(a)

how measures for consultation and engagement would be built into the Cooperative Centre of Operations (CCO) -

?

a new framework for communication and engagement had been set out for all of the transformation programmes;

?

under this framework, the CCO projects had created communication plans; identify stakeholders, setting out what roles they need to play and what message they should receive at different stages; the Project Boards would soon be asked to review, agree and monitor the plans;

?

the CCO has also formed an advise and enable project work stream to build an implementation plan for the ‘Framework for Working with our Citizens and Communities’ initiative;

(b)

the role and function of the decision making network would be made clearer -

?

in order to assist Members and officers to access the knowledge and expertise within the organisation more easily;

?

this would be achieved through a variety of actions including creating a searchable function on the Lync system/another database, cataloguing the organisation’s knowledge needs and setting up communities of practice/live forums in order to grow the organisation’s expertise and share knowledge;

(c)

quick wins with timescales and an update on CCO Blueprint -

?

the roll out of the iTrent HR self-service to corporate services staff would be completed by the end of March; further analysis would take place on whether the roll out would be extended to other functions or to wait for the full HR service review;

?

the Integrated Health and Wellbeing support project had been successful in supporting the definition of the back office services Service Level Agreements;

?

the Strategic Centre Quick Wins project had successfully tested a range of models to enable project managers and business analysts to support key initiatives;

(d)

the CCO Blueprint had been approved by the Programme Board on 28 January 2015 and would inform detail design phases on all CCO projects;

(e)

the communications and engagement strategy would ensure that all the programme messages were consistent, clear and easy to use;

(f)

the key messages were -

?

changing the way the Council did things;

?

improving the services provided;

?

being more innovative in the way the Council delivered services;

?

the financial position;

(g)

communications and engagement would be wrapped around the projects, to  -

?

be initiated at every level (not an after-thought but part of the planning process);

?

ensure alignment and no duplication;

?

be better planned rather than reactive, identify the cross over points in the projects

?

have a clear line of sight - this would create the co-ordinated communications plan;

(h)

the four objectives included -

?

creating a communications and engagement strategy;

?

developing a co-ordinated communications and engagement plan (across all projects)

?

enabling the transformation team to create communications plans with purpose and meaningful engagement;

?

beginning to share transformation news creating a narrative.

(i)

an engagement exercise had been undertaken within the Finance and HR services to provide a detailed analysis of how staff were allocating their time; as part of this process, a meeting had been held with all members of staff to ascertain how they thought they added value to the work of the Council and whether they had any ideas for the future delivery of the service;

(j)

the importance of staff engagement in this process had not been under-estimated;

(k)

in order to assist in making the decision making network clearer, a searchable function on the Lync system would be created; this would enable Members and officers to access the knowledge and expertise within the Council more easily (currently it was not possible to search on the role of the person just the name);

(l)

there were a number of challenges that faced Delt in fulfilling all the objectives in the business plan; the publication of the IT Strategy would set out the overall strategic direction of the Council;

(m)

following a request from the Election Team, both programme management and analytic support were being provided for the 2015 election process;

(n)

work was currently being undertaken to refine requirements, in order to understand what the Council needed to do internally, with partners, communities and citizens in order to realise its vision;

(o)

the overall aim of the HR project was to look at transforming the service to become more efficient; work would be undertaken over the next three months which would result in the Council being in a better position to decide what the preferred model for providing this function would be;

(p)

the CCO would inform Member decisions on the future provision of services;

(q)

as principle stakeholders, Members would be consulted on the full service review being undertaken within Democratic Support.

(1)

that the ‘to be’ function for both HR and Finance services is brought back for consideration in the new municipal year;

(2)

that facilities management is considered as a ‘quick win’ project and is brought back for consideration in the new municipal year;

(3)

that consideration is given to renaming the decision making network;

(4)

the communications and engagement strategy.