To agree the minutes as a true
record of the meeting.
Minutes:
The minutes of the Orbis Joint Committee
meeting held on 6 July 2018 were agreed as a true record of that
meeting.
38/18
DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Share this item
All Members present are
required to declare, at this point in the meeting or as soon as
possible thereafter
(i)Any disclosable pecuniary interests and /
or
(ii)Other interests arising under the Code of Conduct in
respect of any item(s) of business being considered at this
meeting
NOTES:
·Members are reminded that they must not participate
in any item where they have a disclosable pecuniary
interest
·As well as an interest of the Member, this includes
any interest, of which the Member is aware, that relates to the
Member’s spouse or civil partner (or any person with whom the
Member is living as a spouse or civil partner)
·Members with a significant personal interest may
participate in the discussion and vote on that matter unless that
interest could be reasonably regarded as prejudicial.
Minutes:
There were none.
39/18
PROCEDURAL MATTERS
Share this item
39/18a
MEMBERS' QUESTIONS
Share this item
The deadline for Members’ questions is
12pm four working days before the meeting (08/10/18).
Minutes:
There were none.
39/18b
PUBLIC QUESTIONS
Share this item
The deadline for public questions is seven
days before the meeting (05/10/18).
Adrian Stockbridge, Head of
Strategy Performance & Change, Surrey County Council
Key
points raised during the discussion:
1.Members discussed potential services within the
Orbis Partnership that it would be
beneficial for the Committee to receive an update on. It was
decided to delay agreement on which service to receive an update
from in January 2019 until the end of the meeting as discussions
during the meeting could reveal issues that the Committee may wish
to consider in more detail through a Service Update.
Actions/ further information to be provided:
None
RESOLVED:
That the Orbis Joint Committee
reviewed and approved its forward plan
Michael Coughlin, Director of
Customer, Digital and Transformation, Surrey County
Council
Kevin Foster, Chief Operating
Officer, East Sussex County Council
David Kuenssberg, Executive Director of Finance and
Resourcing, Brighton and Hove City Council
Louise Lawson, Senior Principal
Accountant, Surrey County Council
Adrian Stockbridge – Head
of Strategy, Performance & Change, Surrey County
Council
Key
points raised during the discussion:
Clarity was sought on why the Full Year Variances
for Services within the Orbis
Partnership had been omitted from the report. Officers indicated
that spending across service areas was difficult to predict several
months prior to the end of the financial year due to a lack of
clarity around potential areas of underspend and overspend. Members
were, however, advised that there was the likelihood of an
underspend of £100,000 within the Finance Team, a saving
which would benefit all partners. Further information was requested
on whether the savings forecast for Orbis in 2018/19 were achievable and the Committee
was advised that there was uncertainty around some of the savings
projected but that steps were being taken to mitigate the risks to
delivering these.
Discussions turned to the Orbis Joint Operating Budget for the financial year
2018/19, the Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) contribution to
which had been increased by £0.2 million. Members were
informed that this was a technical adjustment in BHCC’s
financial contribution to Orbis as
funding allocations had been moved from one area of the budget to
another. This enabled the variance to be agreed through
BHCC’s Targeted Budget Management process. Officers agreed to
highlight variations in BHCC’s contribution to Orbis more clearly through financial reporting
mechanisms in future.
Further information was requested on the overspend
within the Property Service. The Committee was advised that it may
be necessary to recruit more staff into the Property Service to
meet core objectives. Members heard that the Service was holding a
number of vacancies and that a restructure would be undertaken in
2019 to determine posts that could be deleted.
Clarity was sought on progress that had been made in
implementing the recommendations made through the Internal Audit
report. Members were advised that the audit had taken place
immediately following BHCC’s inclusion in the partnership
which meant that delivering against these recommendations was about
continued integration. Specific reference was made to the work of
the Finance Team which was working to automate more aspects of its
financial reporting and the support that it provided to individual
services with the partnership.
The Committee was advised that the Property &
Design Service within BHCC had resisted efforts to integrate with
Orbis which had not been as proactive
as other BHCC services in terms of integration with Orbis which had created some challenges around
implementing Orbis budget processes.
Efforst were being made to ensure that
this service plays a bigger part in budget processes. BHCC would
become part of the budget setting and management process from the
2019/2020 financial year and this would support a sense of shared
ownership ...
view the full minutes text for item 41/18
To provide an update on key
performance metrics within the partnership.
Minutes:
Declarations of interest:
None
Witnesses:
Michael Coughlin, Director of
Customer, Digital and Transformation, Surrey County
Council
Kevin Foster, Chief Operating
Officer, East Sussex County Council
David Kuenssberg, Executive Director of Finance and
Resourcing, Brighton and Hove City Council
Adrian Stockbridge – Head
of Strategy, Performance & Change, Surrey County
Council
Key
points raised during the discussion:
An introduction to the report was provided by
officers who gave the Committee an overview of workforce data that
had been collected across the three authorities. Members heard that
there were some variations in how this information was collected
across the partners and that it was necessary to standardise and
create consistency in the workforce data that was collected across
the three authorities. The Committee was advised that Orbis had an ageing workforce profile and, as such,
a strategy was being devised to target recruitment towards a
younger demographic.
The Committee discussed the variation in sickness
absence across the three authorities. This was in part explained by
the differing methods and timeframes used to monitor sickness
absence.
Actions/
further information to be provided:
None
RESOLVED:
That the Orbis Joint Committee noted
the performance statistics presented.
Surrey County
Council is undertaking a large scale transformation programme to
address identified performance, financial and organisational
culture issues to improve service delivery to residents and value
for money.
The key components
of the programme include a Vision for Surrey in 2030, a refreshed
approach to partnership work, the development of
‘Deals’ with the community, full business cases for
critical service areas and enabling functions, revised financial
systems, processes and practices and a culture audit and change
programme.
Michael Coughlin, Director of
Customer, Digital and Transformation, Surrey County
Council
Kevin Foster, Chief Operating
Officer, East Sussex County Council
David Kuenssberg, Executive Director of Finance and
Resourcing, Brighton and Hove City Council
Adrian Stockbridge – Head
of Strategy, Performance & Change, Surrey County
Council
Key
points raised during the discussion:
The Committee
received an introduction to the report from officers who provided
an overview of Surrey County Council’s (the Council)
Transformation Programme. Members heard that there was a
significant challenge to the SCC’s financial sustainability
over the coming years and that the Transformation Programme aimed
to address this through a rapid and fundamental shift in both
culture and service delivery across the organisation. £40
million of savings were required for the 2018/19 financial year to
avoid drawing on more of the Council’s reserves.
Officers advised that
SCC had temporarily paused the integration of its HR and Finance
teams into the Orbis partnership. This
was to ensure that SCC had the resource and capability within these
services to support delivery of the Transformation Programme.
SCC’s HR and Finance Teams would continue to cooperate and
collaborate with its Orbis partners but
further integration of these services would be on hold until late
2019/ early 2020.
Further information
was requested on what impact this pause would have on delivery
against agreed savings for the financial year 2018/19. It was
confirmed that originally budgeted savings within Orbis HR and Finance functions had been achieved,
It would be necessary to adapt the integration process in order to
deliver the savings targeted to be made in 2019/20.
Members were informed
that ‘bridge roles’ had been created for HR and Finance
to ensure their continued co-ordinated management across the
partnership, which would help to facilitate the integration of
these services into the partnership when SCC was in a position to
do so. Officers also highlighted the development of an Action Plan
to support a process of integration that incorporated the
requirements of the sovereign partners. Members requested that the
Action Plan be brought to the January meeting of the Orbis Joint Committee to keep them informed about
the progress of the integration agenda.
The conversation
turned to the publication of the Chartered Institute of Public
Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) report on the financial
sustainability of SCC. The Committee heard that comments made about
the Orbis Partnership included within
the report had been taken out of context and did not reflect
SCC’s view of its Orbis partners.
It was acknowledged that the report had caused some consternation
at BHCC and ESCC due to the phrasing of parts of the report
relating to Orbis and because
Orbis partners hadn’t been
offered the appropriate opportunity to comment on and suggest
amendments to the final report.
Actions/ further information to be provided:
The Orbis Partnership Integration Action Plan to be
included on the Joint Committee’s forward work programme for
its meeting in January.
The Procurement Service has been operating
under a jointly appointed Head of Procurement & Commissioning
since September 2013 and began operating under an integrated Senior
Management Team in April 2015 (this delivered 23% savings against
the previous combined costs for Tier 2 and 3 for Procurement).
In April 2017, the integration of the ESCC and
SCC procurement functions completed. Not only was this designed to
reduce costs (£345k budget savings for 17/18, 11% of the
operating budget) but the restructure offered the opportunity to
also provide a broader ‘cradle to grave’ offer with a
greater emphasis on the development of longer term category
strategies to support commissioning; alongside a supplier and
contract management focus to ensure value for money (VFM) is
delivered through the lifecycle of our contracts.
Furthermore, a move away from small specialist
teams, to wider professional groupings, offered the potential to
use resource more flexibly and efficiently across teams and between
authorities, as well as offering the possibility for improved
knowledge sharing.
It is now nearly 18 months since this model
went live (the formal integration of the BHCC has now also recently
completed) and this paper offer the opportunity to assess the
extent to which this ambition has been realised.
Minutes:
Declarations of interests:
None
Witnesses:
Ross Duguid, Head of
Procurement and Commissioning, Surrey County Council
Key
points raised during the discussions:
The Committee
received an introduction to the report from officers who provided
an overview of how the Procurement Service within the Orbis Partnership had performed since April 2017.
Members were informed that steps had been taken to create a more
flexible service and these were summarised for the Committee. In
particular, Members heard that a significant amount of work had
taken place to improve the efficiency of the Procurement Service
through changing the way the Team was structured, improving
processes for categorising projects as well as streamlining
governance processes. Officers provided an overview of the three
teams within the Service and the steps that had been taken since
April 2017 in order to make them more responsive to the needs of
customers.
Further information
was sought by Members on steps to join up procurement with district
and borough councils within East Sussex and Surrey. The Committee
heard that many district and borough councils were receptive to the
idea of aligning procurement activity more closely as they
recognised thebenefits of bringing
procurement functions together which included advantages such as
increased presence in the market, improved information sharing and
reduced duplication of activity.
Member agreed that
the Committee should receive an update on the Property Service at
its meeting in January 2019.
Actions/further information to be provided:
The Orbis Joint Committee to receive an update on the
Property Service at its meeting in January 2019.
RESOLVED:
That
the Orbis Joint Committee
note the progress that the procurement department
has made in delivering the ambition set out in the above summary;
and
The Joint Committee is sighted of the further
developments that are planned to address areas that have not yet
been delivered.
45/18
DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING
Share this item
The next meeting of the Orbis Joint Committee
will be held on 21 January 2019.
Minutes:
The Committee noted that its next meeting
would be held on 21 January 2019.