(a)

the Corporate Structure had been in existence since April 2009 and covered five areas including Customer Services and Business Transformation; Finance, Assets and Efficiencies; ICT; Human Resources and Organisational Development and Democracy and Governance. Assistant Directors had been employed in these five areas since January 2010;

(b)

Corporate Support’s net spend was £32,297m, which was approximately one sixth of the council’s overall net spend of £200m, however, the gross budget of Corporate Support was the biggest of any of the council departments due to the allocation of benefits;

(c)

in 2009/10 Corporate Support significantly under spent but remained on target to achieve the set delivery plans. In 2010/11 there have been increased demands as a result of a rise in in-year savings and the effects of budget constraints have created a great challenge in achieving the set delivery plans;

(d)

the department have been involved in many key achievements over the past 12 months, including –

·         

the new competency appraisal process, which had full agreement from the trade unions;

·         

the sale of Citybus and the housing stock transfer to Plymouth Community Homes;

·         

the Registration Service received a good inspection;

·         

the Cashier Service have received accreditation, becoming the first cashier service in the UK to do so;

·         

the Customer Service team received an excellence award;

·         

both the Corporate Property & Capital Projects and Legal & Risk Management Services have received ISO 9001, which had been regarded as an excellent achievement;

·         

the FISH programme which had been trialled in Customer Services had worked really well and the possibility of rolling it out over the rest of the authority was being looked into;

·         

there had been a 99% availability across all core systems within the department;

(e)

there were some significant challenges and priorities ahead in the department, including –

·         

the need to be flexible when dealing with economic challenges, this had been demonstrated with decision made by central government regarding Building Schools for the Future;

·         

major investment in ICT was required to maintain the departments standards and to ensure that the department had the capacity to provide the support that was required;

·         

the growing public demand for services despite the budget constraints within the department was challenging;

·         

implementing changes to policies and procedures to ensure that there was a more flexible approach;

·         

adopting a new constitution;

(f)

Corporate Support was trying to achieve all of the delivery plans, challenges and priorities with pace, by using joined up working, improving staff attitudes and motivation and by incorporating a ‘one version of the truth’ ethos into all the work undertaken in order to become more customer aware and provide the best standard of work possible;

(g)

these delivery plans and future achievements were being targeted by focusing on, amongst others –

·         

hot-desking, as had been demonstrated on Floor 5;

·         

a procurement initiative aimed at cutting waste and innovating called ‘buyer roll-out’;

·         

improvement in data quality with initiatives such as ‘tell us once’ and ‘single point of contact’ aimed at better communication across departments and improved service delivery.

(h)

the authority were aware as to how much it would cost to maintain the Civic Centre and this had been worked out in partnership with English Heritage;

(i)

an internal helpdesk would be put into operation in order to improve service provision to internal customers;

(j)

it was hoped that once the locality working solution was fully operational and neighbourhood officers had been appointed the burden on councillors’ casework would be reduced and that Neighbourhood Officers would provide great assistance to councillors;

(k)

the council’s Health and Safety Team were very strong and this was confirmed by the excellent accident at work figures produced.