Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Rice, Wilson and Bloch.  Councillors Browne and Williams substituted in accordance with the Constitution rules on substitutions as set out in part 4, rules of procedures, section B, Committee rules, and paragraph 55.

The Chair will consider the admission of any of any late items of urgent business. (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with at items  6 & 15 below).

There were no items of urgent business submitted.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member's judgment of the public interest and if this interest affects their financial position or the financial position of a person or body as described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct and/or if it relates to the determining of any approval, consent, licence, permission or registration in relation to them or any person or body described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct.

 There were no declarations of interest

To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, paragraph 29 of the Council’s constitution.

 None

To consider the minutes from the meetings held on: 11^th January, 25 January, 07 February, 15 February 2011, 22 February . The minutes from the meetings held on the  10 March  and 22 March are to follow.

The minutes of the meetings held on the 11^th January, 25 January, 07 February, 15 February, 22 February, 10^th March, 22 March  were agreed as correct records.

To consider any items admitted at item 2 above

There were no new items of urgent business  to be considered under this item.

To provide an overview of the proposed restructuring of Adult Services & Commissioning business unit and Safeguarding & Strategic Services’ business unit and seek agreement for some restructure decisions in  this service to be made by delegated authority by the Director in consultation with the Chair of the General Purposes Committee following consultation and consideration of the equality impact assessments.

The Director of Adult, Culture and Community introduced the report which set out the proposed restructure of Adult services and Commissioning business unit and Safeguarding & Strategic Services. Essentially these two services were merging to become a single Adults service which would mean the deletion of one head of service post.   The new structure of the service  would respond to :

• Promoting a borough where every adult had an equal chance of having a healthy safe and fulfilling life

• The current challenges placed on adult social care which involved considerable reductions in grant funding

• Changes within a framework of new policy directives from central government

The service would in turn develop a clear balance within available resources, of universal targeted and specialist provision, including the introduction of personalisation.  The report further set out the strategic direction and the priorities for the service and listed the staffing restructures to be undertaken.  Some of these  decisions were to be considered at a future committee meeting and others  proposed to be taken by delegated authority by the Director of the service in consultation with the Chair of the General Purposes Committee. However, following distribution of the report and consultation with the Employee side the Director of Adults, Community and Culture service proposed that these delegated  decisions also be considered by the General Purposes Committee.

The Chair advised  the Committee that this report should be treated as an interim report as a number of the restructures outlined in the report were subject to statutory consultation and decisions would, as previously reported, come back to the Committee.  The Committee were advised that further fuller report on the staffing structures of the new directorate, Adults and Housing services would follow to the Corporate Committee in late June /July.

RESOLVED

1. That the overview of the current and proposed future shape of the service and summary of the proposed restructures set out in appendix 1 be noted.

2. That the following reports  be considered by the Committee on staffing restructures and unit closures, on the conclusion of staff and public  consultation:

• Alexandra  Road Crisis unit
• Adult Services drop in centres
• The Haven
• Woodside Day Centre
• Six8Four Centre
• Cranwood
• The Red House
• Broadwater Lodge
• Whitehall Street
• New Reablement Service
• Realignment of the assessment and Personalisation Service

The report will propose a revised support service to elected Members and set out the reorganisation of staffing in Local Democracy &Member Services  for agreement.

The Assistant Chief Executive presented the report which set out the reorganisation of Local Democracy and Member’s Services with the timetable for implementation outlined in paragraph 7.5 of the report. The proposals involved deleting 13 posts and the remaining structure provided 17 posts with greater or lesser degrees of changes to job descriptions. The service offer to be provided by the new structure was set out in page 54 of the agenda pack and a visual presentation of the reorganised structure was also set out in Appendix 2 of the interleaved report for members to consider. Staff consultation information along with the trade union response to the consultation was also attached. Members noted that ,where there were staff  ringfenced for more than one position, they would still undertake one interview and be asked to state their preference order for the positions. The interview questions would be wide ranging to also reflect the positions that were being applied for.

Members enquired about the future plans for mayoral transport .It was noted that there would be a forthcoming review of mayoral transportation. The  service had already utilised on the expiry of the existing car lease by altering the arrangements to allow less usage of motor transport. Travel to future mayoral engagements, where motor transport was the only option, had been looked at and it had been calculated that there would need to be provision of this to 70 engagements.  The majority of the remaining engagements the Mayor was envisaged to make independent transportation plans for.

The Committee were advised that a member appointment panel had that morning, following an interview process, appointed David McNulty, to the post of Head of Local Democracy and Member Services .

RESOLVED

1. That the Member support Service offer from LDMS at appendix 3 be noted.
2. That the staffing structure at appendix 2 be agreed taking into account the responses to formal consultation detailed in paragraph 11 and appendix 5 and also paying due regard to the authority’s public sector equalities duties.

 The committee will be asked to approve the restructure of the Council’s Human Resources service.

Members were asked to consider proposals for the restructure of the Council’s Human Resources service in order to meet a Council approved level of savings of £884k for the Human Resources and Personnel Services. The Committee were advised that as a result of the Finance and HR Support Functions Reviews and the Children’s business support and development review it had been identified that the best configuration for these  HR related services was to bring them together and enable them report to the Head of Human Resources. It was noted that as a result of this amalgamation the Head of Human Resources would  be responsible for :

·        Schools Personnel

·        Payroll work of officers in Leisure, Catering, Transport and Parking /Enforcement services

·        Schools Health and Safety Work

·        SAP establishment maintenance work from the financial systems team in Corporate Finance.

Members noted the current structure of the service set out in pages 84-86 and proposed structure set out on page 88. The post which had been deleted were further highlighted in Appendix B which were a summary of changed posts including deleted posts.

The Head of Human Resources communicated some minor anomalies in the report which did not impact on the final recommendations of the report.  These included:

• Appendix A - HR Support - there should be an additional scale 4 post included in the new structure.
• Schools Payroll& Employee Admin – Schools Pay and admin team – the single PO1 post should read PO2/3,SO2 post should be removed and there were 5xSc6/SO1 in the new structure.

The Committee noted  that Appendix F of the report contained mainly union comments from Unison with some comments from the GMB union.

Members enquired about potential increased income for the service from sharing recruitment services with Waltham Forest. It was noted that these discussions were at an early stage with £20k of funding secured to take this investigation of shared activity further forward.

 Following the reduction in posts responsible for  health and safety provision, Members further sought assurances that the level of health and safety management provision provided to schools would be maintained.  It was explained to the Committee that, the reduction in these posts was responding to feedback in the consultation where this was highlighted as a savings area. The Committee were informed that the Corporate Health and Safety manager would be covering these duties and  this post holder would ensure that the necessary health and safety regulations were met.

 The Committee were advised the due to pressing timescales to complete the report the equalities impact assessment enclosed was not fully completed. The Committee agreed to consider and agree the recommendations of the report subject to considering the completed equalities impact assessment at their meeting on the 19^th May 2011.

RESOLVED

1. That the revised post changes and deletions detailed in Appendix B be approved, taking into account the outcome of the consultation outlined in Appendix F and paying due regard to the authority’s public sector equalities duties.

2. That  the revised service offer outlined in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 118.

The attached report sets out the proposals for re-structuring the Youth Offending Service to achieve financial savings and remain within budget.

The report set out proposals for the restructuring of the Youth Offending Service which was required to achieve the financial savings and remain within budget. The Youth Justice Board had contributed to the compilation of the report and recommendations . Several projects were due end  by the end of March 2011 due to the expiry of external grants and there was no alternative funding to continue these projects. The staff involved were on fixed term contracts. The Youth Justice Grant for 2011/12 has been reduced and the new structure has been drawn up to reflect these reductions. The re-structure has been designed to have the least effect as possible on services to young offenders and their families and to achieve the Youth Justice Board indicators in relation to reducing the number of first time entrants to the criminal justice system, reduce re-offending and reduce the use of custody

There were 7 members of staff leaving the organisation through voluntary redundancy and under the new structure the remaining staff   would have a  new generic and flexible support role. The operational managers managing the service would be reduced from three to two.

The Committee noted that the timing of the review did allow displaced staff from the Youth Service to be considered for roles in the Youth Offending Service.  The Equalities Impact Assessment had been distributed to key stake holders including Children and Young People’s Service.  Responses had included a strong recommendation to  provide a Turkish speaking part time support worker to assist with the contact. A further recommendation from the consultation was to convert the part time reception worker to a full time post as there was a need to securely and appropriately meet the young people who were attending the service. These suggestions had been accommodated in the restructure proposals.

 Clarification was sought on redundancy arrangements for the employees on fixed term yearly contracts which were due to end. The Committee noted that these employees would not receive a redundancy payment as they had been on fixed term contracts for less than two years. Further to questions from the committee on the number of these staff displaced , according to the previous structure this would mean that 3 fixed term contract staff would be leaving the organisation.

The Committee  noted that the revised grant allocation,  that would contribute to funding the service, was not ringfenced  and expressed concern about the future sustainability of the service should this funding not be agreed for this area. The Committee were informed that there were strong recommendations for youth justice work to continue to be funded and for it to remain a key priority of the Council.  It was also a legislative requirement to provide a  health related post working with young people and the PCT related funding would hopefully contribute to funding a mental health worker in the Adults outreach team. The service would   nonetheless prepare for any eventuality  together with making  strong recommendations to the Council and agencies to keep to previous  ...  view the full minutes text for item 119.

Agreement will be sought from the committee to begin the process  of establishing a new shared economic development service for Haringey and Waltham Forest.

The report considered by the Committee sought approval for establishing a new Shared Economic Development Service for Haringey and Waltham Forest including the 30 day consultation period with staff and their Trades Unions.  The outline service description and proposed organisational chart and ring fenced recruitment schedule were appended to the report for the Committee’s consideration.  This was potentially the first shared service with Waltham forest to begin to be established. Work areas to be shared were programme management team and core economic development with a reconfigured Haringey Guarantee Delivery Team. There would be a total of 17 posts in the new shared service with additional delivery and programme management posts to be created if and when sub contracts for local delivery of the Work Programme were secured. Delivery Team and  Programme Officers, and the Film Officer posts would be  Haringey posts with Head of Economic Development, Economic Development Manager, Economic Development Officers and Economic Development Support Officer being shared service posts open to  officers from Haringey and Waltham Forest.

The Committee enquired about the total cost  of this shared service and what amounts each borough would be contributing to the cost of the service.   There was further discussion on the work of the  programme delivery team who had been successful in  generating funding for Haringey related programmes and clarification was sought  how they would work on Waltham Forest projects. It was reported that there were a lesser number  of delivery  projects in Waltham  Forest. It was further estimated that  there would be £500k  allocated for Haringey delivery programmes  with £340k expenditure on staff. In terms of the Haringey Guarantee programme, there would be additional programme management  posts created if the shared service was successful in obtaining sub contracts for local delivery from the Government’s Work Programme scheme.  It was noted that the organisation of the Haringey Work Guarantee programme would remain in Haringey.  The Committee felt that it would  be useful to have an understanding of  counterpart member views on this  shared service and on  its distribution of responsibilities to understand  if they were in favour of them or had concerns. It was noted that there had been close working  between  Waltham Forest Council and the Councils HESP team in compiling these proposals with both Council Cabinets agreeing to  the development of this shared service.

The members of the Committee were in  agreement that the final report to Committee which would be considered on the 19^th May would need to contain information on :

• Cost of the service  and  likely future cost
• The division of funding to the shared service and which part of the service each borough’s funding will contribute to
• The percentage of the work completed by the Shared Service for Waltham Forest Council.
• Clarification on who the  members of staff in the shared service will ultimately be employed by.
• The benefits of being a partner in this shared service

The  discussion indicated a strong need for a set of principle information in  reports on shared services  ...  view the full minutes text for item 120.

The report will set out proposals for the reorganisation of services into a new single frontline service to deliver the allocated budget savings. The services  p that form part  of this restructure are Frontline services and elements of services provided by the Safer Stronger Communities business unit.

The Cabinet agreed on the 25^th January to the amalgamation of Frontline Services with the elements of services provided by Safer Stronger Communities business unit into a new single Frontline Service. Within this report Cabinet agreed that a  further report setting out the details of the reorganisation should be presented to the General Purposes Committee. The report  containing this information was now provided to the Committee and contained details of the savings to be made by the Council as a result of this reorganisation . A proportion of these savings £1.4million(of  the total 3.6 million savings to be made) had been predicated on the disestablishment of the Neighbourhood Management Service which had previously been considered at General Purposes Committee meetings on the 15^th February  and again following consultation , on the 10^th March 2011.The proposed restructure within this report sought to deliver the remaining savings, a net reduction of 2.2m from the existing Frontline Services structure. Section 6.15 of the report set out the numbers of staff affected by the restructure and members noted that the emphasis was on a reduction of management posts.

In considering the report, the Committee further discussed the new title of the directorate, Place and Sustainability,  and felt  it  should be proposed to the Chief Executive, that there should be  a re-evaluation of it and a new name proposed which provided more understanding of the services that would be provided by the directorate.

RESOLVED

1. That in principle the proposed Single Frontline Business Unit Structure for consultation as set out in Appendix B , taking into account the attached draft equalities impact assessment be  agreed.

2. That it be noted that the formal consultation with staff started on the 21^st of March and would be completed in line with the Council’s Policy and procedures . It was further noted that all comments received would be considered and responded accordingly.

3. That a further final report on the proposed reorganisation , following formal consultation with staff, be presented to the General Purposes Committee on the 19^th May.

4. That members note the timetable for the delivery of the new Frontline services.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of item …..  as they contain exempt information as defined in Section 100a of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by Section 12A of the Local Government Act 1985): paras 1&2:namely information relating to any individual, and information likely to reveal the identity of an individual.

None

Exempt  minutes of General Purposes Committee meetings

07 February 2011

Minutes of Staff Disciplinary Appeals and Grievance Hearings :-

15 Feb &04 March 2011

01 March 2011

Exempt minutes of the General Purposes Committee in the 07 February were agreed.

Minutes of Staff Disciplinary Appeals and Grievance hearings for the 15th Feb, 04 March, and 01 March were noted.

The committee to consider any new items of exempt urgent business.

None