RESOLVED: That Councillor David Coppinger be elected Chairman of the Building Control Board for the 2018/19 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED: That Councillor Norman Jorgensen be appointed Vice Chairman of the Building Control Board for the 2018/19 Municipal Year.

Apologies for absence were submitted from Councillors Michael Airey and Emma Webster.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 20 March 2018 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Board considered a report, set out in agenda pages 7 to 12, which gave an update on the ongoing Building Control transformation programme.

Marcus Franks, West Berkshire Council, asked when an updated business plan could be expected. In response Steve Broughton, Building Control Strategic Change Lead, stated that an updated plan was being drafted however it was not ready to be viewed currently. He added that the original business plan was overly optimistic and that the main issue with the updated plan was in forecasting the service’s financial position. Steve stated that any surplus made would need to be used to develop the business (for example, hiring more staff or reducing fees) as there was a legal requirement for the service to be cost neutral.

IT

Steve Broughton stated that all partners were in agreement that they wanted a single integrated IT system, and this was being provided by Tascomi. He added that this service would go live with for all new activity from 2 January 2018 for new activity. He added that importantly data held on the three legacy systems need be migrated on to Tascomi in addition to the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) data. Roger Paine, Building Control Operational and Commercial Manager, clarified that the LLGP was an address database maintained by Local Authorities and that it was a means of identifying a particular property. He added that this data needed to be transferred from each individual authority to the central Tascomi system in the next phase of the programme.

Steve Broughton stated that West Berkshire and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) had raised concerns over General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) with regards to transferring the LLP data. He added that there had been meetings were taking place between the GDPR experts in each of the 3 partner Authorities to look into resolving the issue, however this had currently put the transformation programme 5 weeks behind schedule. Roger Paine added that Wokingham Borough Council would be processing the data on the behalf of the other 2 partner Authorities as the data controller, but that each Authority would still be in ownership of their respective datasets. Roger stated that the original data sharing agreement made in 2016 would likely need to be updated to ensure that it complied with the new GDPR. David Coppinger, RBWM, stated that each Member of the board would follow this matter up with their respective Authorities to enable a swift solution to the issue.

Steve Broughton stated that other than the GDPR concerns, other aspects of Tascomi were proceeding well. Steve raised that should the delays to project continue, there could be an additional cost incurred by the service as Tascomi had allocated a specific amount of time and resources in order to complete the project, meaning that the service could have to purchase more resources from Tascomi to enable project completion.

Accomodation

Steve Broughton stated that the current accommodation being provided in Market Street (Newbury) by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Members discussed the recent performance statistics of the service.

Marcus Franks stated that performance and financial statistics should be made a standing item on the Board’s agenda.

Simon Weeks queried why there had been a reduction in achieving some of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Roger Paine clarified that this was due to a combination of staffing level issues and the high amount of staff leave that was taken over the summer months. He added that he hoped that these figures would be improved in the upcoming performance updates.

David Coppinger asked as to why the financial statistics were not included at this meeting. Steve Broughton stated that the statistics should have been made available on the day, but the data that had been supplied by the finance team had been confusing and needed clarification. He added that he was fairly confident that there would be some level of underspend this financial year.

Members asked that the financial statistics be circulated to the Board by the end of the 2018 calendar year. Members added that they would like a telephone discussion with Officers once this data was made available.

Marcus Franks asked for an update on the service’s market share position. Roger Paine stated that there had been a small and ongoing reduction in their market share in part due to large private national building control companies increasing their focus on domestic extension projects (which is a large part of the service’s workload). He added that the service currently had approximately 55-60% market share of local domestic work, but this percentage was slipping gradually.

Members stated that they wanted the next meeting of the Board to be brought forward from April 2019, to February 2019. 

Members discussed a point regarding the division of overheads and costs for non-fee earning activities and fee earning activities. It was decided that more information regarding the issue needed to be brought to the Board at a future meeting.

RESOLVED That:

1)  performance and financial statistics updates be a standing item on future agendas for Board meetings;

2)  the current financial statistics be circulated to the Board by the end of the 2018 calendar year and a telephone discussion with Building Control Officers be organised to discuss the statistics;

3)  the next meeting of the Board be scheduled for February 2019;

4)  an item and report by Barbara Richardson, Lead Officer RBWM, regarding division of overheads and costs for non-fee earning activities and fee earning activities be taken to a future meeting of the Board.