Agenda item

Councillor Michael White, the Leader of the Council, introduced the report.

It was explained that the Council had been invited by the Local Government Association (LGA) to undertake a corporate peer challenge, offered free to all Member authorities. The challenges were tailored towards individual authorities as a ‘critical friend’ in order to facilitate continual improvement, and achieve even more for their communities. This subsequently took place in November 2012, with the final report received in late December; a copy of which was appended to the Cabinet report.

Cabinet was informed of the content of the review and the actions being taken to address comments contained within it.  The report detailed what further improvements the Council could make to its governance and planning and delivery of transformation and change. A list of areas where the team challenged the Council to consider further action and also address what plans the Council already had in place in these areas were covered in the report. These were:

·         Further Opportunities to Exploit Technology

·         Organisational Development

·         Organisational Capacity and rolling the budget plans forward

·         Community engagement and co-production

·         Integrating social care and health

It was suggested that the overall report was very positive in its conclusions about how the Council had delivered savings through the Havering 2014 transformation programme. It was emphasised that the review provided very positive feedback to the Council as well as highlighting useful areas for further development.

Reasons for the decision:

The report was brought before the Cabinet because it was an opportunity for the Cabinet to consider the views of external peers and take any decisions necessary to modify or adjust its plans of the basis of their views.

Other options considered:

The Council was not under an obligation to publish a peer review, however, it was considered that in the spirit of openness and transparency it should publish the report in full and provide an opportunity for the Cabinet to consider it. The option of not publishing or bringing it to Cabinet had therefore been rejected.

There was a view expressed that it had been regrettable that comments made by some Members as part of the consultation process had not featured in the final version of the Peer Challenge report.

Cabinet NOTED the LGA’s corporate peer review and AGREED:

1.    To ensure that the budget process continues to invest in change in order to continue to deliver budget reductions through transformation rather than service cuts.

2.    To delegate to the Cabinet Member for Transformation the task of ensuring the Head of Human Resources and Organisational Development puts in place plans to support the Council’s staff through the changes ahead.

3.    To support the Member Development Group and its continuing work programme, in particular in developing a wider programme of development events, and urges all Groups to engage more actively in future Member development opportunities.

4.    To support the Chief Executive to ensure that organisational changes continue to provide sufficient resources to deliver transformation, run the Council’s services and invest in new areas such as the need to expand the Councils local taxation base and to retain businesses and promote growth.

5.    To delegate to the Lead Member for Culture, Town and Communities the consultation and partnership discussions on a revised Community Engagement Strategy.

6.    To delegate to the Deputy Leader of the Council – Individuals responsibility for continuing to plan effective work between the Council and the local health economy.