Agenda item

CANTERBURY CITY COUNCIL

East Kent Services Committee

Minutes of a meeting held on Wednesday, 22nd July, 2015

at 10.00 am in the  The Guildhall, St Peter's Place, Westgate, Canterbury

1              Apologies for absence

Apologies received from Councillors Conolly (Dover), Todd (Canterbury) and Fairbrass (Thanet).

2              Appointment of Chairman and Vice-Chairman

In accordance with  the arrangements, it was confirmed that Councillor Watkins would be Chairman for the municipal year 2015/16 and Councillor Cook  would be Vice Chairman. 

3              Declaration of any interests

No interests were declared at the meeting.

4              Substitute Members

No substitute members were present at the meeting.

5              EK Services and EK Human Resources End of Year Report 2014/15

The Director of Shared Services/Collaborative Services provided a summary of the annual report and set out the savings achieved in the first four years of operation.  Looking to the future, he said work continued to ensure performance met or exceeded SLA targets and there was a need to review the SLAs to identify areas for alignment across council performance indicators, where relevant as well as agreeing tighter targets in line with continuous improvement.  There was scope to make further efficiencies by continuing to align systems and processes.

In response to a comment about the support provided for the Canterbury BID, it was agreed that the wording of paragraph 4.4 would be clarified.  It was confirmed that EK Services had assisted with the development of suitable collection arrangements to support the implementation of the Business Improvement District.

Other sections of the report were summarised as follows –

Customer – fraud and error staff would be transferring to the Department of Work and Pensions in December.  Other structural changes were being implemented within EKS Customer Services and it is possible that further changes may be proposed based on the new three year business plan that is currently under development.  There was an objective to encourage customers to use digital channels.  The Revenues and Benefits system at Canterbury was due to be changed to align with Dover and Thanet. 

ICT – Public Sector Network (PSN) compliance had been achieved.  A Corporate Information Governance Group had been formed across the three authorities to strengthen collaboration on Information Security issues. 

Staff – the staff survey results had been positive. 

East Kent Human Resources – there had been a notable increase in recruitment work and complex casework in the last year.

Finance – improvements were being made to financial data to enable more accurate benchmarking and commercial pricing to be prepared.

Audit and Scrutiny – Regular meetings are held between the Director and the Section 151 officers.   The East Kent Audit Partnership had completed 10 reviews in the year.  Nine had achieved substantial or reasonable assurance and one review resulted in Limited Assurance.  Background was provided for the limited assurance finding.

Budget – Reserves and carry forward figures for committed projects were summarised.    

RESOLVED – That the Committee note the report.