Agenda and minutes

1.1  Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Bunt and Cllr Brett.

1.2  Apologies for officer absence were

2.1  None.

3.1  None.

4.1  Minutes were approved.

4.2  Matters arising

5.1.1  Members referred to the quality check information circulated and the report provided on page 15.  Members requested for the Head of Business Analysis and Complaints to return to the Commission to provide more information about the quality checks on service areas and to explain why the percentage of inaccurate record keeping is high. 

Members agreed to invite the Head of Business Analysis and Complaints to the next meeting.

5.1  The Chair welcomed Gifty Edila, Corporate Director Legal, HR and Regulatory Services and Dan Paul, Head of HR and Organisational Development from London Borough of Hackney to the meeting.

5.2  The reports related to this discussion item are on pages 17 - 128 of the agenda.  The key points highlighted from the reports in the agenda were:

5.2.1  Changes to the HR service commenced in 2013.  The changes were implemented in 2 phases; the first phase was introduced in 2014 and the second phase ‘the new business partner model’ became operational from April 2015.

5.2.2  The Council appointed the Head of HR and OD to carry out implementation of the new workforce strategy in the organisation.

5.2.3  The documents in the agenda provided information about the Council’s workforce strategy and how the Council monitors both the changes to the workforce and staff morale as services’ change and resources reduce.

5.2.4  Through the relevant Cabinet Member and Occupational Health, the health of the organisation is monitored.  The new model is fully implemented and following the period of change, the Council has not encountered any increase in external tribunal or grievance cases.

5.2.5  HR view their role as helping to explain, amend or lessen the impact of change on the individual.  HR are there to make sure the Council has effective policies in place to protect and support. 

5.2.6  It was reported that HR have a solid relationship with the Unions and employees. 

5.2.7  The new business partner model strengthens how the organisation manages its staff - the core asset of the organisation.

5.2.8  The business partner model provides managers with support for people management.  HR introduced the changes with a 12 month transition period and they provided managers with training, development and information about the systems to enable managers to adapt to the change.  A piece of work was undertaken to review processes to ensure that all service areas would operate to the “freedoms within a framework” philosophy and reduce unnecessary processes and control systems.  This is to enable employees to be innovative in the way services are delivered and give managers the flexibility to operate within the current financial climate.

5.2.9  As the number of staff reduce, the skills required will change and the employees remaining will be doing more.  Services are likely to need to change and restructure regularly in order to meet the financial and service delivery challenges. It is important throughout the change that the Council continues to support its employees. 

5.2.10  The employee profile is updated annual and this document is publically available on the Council website.  The changes in the employee profile are monitored to ensure the changes are not adversely impacting on one particular group.

5.2.11  The last staff survey in 2013 showed that staff morale was good and a new survey is scheduled for May 2016.

5.2.12  To date the Council has lost 700 staff.  In 2010 the Council opened the voluntary redundancy (VR) scheme and 190 left through VR.  Since 2010  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Discussion about draft report and recommendations

6.1  The Chair introduced this item and reminded Members the draft report was circulated for comment.  The Chair highlighted in tandem the report was sent to Finance and Legal officers to review the recommendations in the report and provide financial and legal comments. 

6.2  The Chair asked Members for their comments, queries and amendments.  The Chair advised any comments submitted or raised in the meeting would be updated and the report would be agreed at the next meeting on 11^th November 2015. 

6.3  The Chair advised he had received comments from Cllr Rennison and Cllr Sharman, these comments were outlined to the Commission.

6.4  Members agreed the suggested changes and amendments submitted.

6.5  The Chair agreed to make the changes to the report.

6.6  Question, Answers and Discussion

(i)  Members had a discussion about promotion activity for their scrutiny review report ‘Delivery Public Services - Whole Place, Whole System Approach’.  Members requested for the Communications team to issue a press release to promote their scrutiny report. 

(ii)  Members suggested having an article in Hackney Today.  Members commented it was important for the public and key stakeholders to know the Commission had identified a set of service redesign principles to assist with developing cost efficient services and that the Council was thinking ahead in relation to austerity. 

(iii)  Members discussed holding a round table discussion to promote the service redesign principles with key stakeholders once the report was fully published and the Council’s Executive response was received. 

7.1  The Chair introduced this item and referred to The London Proposition document in the agenda.

7.2  The Chair informed the Commission he recently attended the Scrutiny Chairs Group meeting where they had a discussion with Mayor Pipe about the devolution proposal for London.  From this discussion he noted some devolution areas were more developed than others and some areas may change.  However it is anticipated that devolution will happen and is the direction of travel for the future.

7.3  The Chair highlighted devolution as the next potential topic for review by the Commission.  The Commission discussed completing a review looking at devolution and governance arrangements. 

7.4  Members commented they were not totally convinced Whitehall had accepted the need to change how services were delivered. 

7.5  Members commented Devolution seemed to need a sizeable investment and would entail taking on a large proportion of risk before devolution could be agreed. 

7.6  There was a discussion about the Commission presenting its views on devolution and the implications for Hackney.  Members discussed looking at how the redesigning of services in Hackney could benefit from devolution and what the management and governance arrangements for devolved budgets at regional or pan London level would look like.

7.7  Members commented the review could look at how public sector service providers would reflect service user need at the 3 possible levels of provision (pan London, regional and local borough level).  Members expressed the importance of getting the governance arrangements right and how it would fit with the different accountability structures.  It was noted local authorities have a democratic process but other public service providers like the NHS and employment service providers do not.  Members were not reassured the pan London discussions to date had worked out the detail of the accountability arrangements and how they would work in practice.

7.8  Members outlined the review could cover:

·  The approach that should be taken for devolution

·  How the accountability arrangements would reflect the public pound

·  How risk would be managed.

7.9  Some reservations were raised about the focus, size and benefit of doing a review on devolution.  Members discussed the need for experts to feed into this review and identifying who would benefit from the information in the review.  Members agreed they should choose one subject area and look at how other areas as the focus for the review.  Members agreed they needed to ensure the review was manageable and would be useful. 

8.1  Members noted the work programme for G&R is on pages 239 – 246 of the agenda.

8.2  The Chair informed Members the next steering group meeting is on 18^th November 2015 at 6pm.

8.3  Members discussed the work programme and made the following comments and suggestions for discussion items in the work programme:

·  Briefing from the Chief Executive at the next meeting about the senior management restructure

·  Discussion with the Communication and Consultation Team about the Hackney a Place for Everyone consultation programme and the Council’s communication plans to inform and engage residents in a meaningful way about the budget setting process and the changes the Council is making

·  Briefing on the work being carried out in services areas on income generation

·  Check with CYPS if they scheduled to receive an update about the operation of the Hackney Learning Trust service model

·  Receive an update on the employment and opportunities cross cutting programme.

Members agreed to the suggestions above.

9.1  None.