Issue - meetings

Matter for Decision

The Officer’s report summarised the performance for the 3Cs ICT, Legal Shared Services and the Greater Cambridge Shared Internal Audit Service during 2018/19.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Finance and Resources

i.                 Noted the content of the report.

ii.               Agreed to bring a report to the next Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee regarding proposals for the joint scrutiny of shared services

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

 

The Committee received a report from the Strategic Director.

 

The Committee made the following comments in response to the report:

       i.          Asked whether there were plans to reapply for the Lexcel accreditation for the Legal Service.

     ii.          Asked about the weakness of customer feedback for Legal Services and what percentage of staff responded to the request for feedback.

   iii.          Referred to p121 of the agenda and two significant ICT service disruptions and queried whether the correct key performance indicators (KPIs) were in place.

   iv.          Noted across the shared services that there were issues with recruitment.

     v.          Noted that the Legal Services had made savings of £200,000 and commented that the service had been doing well in difficult times.

 

The Head of Legal Practice said the following in response to Members’ questions:

       i.          Legal Services were unable to apply for the Lexcel accreditation because there was a requirement for separate systems that the service was unable to achieve. It was however a good exercise to undertake to check their standards against.

     ii.          Legal Services had a 30% client satisfaction survey return rate. As part of the intelligent client process he wanted to encourage more officers to provide feedback on the service regardless of whether this was good or bad.

   iii.          Acknowledged that there was an issue with recruitment, but that this wasn’t limited to the council.  He was working with the Head of HR to try and make jobs as attractive as we could.

 

The Head of ICT said the following in response to members’ questions:

     i.            Although there had been outtages these were not significant in the overall delivery of the service.

   ii.            The Council Anywhere project was underway and there were no specific KPIs for this project. Acknowledged that this project had encountered delays but the project was being carefully managed by officers.

 

The Executive Councillor made the following comments:

     i.            He was trying to get the shared services reports standardised.

   ii.            Asked for reports to provide information on savings for each council for future reports.

 iii.            Acknowledged that the service outtages did mean that staff were not able to work effectively for several days.

 

The Committee unanimously resolved to endorse the recommendations.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendation.

 

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted)

No conflicts of interest were declared by the Executive Councillor.