Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 2 September 2015 as previously distributed; see link below:

http://www.dacorum.gov.uk/docs/default-source/council-democracy/resources---02-09-15---minutes3072304551156b7f9bc7ff00000246a4.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Councillor Douris raised an amendment to the minutes of the last meeting. At the last meeting he asked a question about the possibility of the Council looking at the opportunity to employ care leavers from the children looked after. 

The minutes of the Finance & Resources OSC meeting held on 16 June 2015 were confirmed by the Members present and signed by the Chairman

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received on behalf of Councillors Elliot and Imarni.

To receive any declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)           may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct For Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

None.

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements or ask questions in accordance with the rules as to public participation

None.

None.

The Chairman of the committee went through the action points from the previous meeting and the responses to those points. All Members agreed the action points.

D Skinner presented the Quarter 1 Performance and Operational Risk Register report which had been deferred from the last Finance and Resources meeting. The main point which was brought to Members attention was FIN11 in terms of performance and the red area. The main reason for this is a one off incentive to existing lease holders and inflation not panning out as expected but officers are anticipating that this will catch up as they go through the year.

Questions:

Councillor Tindall referred to page 6, CP01 and asked if there was any hard to let properties which are not identified in the figures.

Councillor Tindall referred to CP02 and asked if there were any particular people which are constantly in arrears with their rent.

D Skinner said that in reference to the hard to let properties, there are some that are more desirable than others but there isn’t a residual hard to let property which they are unable to rent. He mentioned that at present there are some arrears going through the process which are being chased up.

Councillor Ashbourn referred to page 6, CP02 and pointed out that the target has come down from 9.5% to 9%. He asked if this was part of a systematical lowering of the target or if there was a specific reason behind this.

D Skinner confirmed that it reflects the difficult environment we are in in terms of the current economy. The target was amended to reflect this.

Councillor Birnie asked for clarification on the acronym FM services.

Councillor Douris confirmed that FM Services stood for Facilities Management Services.

Outcome:

Members noted the report.

Councillor Marshall, Portfolio Holder for Environmental, Sustainability and Regulatory Services introduced the Alcohol Policy report and said that it supplements the existing Alcohol, Substance misuse policy. The previous Alcohol, Substance misuse policy was last looked at in 2012 and relates to where such substances affect the employee’s behaviour or work and could constitute gross misconduct. The policy makes it clear that if the misuse affects what the employee is doing in their work or behaviour, then it can be undertaken by the conduct and capability procedures.

The policy has the support of the Union Representatives at Dacorum Borough Council and it enables initial testing by officers that have the expertise to administer the test. If the test proved positive, then it would be further tested by an outside organisation.

Councillor Silwal arrived at 7.45pm

Questions:

Councillor Ashbourn asked if there was an intention to have a 0% intolerance policy in place in the workplace.

P O’Day - Environmental Health Officer mentioned that there had been major discussions at the Health and Safety Committee and CMT. The officer confirmed that drugs has been put to one side as they felt that it would be easier to deal with alcohol first as people can be breath tested. Once that has been embedded they will look at substance abuse.

C Troy - Group Manager for Regulatory Services, reiterated that there had been some discussions around the 0% tolerance policy however decided to look at this at a much later stage.

Councillor Ashbourn referred to the random testing and asked what the frequency of the testing would be.

C Troy replied that it possibly would be a one off testing potentially twice a year however they will need to look at how that will be implemented. The idea of this particular proposal was to get in principle the idea of random testing.

Councillor Ashbourn asked if there are any targets put in place from when the internal officers and external officers take the take from the individual.

P O’Day said that internal staff would be on standby to be at site within the hour and external staff to be at site within 2 hours.

Councillor Barnes referred to an employee being drunk at work and what the procedure would be.

C Troy confirmed that the manager would need to rely on the current policy in place which has no objective testing at present and would need to be referred to HR for further consultation.

Councillor Barnes asked what disciplinary action would be taken if an employee was considered to have drink on them whilst at work.

M Rawdon added that if the Manager felt that the individual was unfit to work they would send them home. It would then be the Managers right to commence disciplinary action against that individual. The Policy suggested it will take that element of judgement away from the Manager and give them an objective view on the situation.

Councillor Barnes asked if this policy would apply to all Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

Councillor Harden, Portfolio Holder for Residents and Corporate Services reported that this was a review for Strategic Partners for a number of years designed to update Members on the role of converting Strategic Partners into Commissioning agents.

M Rawdon, Group Manager – People, summarised the report;

·         10 Strategic Partners at present – grant funded through the Strategic Partner programme. They have been receiving grant funding from Dacorum Borough Council to deliver services for us.

·         The Council agreed that they would stop the grant funding in 2016/17 financial year and that an outcome based commissioning model would be adopted.

·         The commissioning approach will assess the needs of the people of Dacorum through statistical analysis and consultation to develop service outcomes that link closely to what the Council’s vision and priorities.

C Lynch, Community Partnerships Team Leader summarised recent events;

·         The Council are using an outcome based commissioning model, which is in line with the Cabinet office good practice which goes through a process of analyse, plan, do and review process.

·         At present the team has looked at statistical evidence base and consulted with current service users and existing staff members that work front line and at a strategic level.

·         There have been CMT and Cabinet Member led workshops that look at shaping the outcomes for the new services.

·         In the past they have funded 10 organisations however we are proposing to change this to commission 7 services.

·         The proposal in place would hope to offer a 3 year contract with an option to extend pending the performance of the contract.

Questions

Councillor Taylor congratulated the officer on the report given to Members but highlighted that some of the figures did not add up on the “Value for money” section on page 25 of the report.

C Lynch confirmed that the overall figures do add up but that a sentence outlining that £60k of funding relating to the Housing and Revenue account had been left out of the paragraph in question, this had been identified during statutory comments for the Cabinet report and has since been amended. The figures have been checked and are correct.

Councillor Taylor made reference to the 10 Strategic Partners and mentioned that he was linked heavily to the Community Action Dacorum Group, and said that the funding represented a small 8% of their annual turnover. He outlined that CAD distribute funding to other organisations and asked the officer if the Council are looking at distributing income in future by one nominated party.

C Lynch replied that at present there is an agreement in place with 10 Strategic Partners. The funds are allocated to each Strategic Partner separately and they all go through a reporting process incorporating mid - term and end of year report.

Councillor Taylor made reference to the grouping of services and how this would work in practice. He asked the officer to confirm if this was still in the confidential stages.

C Lynch mentioned that a 10% reduction be implemented upon the steer from  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

An amendment was made to the work programme to remove the item “CIL” and add on the “Car Parking Policy”.

Members were also reminded that the next meeting on 4^th November 2015 would be scheduled to start at 8pm rather than the usual time of 7.30pm due to their being a Highways meeting taking place before the Finance and Resources OSC meeting.

All Members agreed with the above changes.