Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 10 April 2013 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The Committee considered and approved the minutes of the meeting held on 10 April 2013 and authorised the Chairman to sign them.

Committee members are asked to receive a presentation.

The Committee received a presentation from IT Services on the main IT issues affecting Havering in the future.  An overview was given on sharing services and technologies with other boroughs, improving the customer experience, provision of multi-agency information in relation to vulnerable people and reducing costs.  The following issues were detailed:

(a)      One Oracle

Seven London boroughs including Havering would be working together and sharing the same technology and processes which would act as an incentive for future shared services. 

(b)      Customer Services

There was a strategy to encourage people to use the website with the development of a web portal for reporting faults in order to stop duplicate reporting. The vision was to provide a more joined up 24 hour service for residents and customers providing a satisfactory end to end process. Developments were also being made in the automation of the contact centre and the provision of a Business portal.

(c)      Troubled Families

The experience of vulnerable people/families would be improved through technology sharing across the council and other agencies so as to provide a single view.

(d)      Reducing Costs

There was a need to deliver a cost effective service for Havering whilst decreasing costs and increasing expectations.  A number of initiatives had been identified to achieve this and were outlined as follows:

·     Data Centre, Capital to Revenue

·     Sharing with Newham

·     Wider sharing, ELS and pan London

·     Self-service take up

·     Thin Client

·     BYOD and CYOD – flexible use of different types of technology

·     Reviewing contracts

·     Open Source?

·     Public Health – discussions were currently being held on how this area would be managed.

·     Open Data – in line with the Freedom of Information Act, the possibility of self-service access to data and whether data would be valuable to business.

·     Crowdsourcing – this would fit in with Social Enterprise and would be       less about providing services as to enabling services.

·     Social Media – how the council would interact in future with residents

·     Smart Cities Agenda – looking at the provision of more information about the Havering region

The Committee received assurance around matters of security and were advised that austerity had forced a number of local authorities to adopt a more flexible approach in working together regardless of political affiliation.

Committee members are asked to discuss with officers how performance information is compiled for the Council.

Members received an update in response to a request for all service performance data held to be made available for scrutiny by the Committee. Members were advised that this would be difficult due to the vast amount of information involved. It was agreed that the Chairman, Vice Chairman and the Corporate Policy & Community Manager would hold a meeting outside the Committee with the relevant Head of Service to review their data and to identify the type of performance information that would be reported back to the Committee. Members agreed that the first meeting would examine performance data within Exchequer Services.

The issue of potholes was raised and Members were advised that performance data relating to this item would not be available from the service areas. The Committee agreed that the Chairman would speak to colleagues on the Environment Committee with a view to obtaining the relevant information.

Report attached.

The Members agreed the Value Overview and Scrutiny Committee Annual Report for 2012/2013.

Members are asked to discuss the Committee’s work programme for the forthcoming year.

It was agreed that Committee Members would email the Chairman with their suggestions for future areas of scrutiny and any other topics in order to compile the Work Programme for 2013/2014. This item would be discussed further at the meeting in October 2013.

The Committee noted the Topic Group Report on Council Tax arrears and agreed to accept the recommendations therein:

(i)        To formally bring the Topic Group review to an end.

(ii)       To have as an agenda item regular updates to the Value Overview and Scrutiny Committee on council tax collections and arrears.