward collective proposals with regard to recommendations 7, 8, 9 and 10, as detailed above, to a future meeting of the Joint Committee.

 

Recommendation 11

 

The lessons learned from the WRS shared service experience, particularly as detailed in this report, should be heeded by elected members and senior officers when considering any future proposals for shared service arrangements involving multiple partners.

 

Recommended that partner Council’s approve this recommendation.

 

Recommendation 12

 

(a)  The Joint Scrutiny Protocol should be reviewed in order to take on board the lessons learned during this review.  

(b)  Consideration should be given to the reinstatement of the Worcestershire Overview and Scrutiny Chairs Group as a means of feeding back the monitoring of recommendations from Joint Scrutiny exercises, as and when required.

 

This was noted.

 

In summary:-

 

RESOLVED:

(a)  that Recommendations 1, 2, 3 and 4, as detailed at Appendix 1 to the report be approved;

(b)  that Recommendation 5, as detailed in the preamble above, be approved, 

(c)  that Recommendations 6 and 12, as detailed at Appendix 1 to the report, be noted; and

(d)  that following on from the outcome of the Strategic Partnering project, officers bring forward collective proposals with regard to Recommendations 7, 8, 9 and 10, as detailed at Appendix 1 to the report, to a future meeting of the Joint Committee.

 

RECOMMENDED

That each partner authority approves Recommendation 11, as detailed in Appendix 1 to the report.