To receive a presentation reviewing past performance, identifying key issues and commenting on future plans.

The Committee received a presentation by the Cabinet Member (Corporate and Customer Services and Human Resources) reviewing past performance, identifying key issues and commenting on future plans.

The Cabinet Member (Corporate and Customer Services and Human Resources) presented the agenda report and highlighted: the budget for the whole of the Deputy Chief Executive’s directorate in 2009-10 was under-spent by £98k, a creditable performance particularly considering the in year pressures in areas like Legal & Democratic services; while the Council and NHS Herefordshire were at the leading edge of joint working it was important that residents and staff were kept informed about how this would make a difference and how services were to be delivered; feedback from surveys etc needed to be backed up by evidence so that appropriate actions could be considered.  She also highlighted: new ICT packages must be delivered to specification and show they were delivering improved efficiencies; staff and Members had received appropriate training on the new ICT packages and  were now required to use the facilities to improve performance and deliver value for money; there were likely to be reductions in staff numbers and there would be a need to support staff through redeployment; in relation to salary levels the County experienced difficulty in recruiting high calibre staff, however, the Council and NHS Herefordshire were sharing managers to drive further savings; Members costs also need to be addressed; and in the autumn budget round consideration would need to be given to how to protect the vulnerable in the county.

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member (Corporate and Customer Services and Human Resources) for providing a comprehensive report for the agenda.

During debate the following principal points were noted:

• Questioned about the pressures in Legal Services with particular reference to the backlog in investigating standards complaints the Cabinet Member referred the Committee to the report in the Standards Committee agenda.  However, she commented that there had been a growth in the number of complaints needing investigation and there had been a knock on effect on the level of support needed.

• Referring to agenda page 40, - Local-% of key performance indicators improving on last year - and that the direction of travel was ‘behind that for the same period last year’ the Cabinet Member acknowledged that while the situation wasn’t bad it certainly wasn’t satisfactory.

• Questioned on aspects of the Customer Service Centres the Cabinet Member responded that appropriate staff had now been moved from directorates to run the service, however, budgets hadn’t always moved with them and this was being addressed.  Ongoing training was being given to ensure an appropriate level of knowledge was held within the Customer Services Team to enable more queries to be answered directly, reducing the need to refer the enquirer back to the directorate.  When compared with other local authorities the service was under resourced and currently the overall performance of the service wasn’t as she wished.  She added that it usually became more costly to achieve ever higher targets and therefore a balance had to be struck.

• During debate on salary levels, comment was made that the County needed to offer an appropriate level of salary if it was to attract high calibre staff.  The Cabinet Member responded that the Council needed to have managers to manage its services.  While it was right that the public should be informed about public sector top level salaries, as recently published in the press, the public were unable to make any informed comparison of salary levels until private sector top level salaries were also made available.  The Director of Resources reported that directors were looking at management and process costs and driving efficiencies to ensure that frontline services were protected.

• The Committee noted that in a number of cases external funding or the introduction of new work systems had brought with it the need to manage a temporary increase to staffing.  The Agresso system would give quicker access to HR and payroll data.  Further decisions concerning staffing levels were expected in the autumn.

• During brief debate on LAA target funding comment was made that targets needed to be retained to ensure progress was being made.  It was suggested that, where appropriate, common targets between the Council and NHS Herefordshire needed to be joined up and only those targets that could be achievable should be retained.   The Cabinet Member (Corporate and Customer Services and Human Resources) agreed that some targets were still needed, however, resources for target monitoring needed to be closely controlled.

RESOLVED: That the Report by the Cabinet Member (Corporate and Customer Services and Human Resources) be noted.

At this point the Committee adjourned for approximately 5 minutes and resumed at 11.05am