Agenda item

As part of the budget scrutiny process, the Scrutiny and Overview Committee has identified two specific areas of the budget it would like to scrutinise in more detail. The areas identified are detailed in the relevant sub-items.

The Committee considered two separate reports set out between pages 13 to 40 of the agenda which provided a response to the two budget areas chosen by the Committee as a focus for a deep dive.

The first area was the Corporate, Resources and Assistant Chief Executive areas, from which the Committee was looking for reassurance that it was resourced at the right level to support the improvement journey of the Council. The second area looked at the preparations for the move to the mayoral model of governance and ongoing support for Members, to ensure that these areas were also appropriately resources.

Corporate, Resources and Assistant Chief Executive areas

In reviewing the information provided in the report on the budget for the Corporate, Resources and Assistant Chief Executive service areas, the Committee agreed that it would focus on how the budget would enable the services to support the organisation to deliver cultural change and system improvement.

The first question asked for more information on how the expectation of increasing digital revenue (as set out in the budget report) was estimated. It was confirmed that it had been anticipated that there would be an income from digital advertising once the new digital bus stops had been rolled out. As the full roll out would not be completed in the next year, the estimated income had been reduced.

As the need to change the culture of the Council had been highlighted in both the Report in the Public Interest and the Ark report on Regina Road, particularly the need to improve financial discipline and customer service, it was questioned how the budget would help to deliver this.  It was advised that the Beyond Business School had been commissioned, following a procurement exercise, to deliver a key piece of work on cultural change. This work would take a Train the Trainer approach, upskilling Council staff to roll out the change across the organisation. This work would focus on embedding improved customer services skills and improving resident engagement. Once the results had been analysed, the recently completed staff survey would also help to inform the cultural change work. There was also work with the digital team to ensure that staff were aligned to the digital world.

It was questioned whether there was sufficient resource in the Human Resources team to be able to support the improvement of the Council, particularly as there were savings for the team in the budget. The Interim Chief People Officer, Dean Shoesmith, advised that when he join the Council in the autumn, he had undertaken a HR Maturity Index of the service, which had identified a number of opportunities for efficiencies and improvements through business process reengineering using the Lean process.

Along a similar vein, it was also questioned whether Croydon Digital Service was able to deliver the system improvement of the Council. The Interim Head of Corporate Technology, Paul Golland, advised that the work of the service had been reviewed to ensure that the projects being delivered aligned with the Council’s priorities.

The Deputy-Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee reported back on a meeting they had with officers from the Programme Management Office (PMO). It confirmed that the meeting had provided significant reassurance that good people were involved in the team. The only concern raised was whether the PMO was sufficiently resourced to deliver the Council’s change programme. It was confirmed that additional external resource had recently be brought in to increase the capacity of the team and to expand expertise, as there was a need to move at pace with this work. A key element of changing the culture of an organisation was to develop an accountable culture. To help achieve this the performance framework had been strengthened to include more KPI’s on satisfaction levels.

Concern was raised about the lack of pace in improving the telephony system, with an update on this work requested. It was advised that work on a new telephony system was well underway with the procurement of the new system due to end on Friday. Once the procurement process was completed, the project would move to the implementation phase with a three month roll out programme. The chosen supplier was well proven and key benefits of the new system included staff having access to soft phones and apps to take calls. The implementation team for the project included key services such as customer services.  As a result of the new system, mobile phone usage could be reviewed, which should deliver a saving.

It was highlighted that apprenticeships were a good way to change the culture of an organisation and as such was there any plans to increase the number of apprenticeships offered by the Council. It was agreed that apprenticeships were important, not just to changing the culture of the workforce, but also boosting the local economy and community. The Government offered a levy for apprenticeships and it was important that it was fully spent by the Council.

It was agreed that the public also needed to have confidence that the culture of the Council was changing and it was questioned whether external communication had been considered. It confirmed that there was a need to communicate the behavioural changes in the Council, but how this was delivered would need careful consideration.

Move to the Mayoral Model of Governance and Support for Members

This report was introduced by the Council’s Monitoring Officer, John Jones, and Governance Improvement Advisor, Heather Wills. During the introduction to the report the following was noted:-

·         There was a lot of work being put in to prepare for the move to the new mayoral model of governance. This included the Local Government Association (LGA) carrying out a peer review looking at the progress made to date, the results of which should be available by the end of February.

·         The LGA had also been asked to conduct a peer review on the Democratic Services function to give reassurance on what the team should look like and to ensure the structure was fit for purpose ahead of the move to the mayoral system. This was particularly crucial with the election likely to lead to a large cohort of new Members requiring induction and training.

·         There was currently staffing challenges within the Democratic Services team, with four vacancies. One of the two senior officer vacancies had been recruited and an interview was scheduled, which if successful, would fill one of the officer vacancies. Democratic Services was a difficult area to recruit staff as the role was specialised, with certain skills needed.

·         To cover the immediate resource gap, mutual aid had been sought from other local authorities, with support provided to clear the back log of minutes. Officer support was also being provided by the LGA and a graduate trainee was being seconded from another team in the Council.

·         Although the current arrangement was not ideal, having the temporary support in place meant that the immediate situation was manageable with all Committee meetings covered up until the end of March. Tribute was also paid to the commitment of the team who had been working under significant pressure since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Following the introduction, the Chair highlighted that the Report in the Public Interest and the Governance Review had emphasised that the Council needed to strengthen its governance processes. Areas such as access to information and the availability of the Forward Plan continued to remain a concern for Members.

Thanks was given to the officers in Democratic Services for their hard work, particularly since the start of the pandemic, with it questioned how robust the review would be. It was hoped that the review would show what good looked like and what a good Democratic Services team does, which should include providing support for all members of the Council. There was additional money in the budget to help implement the findings of the review, but the question was whether would be enough. It was likely that any implementation would need to carefully planned and delivered incrementally 

At the conclusion of this item the Chair thanked all those involved in the preparation of both reports for the meeting and the participation and engagement of officers with the questions of the Committee.

Conclusions

Following the discussion of the Budget Challenge items, the Scrutiny and Overview Committee reached the following conclusions:-

1.    The work commissioned on cultural change was welcomed and it was agreed that this maybe something the Committee would want to revisit later in the year.

2.    It was agreed that the cultural change programme was vital to the Council going forward, including the need to ensure the organisational valued its staff. From the information provided, there was a good indication that change was being made in the right direction.

3.    A request was made for a summary of the cultural change programme to be provided for the information of the Committee.

4.    The Committee was reassured by the information provided in the report on the preparations for the move to the mayoral model of governance and the reassurance given on the commitment to continuing to improve the Council’s governance. It was welcomed that significant progress had been made since the report was requested before the New Year and the outcome from the review was eagerly awaited.