Councillors and committees

Agenda item

CABINET MEMBER FOR CORPORATE SUPPORT UPDATE

Minutes:

Witnesses:

Zully Grant Duff, Cabinet Member for Corporate Support

 

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    A Member asked the Cabinet Member what the role of the County Council was in the new Tech 4 You service model. He raised concern that there had been several high-profile failures of this sort of model; what were the failsafes to ensure that the technology did not overlook people who needed help? He also asked whether Tech 4 You would be offered in addition to providing human contact, which was important. The Cabinet Member responded that the Tech 4 You project involved piloting tried and tested technology that was already in wide commercial use in a number of residential and supported living settings. The role of the project was to enable residents to live longer, more independent lives by understanding their individual needs. Surrey County Council was leading on the design of the service and monitoring the project to ensure its safety, while Mole Valley District Council would pilot the service. The pilot would begin in late January 2021 in the Mole Valley area and would last for a number of months, and then the service would be modified as needed based on the pilot. The pilot would be scrutinised by the Adults and Health Select Committee.

 

2.    A Member noted that there was a national Test and Trace service covering the whole of Surrey, as well as a local Test and Trace service covering Elmbridge, Epsom, Runnymede and Spelthorne boroughs. How would the Council overcome the issues that had been experienced with the national Test and Trace service, ensuring the whole of Surrey had a functional system? The Cabinet Member replied that when the Test and Trace success rates for the local and national services in Surrey were combined, the success rate stood at 85%. Surrey County Council was working in partnership with district and borough councils and using local knowledge to maximise chances of successful contact. Recently, there had been a significant increase in infection rates across Surrey, which had increased the caseload; there had been six new staff members recruited in Surrey County Council customer services to tackle this. At the end of January 2021, Woking and Surrey Heath would join the local Test and Trace system, and the remaining districts and boroughs would join the local system by mid-February 2021.

 

3.    Regarding agile working arrangements within the Council, a Member commented that, according to the results of the travel survey recently conducted amongst staff whose administrative base had been relocated to Woodhatch Place, many staff intended to travel to the new office by car, the new journey entailed an increase in average journey time compared to the journey time to staff’s previous administrative base, and most staff anticipated that they would travel into Woodhatch Place to work two days a week. Based on this, what was the total number of parking spaces at Woodhatch Place, how many staff would have Woodhatch Place designated as their administrative base, and would there be corporate WiFi installed throughout the buildings on the site? The Cabinet Member stated that there would be 473 standard parking bays, 11 disabled parking bays and 45 bicycle parking bays at Woodhatch Place. It would be the administrative base for 1,165 staff, whose different categories of work modality would determine how often they came to the site to work. The office space available at Woodhatch Place was based on a calculation of 40% of venue-based staff wanting to use office space at any one time post-Covid-19 pandemic, which amounted to 384 staff members. During the pandemic, however, only 192 staff members would be able to work at Woodhatch Place at any one time. There was currently no specific allocation of parking at Woodhatch Place. The office was designed with agile working in mind; it had no fixed workstations. Corporate WiFi, Gov WiFi and guest WiFi were installed at Woodhatch Place.

 

Naz Islam left the meeting at 11:46am.

 

4.    Noting that 75% of staff anticipated that they would travel to Woodhatch Place in a single occupant car and only 2% of staff anticipated sharing a car to travel there, a Member asked how the Council could facilitate and encourage car sharing post-Covid-19 pandemic, as car sharing was cheaper and better for the environment. The Cabinet Member agreed that car sharing was positive and should be encouraged once it was safe to do so after the pandemic.

Supporting documents: