Issue - meetings

That the progress in implementing the 21^st Century Council programme be noted.

The Executive considered a report setting out the progress with the implementation of the 21^st Century Council programme.

The Executive Member for Finance went through the report and advised that Phase 1 of 21^st Century Council was now complete and the expected annual savings of £2m had been achieved.  A thorough review of Phase 1 had been carried out and as a result of feedback received from staff some changes would be made to the Phase 2 process; including redesign of the interview stages.  

Councillor Whittle reminded Members that the recent Council motion to delay the implementation of Phase 2 until a permanent Chief Executive was in post had been defeated and had this been adopted would have caused a delay of at least six months and cost at least £910k.

Members were advised that Phase 2 would be split into two stages: Environment, income, assessments, collections and payments, customer services and then Children’s, Social Care and Early Help.  It was also noted that the Member/Officer Group and the IT Reference Sub-Group had been merged to create a cross-party Member/Officer Working Group which would meet on a regular basis.

The Leader of Council felt it would be helpful if in future reports the percentage of respondents to any survey was included.  Councillor Haitham Taylor highlighted that the 21^st Century Council programme had been considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee on 11 July and this meeting had been attended by representatives from Unison.  Councillor Haitham Taylor also advised that she had subsequently met with Unison and had made a commitment to meet with them every two months going through Phase 2 of the programme.

RESOLVED:  That the progress in implementing the 21^st Century Council programme be noted.