Agenda item

The Committee were provided with a presentation from the Head of Corporate Affairs that detailed the council’s approach to planning, performance, delivering major projects and change to help secure Value for Money (for copy of slides, see file of minutes).

The Head of Corporate Affairs gave the presentation and highlighted the following areas:-

·        Transformation background and interlinking elements;

·        Progress against original programme and benefits delivered;

·        Current Approach to Strategic Planning and Value for Money;

·        Council Plan Objectives and Major Strategies;

·        Performance Framework;

·        Workforce Transformation – Projects, Priorities and Initiatives;

·        Major Projects Assurance;

·        Business Intelligence.

Mr C Robinson thanked the Head of Corporate Affairs for the detailed presentation, and the strategic core summary that showed the work across the whole authority. He added that it was good to see a focus on the delivery of ongoing service and Value for Money monitoring which provided assurance in conjunction with the external audit opinion.

Responding to a query from the Chair regarding savings, the Head of Corporate Affairs advised that resource management was transactional in nature and when better managed in conjunction with self-service systems, the use of technology and a more modern approach had helped to achieve savings. The Head of Corporate Finance and Commercial Services added that Business Support was the last function during austerity to be unitised and bring people together to offer a more effective and efficient service across a range of services. It was noted that Section 106 funds and infrastructure requirements were considered by a Member Working Group and funds transferred to the capital programme which was monitored through the capital programme monitoring arrangements.

Regarding a query on the implementation of the Business Intelligence System, the Head of Corporate Affairs advised that they were working in partnership to build the infrastructure and IT servers that would gradually migrate data to the new systems and a dashboard for Managers was currently being developed. It was noted that implementation of all the systems would take several years and those providing the larger return on investment would be prioritised. The Head of Corporate Finance and Commercial Services added that they would be working together to reposition the financial systems so that financial data, HR systems and performance data were available on the same dashboards.

Resolved:

That the presentation be noted.