Agenda item

Cabinet:

1.            Agreed to the London Borough of Bexley joining oneSource as a member of the Joint Committee.

2.            Agreed to the shared delivery of financial services and functions with Bexley as set out in the report and its appendices.

3.            As recommendations 1 and 2 above were agreed, confirmed the revised Joint Committee and Delegation Agreement attached in Annex A to the report.

4.            Delegated to the Managing Director of oneSource in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Value, all further actions and decisions required to finalise the revised Joint Committee Agreement.

5.            Noted:

a)     That further negotiations were taking place for additional services to be added to oneSource

b)     That the revised Distribution Formula attached as Schedule D to the Agreement with the recalculation of the funding agreement percentages were to be finalised as soon as practicable in the next financial year after the final budgets were known for each Joint Committee member.

Councillor Ron Ower, Cabinet member for the Housing Company Development and oneSource Management, introduced the report

Cabinet was informed that as part of oneSource’s commitment to provide a stronger base and continue driving down costs, the report before Cabinet recommended approval for the London Borough of Bexley to join the oneSource partnership currently between Havering and Newham.  This arrangement required executive agreement to Bexley becoming a member of the Joint Committee and agreement to the variation to the Joint Committee agreement provided for Members at Annex A of the report.

It was intended that Bexley’s Financial Services would join oneSource initially with their agreement to delegate the relevant functions to the Joint Committee.  The three partner authorities would then explore sharing other back-office services with a view to their joining oneSource in future phases if the parties agreed.  The savings achieved by eliminating duplication and improving processes and maximising efficiency across the finance service would be shared across all three boroughs using an agreed formula.

Sharing the finance service of another council would give greater resilience to the combined service and therefore to each council.  The inclusion of the finance service of Bexley demonstrated to other councils that it would be relatively straight-forward to join oneSource and make savings.  This might help to attract further partners/customers thus generating further savings.

Reasons for the decision:

·           Sharing services with Bexley would lead to minimum savings of £132k for Havering.  Savings could increase if further services were shared.

·           Sharing the finance service of another council would give greater resilience to the combined service and therefore to each council.

·           The inclusion the finance service of Bexley would demonstrate to other councils that it was relatively straight-forward to join oneSource and make savings.  This might help to attract further partners/customers thus generating further savings.

Other options considered:

As Bexley was only interested in sharing services through joining the existing Joint Committee arrangements no other option had been considered.  If the proposal was not agreed, the potential to expand oneSource services and deliver greater resilience and deliver savings as set out in the report could not be achieved.

Cabinet:

1.            Agreed to the London Borough of Bexley joining oneSource as a member of the Joint Committee.

2.            Agreed to the shared delivery of financial services and functions with Bexley as set out in the report and its appendices.

3.            As recommendations 1 and 2 above were agreed, confirmed the revised Joint Committee and Delegation Agreement attached in Annex A to the report.

4.            Delegated to the Managing Director of oneSource in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Value, all further actions and decisions required to finalise the revised Joint Committee Agreement.

5.            Noted:

a)     That further negotiations were taking place for additional services to be added to oneSource

b)     That the revised Distribution Formula attached as Schedule D to the Agreement with the recalculation of the funding agreement percentages were to be finalised as soon as practicable in the next financial year after the final budgets were known for each Joint Committee member.