Nominations are invited for the election of the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Committee for the 2019/20 municipal year.

Note: As per the oneSource legal agreement, the Chairman for the 2019/20 municipal year will be from Havering and the Vice Chair from Newham.

It was noted that, as per the oneSource legal agreement, the Chairman of the Joint Committee for 2019/20 would be from Havering and the Vice-Chair from Newham.

It was unanimously agreed that the Chairman of the oneSource Joint Committee for the 2019/20 municipal year would be Councillor Roger Ramsey and the Vice-Chair would be Councillor Terry Paul.

Members are invited to disclose any pecuniary interests in any of the items on the agenda at this point of the meeting. Members may still disclose a pecuniary interest in an item at any time prior to the consideration of the matter.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meetings of the Joint Committee held on 5 and 12 April 2018, and 3 May 2018, and to authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meetings of the Joint Committee held on 5 and 12 April 2019 and 3 May 2019 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Report attached.

The Joint Committee that there had been an overall underspend of £0.727m. The underspend in Exchequer and Transactional Services was due to a growth in the enforcement service whilst the underspend in legal services was due to legal cost income and some staffing underspends. There had been an overspend of £0.373m in fiancé due to a large number of interim staff being employed. It was agreed that a note should be sent to the Joint Committee giving details of the indicative timetable and when the financial position was likely to be back into budget.

Job descriptions were in the process of being reviewed but it was noted that market supplements could be used where appropriate to fill key vacancies. A line by line review of the ICT budget had commenced in order to address the overspend in that service. It was hoped to achieve reductions in the cost of the print service and also print income from the service provided to Tower Hamlets.

The Joint Committee noted the 2018-19 oneSource outturn position and transfer to reserves.

Report attached.

A report before the Committee confirmed that £13m of savings had been achieved by oneSource since its inception. £2.4m savings had already been programmed for future years but Havering and Newham were seeking to build in further savings of £200k and £3.8m respectively in order to close budget gaps.

It was noted that it could prove disparity in savings on the ground and that there may be an element of cross-subsidy that would need to be investigated. The share of savings between partners had not been reviewed since the establishment of oneSource and annual review could be conducted of what services were covered by oneSource.

Whilst it was common that partners had different levels of savings requirements, Members asked for details of how long a review of savings options would take. Issues such as penalty payments if certain services were to be removed from oneSource could be discussed separately with the political leadership of the boroughs.

It was accepted that there remained a commitment to shared services and that this led to savings but this also needed to be reviewed. It was hoped that the scope of a savings review could be available for discussion within two weeks. It was noted that the oneSource agreement did contain provision for payment between the partners in the event of any services leaving oneSource.

It was felt that the focus should not however be on penalties; more on examining the disparity of savings and looking at what elements of oneSource are/are not working. The oneSource budget was readjusted each year but there had been any analysis of the split of Council staff working on each service.

It was agreed that a further report on savings be taken at the next meeting of the Joint Committee and that the scope of the savings review be discussed informally between the Mayor and Council Leaders.

Briefing paper attached.

A report discussed proposed approaches to measuring service quality and performance. Whilst performance indicators would continue, it was important that measures of customer satisfaction were also reported in order to ensure that customers felt listened to and had a positive experience with shared services.

The determination of targets for performance indicators was currently being finalised with Section 151 officers and Cabinet Lead Members. Any variation shown in e.g. target collection rates for Havering and Newham was due simply to differences in the targets requested by the different Councils.

It was suggested that a measure could be taken for outstanding vacancies and the time taken to fill these. Members also felt that the design of any survey of customer satisfaction was important. It was felt that the survey should not just be on-line and involve front-line staff as well as senior managers.

Updates on the improvement plan would be brought to the Joint Committee on a quarterly basis and this could also be done for performance indicators. It was also felt that performance information should include details of the previous year’s performance as well as benchmarking figures for other Local Authorities.

In addition, it was agreed that quarterly performance information should continue to be presented to the Section 151 officers and put be as an item on future agendas of the Joint Committee in order that any issues could be flagged up.  

Report attached.

The final oneSource Improvement Plan and action Plan were presented to the Joint Committee for approval. Key changes included an additional improvement themed covering value for money and that the timelines in the Plans were now more consistent with the transformation work in progress in Havering and Bexley.

Issues such as the completion of accounts by each Council on time would be picked up by individual service plans which sat below this strategic plan. The Improvement Plan had been discussed by senior management at both Havering and Newham and covered all services provided by oneSource. Differing timelines for each borough in the plan were due to the different transformation programmes in operation in each borough.

It was noted that theme IP40 covering the implantation of Oracle Fusion was now expected to be delivered in June 2020 for fiancé and October 2020 for payroll (for both Havering and Newham).

The formulation of the improvement plan had shown that values and behaviours were important in delivering services and it was wished for staff to take proactive responsibility for delivering the plan. It was agreed that officers would share with the Joint Committee written details of this work.

It was suggested that the Councils could flag up where the Improvement Plan was not proceeding to target and responses could be given at the meetings of the Joint Committee. The schedule for how the Improvement Plan went to Section 151 and other senior officers could be amended in order to facilitate this.

It was agreed that the final oneSource Improvement Plan and Action Plan as shown at Appendices 1 and 2 of the report to the Joint Committee be agreed.  It was further agreed that areas where the plans were not working and actions taken in response would be reviewed at each meeting of the Joint Committee.

Report attached.

A protocol had been drafted for how oneSource would deal with external commercial opportunities. This reflected the need to provide services to partner boroughs first before considering outside opportunities. This would support processes such as the oneSource Council Tax service taking on more work.

The protocol, as shown in appendix 1 of the report to the Joint Committee, was agreed subject to its inclusion in the forthcoming wider review of oneSource.

Repot attached.

A briefing paper before Members sought to fit oneSource branding around the existing partners whilst recognising the elements of shared services. It was important that the communications strategy ensured that staff understood Council values and issues such as the work of the Havering Themed Boards.

It was clarified that implantation of the changes would take place by August 2020 rather than as stated in the report. It was noted that it was important to improve figures for the proportion of staff awareness of oneSource and that work was undertaken with the Council communications teams in order to keep messages consistent.

The Joint Committee noted the contents of the briefing paper.

Report attached.

A report of the Interim Director of Legal and Governance asked the Joint Committee to note some changes to the Havering Scheme of Delegation re the write-off of unrecoverable debt. Any minor typographical changes would also be included within the changes to the Scheme of Delegation.

The Joint Committee noted the changes made by the Leader of the London Borough of Havering in relation to the write-off of Havering unrecoverable debt and agreed to include the same within the oneSource officer delegation scheme in relation to Havering Council only.