Agenda item

Report of the Assistant Director, Human Resources and Shared Services, to provide the Committee with a progress update on the Shared Business Support Review.

The Committee considered the report and presentation on Shared Business Support, introduced by Tracie Evans, Chief Operating Officer, and presented by Caroline Humphrey, Head of Shared Business Support. The presentation to the Committee covered the organisational context to the project to set up a new shared business service, best practice, feedback from other authorities, progress to date, the activities covered by business support, target operating model and design principles, benefits and next steps.

In response to a question from the Committee regarding the implications for Councillors, Ms Humphrey advised that Member support work was within the scope of the project and was therefore one of the areas that was being looked at with an aim to identifying the best way of delivering the support required.

The Committee asked for more information on areas of work that the Council might no longer do, as this had been identified in the presentation as an important issue to consider. Producing paper copies of document was identified as an example of something that the organisation could cease to do; the Chief Operating Officer noted that there needed to be an initial identification of areas of activity that it might be possible to cease, and that the practical implications and whether it was in fact possible to cease any of these would then be reviewed. With regard to the example of ceasing to produce paper copies of reports and other documents, Members noted that issues such as IT confidence would have an impact on whether this was deliverable and that there would be a need to facilitate, for example, improvements in IT literacy before there could be any reliance on documentation in electronic form. The Chief Operating Officer noted that IT literacy had been identified as a general area for improvement throughout the Council, including both officers and Members, and that there was therefore a range of issues to address including the provision of good, easy to use IT, identifying training needs and delivering appropriate training and facilitating culture change.

Minute-taking was also identified as an example of business support activity to be reviewed – analysis needed to be undertaken of what meetings needed to be minuted and the level of minutes required for each type of meeting, and different options and possible technology solutions that might support this area of activity would then be considered, along with the practical implications of these.

In response to a question from the Committee regarding examples of functional admin, as covered in the section of the presentation on how the new model might work in practice, it was noted that the model was still in the process of being designed in order to deliver support functions in the most efficient way.

Ms Humphrey advised that it was anticipated that a target operating model would have been identified by the end of March 2016, with a projected launch in October or November 2016, with quick wins identified and delivered sooner. The Committee noted the importance of getting this work right, as it was an issue that affected the whole organisation, and that communications and engagement around this work were therefore also an essential aspect of the project. It was agreed that an update on this work would be brought back to the Committee later in the year.

RESOLVED

That the Committee note the background and progress update on the Shared Business Support Review.