Agenda item

Strategic Options for Corporate Services

The Committee will receive a report on Strategic Options for Corporate Services.

Minutes:

Andrew Hardingham (Interim Strategic Director for Transformation – Finance), Dawn Aunger (Interim Strategic Director for Transformation – Transformation), Faye Batchelor-Hambleton (Assistant Director for Customer Services, Peter Honeywell (Transformation Architecture Manager) and Simon Arthurs (Senior Financial Analyst) presented the strategic options for Corporate Services.

 

Cabinet in February 2013 approved the outline business case for a new model moving PCC IT service delivery to Delt in partnership with NEW Devon CCG; it was envisaged that this model could be expanded to include other services in the future. The services that were proposed to be moved to Delt would be subject to a more detailed analysis of the transfer when the business case and service specifications were developed.

 

Kevin Treweeks (Unison) and Patricia Small (GMB) outlined the trade unions’ key areas of concern, as follows –

 

(a)

the potential benefits of transferring services to another vehicle;

 

 

(b)

the savings or earnings that could be achieved through such a venture;

 

 

(c) 

the risk of ‘breaking’ Delt by expanding the organisation;

 

(d)

 

the risk to the future political control of transferring some strategic services to this venture;

 

 

(e)

currently there was no proper trade union recognition agreement in place in Delt (the staff forum was not an acceptable model).

 

Diana Beal (Unite) submitted a written submission which the Panel took into consideration.

 

The key areas of questioning related to –

 

(f)

why other local councils had not taken the opportunity to join Delt;

 

 

(g)

the importance of having trade union representation when dealing with staff transferring to Delt;

 

 

(h)

concerns that the focus for the new venture would have to change to ‘revenue hunting’ which could have an impact on the public sector service;

 

 

(i)

the proposed services that had been included within the scope and whether they were a best fit for this model;

 

 

(j)

concerns that with no trade union agreement in place, terms and conditions could be diluted;

 

 

(k)

assurance that the right governance arrangements would be in place with such a venture;

 

 

(l)

the importance of Plymouth City Council having overall ownership of the venture;

 

 

(m)

concerns that there was no elected member representation on the Delt Board;

 

 

(n)

what the process would be to develop the business cases including service specifications.

 

The Committee agreed to recommend to Cabinet that –

 

(1)

the Scrutiny Committee supports the  mandatory outcomes, as set out  within the report but with the addition of ‘jobs and investment being retained on the peninsula’ and ‘that partners are based in the public or voluntary community sectors’ as mandatory rather than desirable outcomes;

 

 

(2)

Plymouth City Council to work with Delt to achieve Trade Union recognition before proceeding to business case and service specification development;

 

 

(3)

subject to recommendation two, that a cross party working group is established to consider the business cases as they are developed;

 

 

(4)

Trade Unions in the Council continue to be involved in the process through the Joint Strategic Consultative Forum;

 

 

(5)

the Scrutiny Committee will further consider business cases and service specifications as and when they are developed;

 

 

(6)

officers address the issues of future influence of councillors and future public sector ownership of Delt;

 

 

(7)

when considering which services to move to business case, the Scrutiny Committee asks that Cabinet work within the principle that transactional services are considered first.

 

Supporting documents: