Agenda and minutes

The members had before them:

A.     The Agenda papers (previously circulated);

B.     Presentation slides in relation to the Place Partnership; and

C.     The Minutes of the meeting held on 23 June 2015 (previously circulated)    

Copies of documents A and B will be attached to the signed Minutes.

Apologies were received from Mr S C Cross.

Councillor Kit Taylor declared an Other Disclosable Interest in relation to the Place Partnership as he was a member of the Hereford and Worcester Fire & Rescue Authority (a partner authority) and the Portfolio Holder with responsibility for Planning Services and Housing at Bromsgrove District Council (a potential partner authority).

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services  in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 4 September 2015).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

None.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 23 June 2015 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Cabinet Member for Localism and Communities, and the Head of Community and Environment were invited to provide an update on progress on Act Local.

Act Local in Worcestershire meant communities coming together to do things for themselves. To work it needed people to use their time, ideas and skills. The Council aimed to inspire people to get involved by sharing examples of good work already happening across Worcestershire, and by sign-posting people to sources of help, information and advice.

As outlined in the agenda, the Act Local in Worcestershire Framework identified four key areas which were crucial to delivering this vision:

·         Community Leadership (role of local members)

·         Community Offer (new ways of delivering services)

·         Community Right to Challenge to deliver services and bid for assets

·         Communication (working with partners, engagement and feedback).

As the Council's budgets continued to reduce, the Act Local Framework provided a methodology by which local communities (in partnership with the County Council) could sustain services.  The Act Local Framework (Communities) was attached at Appendix 1,  there was also a Partnership version available.

During the ensuing discussion, the following main points were raised:

The Library Service was one of the best examples of new ways of delivering services with the help of volunteers. For example, in Wythall, a charity 'Wythall Together' had been set up to operate the library.

Local people had also helped operate community transport, assisted by funding from the Worcestershire Councillors' Divisional Fund and from Bromsgrove District Council. It was understood that the Changing Futures Funding had been used to initiate similar schemes in Hagley and Belbroughton.Community Transport was continuing to develop and Community Action Malvern had been recognised as working particularly well.

The aim of Project Optimise was to work with Districts to reduce unnecessary overlap in service areas such as highways, street cleansing and emergency planning. Work was progressing.

Bishampton Pub and Post Office was a good example of the success of the Community Right to Challenge.  The Parish Council had stepped in to deliver them. Each District had a list of buildings within communities deemed to be community assets on which communities had a right to bid. 

The Council was supporting parishes through the bi annual Parish Conference.  All parishes, not just those who were members of the County Association Local Councils (CALC) were invited to take part.  The Parish Conference promoted the benefits of qualifications such as General Powers of Competence and would discuss, for example, how areas might benefit from Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) payments.

The Council had funded the Changing Futures Fund for 3 years. An evaluation of the benefits of the fund and how it had helped increase the number of volunteers had been commissioned and was due to be published shortly.  In the short term, the fund could provide business support to enable parts of the voluntary sector to become self-financing.  . The Council's role was to guide those wishing to volunteer to information and opportunities.

The Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 142.

The Cabinet Member for Transformation and Commissioning and the Director of Commercial and Change were invited to provide an update on the development of Place Partnership Ltd (formerly the Joint Property Vehicle).

The Director gave a presentation outlining what had been achieved, current Property Assets, the status and benefits of the Place Partnership and the development of a new Property Asset Strategy.

Achievements to date included:

·      Capital receipts approaching £33m

·      Revenue savings >£2.5m

·      Sold 99 freehold properties

·      Disposed of 33 leases

·      Avoided maintenance expenditure of nearly £5m

·      Reduced office buildings down from 17 to 4

·      Released 60,000 m2 of accommodation for sale or alternative use

·      Reduced energy consumption/m2 by 22% and a reduction in carbon emissions of 24%.

Examples of case studies included:

·      Parkside Bromsgrove – various partners had moved in demonstrating lower running costs and closer working together

·      DEFRA/HMRC moving into County Hall – better use of this asset was made possible by Flexible and Mobile Working (FAME) – social workers were working out in the community where it was felt they should be

·      Other case studies included Job Centre Plus, Kidderminster Library, Community led library services and Hartlebury Castle.

The Place Partnership was an innovative public sector owned

commercial property management business which went live on 1 September 2015.  It had six shareholders from representatives of the founding partner organisations: Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, Redditch Borough Council, Warwickshire Police, West Mercia Police, Worcester City Council and Worcestershire County Council.  

The Shareholders were members of the Board, which set the direction of the partnership, dealing with remuneration, any budget variance and financial performance.

Andrew Pollard, an experienced Solicitor and Barrister, had recently been appointed as the new Managing Director. Worcestershire County Council's Director of Commercial and Change, Sander Kristel was a Non-Executive Director of the Board.

Benefits of the Place Partnership:

·      Reducing the portfolio size had resulted in £75m savings.

·      Housing land had been released for private sector investment, creating development and employment opportunities.  City and Town centre regeneration opportunities i.e. whole town reviews.  Total savings could be as much as £115m over 10 years.

·      Service transformation, service integration, co-location and agile working practices.

A new asset strategy for 2016-2020 was being developed.  New strategic goals included:

·      To manage the Property Assets to ensure optimal efficiency and effectiveness

·      To pursue the maximisation of value by seeking opportunities for residential, commercial or other economic development

·      To influence service re-design and integration through effective challenge and design

·      To exploit opportunities for income generation.

During the ensuing discussion the following main points were made.

Members asked whether the County Council consulted with relevant District Councils and complied with Local Development Plans.  For example, what level of consultation was there if this Council planned to sell land marked for retail/industry in the local plan, and a housing developer was interested in buying. The Panel was advised that the County Council would initially need to consider whether planning permission might be granted.

Members asked at what stage in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 143.

Members had asked to discuss data on complaints, Hub customer satisfaction, call and abandonment rates, and long and short term sickness absence data. The aim was to determine whether the data might give an indication of the effect on staff of changes brought about by 'Smarter Working' and help determine whether any further scrutiny work should be undertaken.  Senior Officers were invited to aid discussion or answer questions on issues relating to their area as follows:

·         Hub data – Sarah Daniel, Programmes and Relationship Manager

·         Complaints – Annette Stock, Complaints Manager

·         Sickness Absence – Elaine Chandler, Head of Human Resources (sent apologies)

Hub Data

Members were advised that the remit of the Programmes and Relationship Manager included managing the Hub (now run by Civita UK).  The Council was responding to changing needs of customers by developing access to services in different ways. In the past, most enquiries had typically been through the telephone.  Since 2013/14 the development of self-service channels for high volume, non-complex services, such as reporting a pothole or finding a bus service had been successful. Performance against average handling time or speed to answer was no longer comparable to what it was 2 or 3 years ago as the Council's "assisted" (telephony and face to face) channels focussed more and more on complex enquiry types. 

Customer Demand

Worcestershire County Council's customer contact was received through the following channels:

·         The Customer Contact Centre (The Worcestershire Hub Shared Service [WHSS] call centre);

·         District Customer Service Centres in both the north and the south of the County;

·         Customer self-service via the Worcestershire County Council (WCC) website.

Customer Satisfaction
The Council currently measured customer satisfaction through a survey used across all "assisted" channels.  The survey measured the customer's opinion mainly on:

·         How well the Worcestershire Hub dealt with the enquiry;

·         Whether the customer had visited the website first to submit their enquiry and why they weren't able to;

·         The customer's experience around resolution of the enquiry.

This information was then used to identify any issues and was shared with client service areas so that directorates could target where service levels and customer expectations were not met.

In 2013/14, 89% of customers were very or fairly satisfied with the service they received with a sample size of 3,606.  This fell slightly to 81% in 2014/15 although the sample size was 12% lower than the previous year. For the first quarter of 2015/16 73% of customers were satisfied or fairly satisfied.

Abandonment Rates

The Panel had asked for information on call abandonment rates and was advised that in 2013/14 56,677 calls were abandoned out of a total demand of 600,094.  In 2014/15 (up until the end of June 2015) 24,295 were abandoned out of a total of 439,615 calls.  It was important to understand that these figures were for the entire Worcestershire Hub Shared Service (WHSS) whose partners included the County Council, Malvern Hills District Council and Worcester City Council.  It had not been possible to break down the figures by partner authority.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 144.