Agenda item

To consider the final report of the Joint WRS Scrutiny Task Group and to determine whether to support the group’s recommendations.

(The Committee is asked to note that in line with reporting procedures for Worcestershire Regulatory Services this report will be considered by the Worcestershire Shared Services Joint Committee, the joint decision making body for Regulatory Services, before it is referred to the Executive Committees at partner organisations).

(Report attached, presentation to follow)

The Committee welcomed councillor Rod Laight, Chair of the Joint WRS Scrutiny Task Group, from Bromsgrove District Council, and invited him to deliver a presentation on the subject of the review.

During the delivery of this presentation the following issues were highlighted for Members’ consideration:

·         The review had originally been proposed in July 2012 but, due to delays arising from the consultation process with every Council in Worcestershire, it had not been possible to start the exercise until September 2013.

·         Each of the seven Councils in Worcestershire had agreed to participate in the review.

·         The group had proposed 12 recommendations focusing on particular themes.

·         The group had found that in the past there had been inconsistent monitoring of service performance.  This was partly due to ICT problems, though these had been resolved.

·         Communications had been a significant weakness identified by the group.  Due to poor communications the public and Councillors struggled to contact the service.

·         There were also problems with process for communicating developments with Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) from members of the Worcestershire shared Services Joint Committee to other elected Members at partner authorities.

·         One of the key challenges facing the shared service was the financial support available from partner organisations.  In recent years financial austerity had impacted on many of the partners and a number were requesting significant savings placing the future of the partnership at risk.

·         To address these financial challenges Officers were considering entering into a strategic partnership with a private sector partner.

·         The governance of the shared service had also been a significant issue considered by the group.  Members had concluded that the current governance arrangements were too complex and did not enable the partnership to operate effectively.  In some cases, the group had concluded that elements of the governance structure were in fact undermining the shared service.

·         A number of lessons had been learned during the review, with implications both for future shared services and for any further joint scrutiny exercises.

·         Despite current difficulties with WRS the Task Group had concluded that the benefits of the shared service outweighed these problems and that it was essential to retain an effective partnership into the future.

Following presentation of the group’s report a number of additional issues were raised by Members.

·         Disappointment was expressed regarding the limited number of responses that had been received from other Councillors consulted during the review about WRS.

·         The potential impact of proposed budget reductions on service levels.  In particular, concerns were expressed that if Worcestershire County Council’s budget cuts went ahead as planned the trading standards function in Worcestershire would not necessarily have the resilience to cope with local demand.

·         The benefits of having a Member Liaison Officer for Councillors to contact.

·         Concerns were expressed that residents as well as local public sector bodies did not always appreciate the valuable contribution made by Regulatory Services to public health, safety and fair trading.

·         The benefits of preventing issues from arising and the risk that as a result of budgets being reduced too heavily the shared service would become more reactive than proactive.

·         The fact that budgets had already been reduced significantly.  There would come a point were further reductions could not be undertaken without the future of the partnership being placed at risk.

·         The progress that had been made in relation to the proposed strategic partnership between WRS and a private sector partner.  Five companies had already expressed an interest in entering into a strategic partnership, though no final decisions had been made on the subject by the date of the meeting.

·         The development of the existing budget matrix to enable partners to reduce budgets whilst continuing to receive services that met local needs.  The matrix had been designed to enable partners to assess the risks involved in reducing budgets for particular service areas.

·         The benefits of sharing services across such a large number of partners.  In particular, it was noted that as a result of sharing services partners were able to access expertise and resources that would not have otherwise been available to their customers if the service had been retained in house.

·         The need for Members of the WRS Board (currently the Joint Committee) to be appropriately trained and briefed on the subject of regulatory services and who were willing to commit to learning about and engaging with the service effectively.

·         The potential impact, in terms of workload, if the Chief Executive of the host authority was to assume a mentoring role for the Head of Regulatory Services.  Officers confirmed that this would not have a significant impact as this mentoring role was largely already implemented.

·         The benefits involved in disbanding the Management Board as proposed by the group.  The Task Group had found that members of the Management Board tendered to interfere in operational matters, despite the fact that many did not have experience or training in this sphere unlike members of WRS staff.  This was making it difficult for WRS staff, particularly senior officers, to undertake their work effectively and was encouraging both Members and Officers to focus on the needs of individual authorities rather than on how to make the shared service and effective partnership.

·         The role of the joint committee which had been delegated with the power to make some decisions on behalf of all partner organisations.  For this reason the Task Group’s recommendations would be referred to the Joint Committee before the Council’s Executive Committee was invited to consider the group’s findings.

The Committee also discussed the value of joint scrutiny exercises.  Members noted that this was the first joint scrutiny exercise involving every Council in Worcestershire that had been hosted by a local authority other than Worcestershire County Council.  Members suggested that it would be useful to undertake further joint scrutiny reviews, as and when appropriate, in future. Due to the complicated nature of this joint scrutiny two Democratic Services Officers, Jess Bayley and Amanda Scarce, had supported the review.  The Chair of the review thanked them for the support that they had provided to this exercise, however, it was suggested that if further joint scrutiny exercises were to take place in the future all partners should be encouraged to contribute equally to the review process at both a Member and Officer level.  This would help to minimise stress levels amongst both Officers and Members and ensure that there was a common level of understanding of the review’s aims and outcomes when reports were delivered back to participating authorities.

RECOMMENDED to the Worcestershire Shared Services Joint Committee that

1)    Performance Management Information should continue to be made available for Members’ consideration at every meeting of the Joint Committee and be sufficiently high on the agenda to be discussed in detail;

2)    twelve months after the new contact centre arrangements for WRS have been introduced, replacing the use of the Worcestershire Hub; the Joint Committee should review the effectiveness of these arrangements for communicating with the public;

3)    the web-pages of each partner authority should be regularly monitored to ensure they are kept up to date, with the inclusion of a prominent and obvious link to the WRS website;

4)    the purpose, content and circulation of the WRS newsletter should be thoroughly reviewed, with a view to it providing a more systematic and comprehensive account of the work and performance of the shared service and with the content and format being agreed by the Joint Committee;

5)    that WRS have a designated member of staff to act as a Member Liaison Officer and as a single point of contact to signpost Member enquiries;

6)    in order to reduce the focus on financial considerations which currently play a major part in influencing partner participation, to the detriment of other equally important aspects of the service, the following should be addressed:

a)    a new business model for WRS be developed through the Chief Executives’ Panel, building on the proposals already being produced by the Panel;

b)   Consideration be given to the option for partner authorities to purchase an “out of hours service”;

7)    a new strategic decision making board for WRS should replace the Joint Committee, comprising one elected member per partner authority and supported by senior officers. This should be called the WRS Board.

a)    Meetings of this Board should take place at the base of WRS;

b)   responsibility for attendance at Board meetings should lie with each authority’s representative, and the quorum for meetings proceeding should be set at 5 representatives in attendance;

c)    meetings of the Board should take place bi-monthly;

d)   elected Members appointed to the Board should be provided with an induction programme and sufficient ongoing training to enable them to fulfil their role effectively;

e)    Members appointed to the Board be expected to serve a minimum of two years to ensure continuity;

f)     the Chair of the WRS Board should be elected annually by the members of the Board;

8)    The Management Board be disbanded, with the WRS Management Team taking the lead responsibility for operational decision making under the leadership of the Head of Regulatory Services;

9 a)     the Head of WRS should be fully accountable to the WRS Board (as the strategic decision making body); 

b)     the Chief Executive of the host authority to act in a mentoring role as and when necessary;

10 a)   all decisions made by the WRS Board be formally reported back to all elected members of the partner authorities in a timely manner; 

b)   attention should be paid to communicating updates about any planned changes to WRS services to all elected members of partner authorities;

c)     the agendas and minutes of all WRS Board meetings should also be uploaded on to the WRS website in a timely fashion;

11) The lessons learned from the WRS shared service experience, particularly as detailed in this report, should be heeded by elected members and senior officers when considering any future proposals for shared service arrangements involving multiple partners;

12 a)  the Joint Scrutiny Protocol should be reviewed in order to take on board the lessons learned during this review; and  

b)   consideration should be given to the reinstatement of the Worcestershire Overview and Scrutiny Chairs Group as a means of feeding back the monitoring of recommendations from Joint Scrutiny exercises, as and when required.