Agenda and draft minutes

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The Chair will consider the admission of any late reports in relation to the items shown on the agenda.

(Please note that under the Council’s Constitution  - Part 4 Section B paragraph 17 – no other business shall be considered).

 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.

Cllr Wilson declared a personal interest, as part of the discussion on item 8, After School Childcare, by virtue of his position as a school governor at Weston Park Primary  School.

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

The Committee received deputations from Sean Fox and Andrea Holden (Employee side Representatives) on agenda items: 6) – Restructure of Haringey Early Years Service. 8) Procurement Service Function Review. There was also a deputation received from Gwen O’Garrow, a parent from Hornsey Ridge school, in relation to  agenda item 7) After School Childcare. Details of their comments and representations are recorded under the relevant minute below.

There were two petitions received by the Committee. The first is in relation to the agenda item 6, Restructure of the Early Years and the second on item 7, After School Child Care.

In accordance with the Council Constitution, Part 4, Council Procedure rules, paragraph 11.1 – Petitions - . The Petitions were handed to the Chair of the Committee and recorded as received by the  representative  of the Head of Local Democracy &Member Services with no further debate. The Chair of the Committee would report the Council’s response to the petition at the next ordinary meeting of the Committee. A copy of this response would be sent to the Petitioners.

The Committee will be requested to approve the centralisation of management of all Council complaints, Member’s Enquiries, Freedom of Information (FOI) and Data Protection enquiries functions. In addition,  to approve an information governance function to be established and be based within the new centralised Feedback and Information Governance team.

The Committee considered proposals for the centralisation of the management of all Council complaints, Member’s enquiries, Freedom of Information and data protection enquiries function. In addition, an information governance function would be established to be based within the new centralised Feedback and Information Governance team. There were currently 26 officers located across the Council covering feedback and complaints functions and following the centralisation this function it would be reduced to 13. The Committee noted the consultation exercise undertaken and the inclusion of the Records Management functions and staff into this restructure. The Committee were further referred to the findings of the equalities impact assessment and union responses which were  appended to the report.

The restructure was estimated to make savings of £270k, a majority of these savings had already been achieved due to directorates making reductions to these posts as part of their own  restructures, and pre agreed savings and reviews. Therefore these savings were not cashable as they had already been taken by individual services.

The Committee were advised that the inclusion of the additional  posts allocated to Records Management was a positive step as it would enable the Council to keep this expertise and help ensure that information is managed as legally required; enable effective filing/archiving practices to be developed, where needed, and used consistently across the Council.

The Committee enquired about how the priority of improvement and efficiency would be kept to given the reduction in posts dealing with Member’s enquiries and complaints. In answer to this, the Committee noted that existing processes would be reengineered to ensure that efficiency was the key priority. This was exemplified  by the changes made to the complaints process,  the  three stage complaints process  would be reduced to two with all stage two complaints to be investigated by the centralised team. There would now also  be a  single centralised port for receiving  and processing complaints from across the Council.

RESOLVED

That the proposed centralisation of feedback and information governance functions as outlined in the report and appendices be agreed.

The report  proposes a restructure of those teams employed centrally by the Children & Young People’s Service to support the delivery of Early Years provision. At present, staff are spread across a number of service areas. The proposal to the Committee is to replace these teams with a single, smaller team.

The Committee considered proposals for the restructure of teams employed centrally by the Children and Young People’s Service to support the delivery of early year’s provision. It was noted that at present, staff were spread across a number of service areas .The key proposal was to replace these teams with a single smaller team that would provide essential statutory services.

In response to the consultation with staff and key stakeholders, some changes have been made to some of the roles. A revised structure chart and list showing the posts in the new structure was attached at Appendix 6. There was however no change to the proposed level of saving or the role and function of the service. The changes  listed in paragraph 6.4 were as follows:

• Line management arrangements have been altered and conveyed in the  structure chart at Appendix 6.
• Two deputy head of service posts had been redesignated as lead officers for their respective areas – Early Years Lead for Early Intervention & Prevention and Early Years Lead for Vulnerable Children with Multiple & Complex Needs.
• The Childcare Support Officer Job Description had been revised to have a stronger focus on business support and contract monitoring. The job title was now a  Business Support Officer.

• The 0.5 FTE 2-year old pilot project co-ordinator roles had been expanded to incorporate additional duties supporting the work of the team. The post was now full-time and the job title was now Early Years Support Officer. The grade remained at PO1.

The Employee side addressed the Committee and highlighted their deep concerns about the restructure of his service . They pointed to references in the report about the work and connections of the Early Years service to Children’s Centres. The restructure of this latter service was the subject of a separate exercise. The public consultation on which would end on the 20^th April and staff consultation begin. The Employee side, as communicated previously at Committee meetings, requested that the restructure of the Early Years team be deferred and considered alongside the Children’s Centres restructure report by the Committee in June. This would allow staff from the Early Year’s provision to be considered for posts in the Children’s Centres structure. The Employee side further expressed their anxiety about the feasibility of the restructured service to deliver an Early Year’s service given the reductions being made and were concerned about the future condition of the Family Information Service.

In answer to these concerns, the Deputy Director for Business Support in Children’s Services explained that delays to the restructure processes in both services would have severe financial impacts with delays leading to more staff reductions. There were a small number of staff that had been identified which could be considered for posts in the Children’s Centres structure and the employment ringfences would be held to accommodate these eligible staff. This delay would have a relatively small impact on the budget target for this area. In terms of the concerns expressed on the outreach work of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 130.

The committee to consider proposals to cease direct delivery of Council-subsidised after school and holiday childcare.

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The Committee received a deputation from a group of parents from Hornsey Ridge School who wanted to speak against the transfer of the after school provision at their school to St Aidens . This transfer of provision was  a consequence  of the Council’s curtailment of funding to  borough wide after school provision. The spokes person for the group was  Gwen O’Garrow  who reported to the Committee the exceptional current facilities provided to children at Hornsey Ridge school which were to a very high standard. On behalf of the deputation, Gwen O’ Garrow expressed concern about the facilities on offer at St Aiden’s which she felt were not on par with the current facilities at Hornsey Ridge school.  She proposed that the school should be given the opportunity to try and increase the numbers of children attending the after school club to make the service more financially viable.  The Committee heard that as part of the consultation, parents had not been given the option of considering an increase to the fees for this provision. This  may have been acceptable to them given the value and necessity of the service. The deputation called on the Committee to reconsider the recommendations of the report which were to reduce Council employed staff providing after school childcare and consider their duties as an authority to provide childcare for parents and in turn allow them to work or access education. The deputation further asked the Committee to consider the need for this service by the community in Hornsey and thanked the Committee for listening to their views.

The Committee welcomed the deputation and enquired about the activity previously undertaken to address the declining numbers of children attending this after school provision. At this point, in the meeting,  Cllr Wilson also declared a personal interest in his subject by virtue of his school governor position at the neighbouring school, Weston Park. Members of the deputation explained that there was little effective advertisement of the after school provision provided by Hornsey Ridge school. Following research, by the parents,  there was found to be no information on government websites or local websites on this after school provision .Parents at the nearby schools of Rokesly and Weston Park had been spoken to and they showed little knowledge of the existence of this provision which further highlighted the need for effective advertising of this school service.  The deputation believed that the opportunity should be given for this  as this would impact on the number  of children attending this provision. The Committee noted that the concept of improved PR had been suggested in the consultation period by the parents and sought further understanding of the number of children attending the after school provision. This was reported to be seventeen with children aged four and upwards.

The Deputy Director of the Children’s Service  was asked to introduce the report which contained proposals to curtail the Council’s direct delivery and subsidy of after school childcare and to which the deputation spoke in relation to.It  ...  view the full minutes text for item 131.

As part of the HESP(Haringey Efficiency Savings Programme) a review of the procurement functions(including transaction processing) across the Council has been undertaken in order to arrive at a revised procurement structure.  Following  consultation the Committee will consider proposals for future delivery of this service function.(Report to follow)

Members were informed that as part of the Haringey Efficiency and savings Programme(HESP) a review of the Procurement function (including transaction processing across the Council had been undertaken in order to arrive at a revised Procurement structure and new model of delivery of the Procurement function .

The Head of Procurement provided Members with the context behind the proposals being made which was essentially to centralise the Procurement structure. The Council had currently 960 live contracts, therefore this was a high spend and high risk area where good management was crucial.  The department had been set the savings target of £416k which was to be achieved over the next two years with £312k allocated for delivery in this financial year. The proposed model for the Procurement function would include transactional processing, procurement of supplies and services, construction, property, commercial contract management, category management and energy management.  The  consultation period with staff had been completed on the 08^th April and there was appended to the report  a  log of the changes to job titles and descriptions made in response to feedback. The service offer was set out on page 100 of the agenda pack  and this had not changed since  consideration by the Committee on March 22 2011. The equalities impact assessment had been updated to further reflect feedback from the consultation.

The Employee side spoke to the Committee about their concerns on the application of ringfences which they felt had been indifferently applied. They felt that the exercise had favoured procurement staff already working in central procurement and therefore there were seen to be little opportunities for directorate staff to be successful in obtaining a procurement post. They compared the Procurement review to the Finance service function review which had used  more open ringfences and contributed to  staff feeling that  the process was fairer with an equal  prospect of a job. They highlighted the lack of information provided on the recruitment procedure , with only the standard  information provided to staff in the review which did not  indicate the methods to be used  in the recruitment procedure i.e. interviews or  tests, limiting staff preparation. There was also substantial responses received from officers involved in the review in the consultation period  which suggested that the manner of the process followed was not favoured. In response to these issues raised, The Head of Procurement advised that the function review of Procurement had followed the same  process as the  Finance review. The difference being that officers which had 20% of procurement duties involved in their posts were part of the review. In the  Finance review officers with 50% of finance duties were included in this. The Procurement service had followed Finance and Human Resources advice at  every aspect of the review .

 Due to the nature of the concerns raised by the Employee side, the Committee  wanted to ensure that employees felt that they were treated fairly in the recruitment process and it was important that all posts were recruited to without  ...  view the full minutes text for item 132.

To seek approval for the proposed staff changes in Libraries, Archives andMuseum Services in order to meet council approved budget reductions and the loss of ABG funding from 2011/12 and to seek approval for the proposed revised weekend openinghours in the library service and the public archives search room at Bruce CastleMuseum.(Report to follow)

The Committee considered proposals for staff changes in Libraries, Archives and Museum Services in order to meet Council approved budget reductions and the loss of ABG funding from 2011/12. The proposals had been subject to full staff and public consultation . Union comments had useful and in some cases their suggestions were taken forward in the restructure. Clarification was sought  on the total number of staff remaining in the service  after the restructure and the Assistant Director for Culture Libraries and Learning agreed to provide this information to all Committee members following the meeting.

The Committee commented on recommendation 3.2 which sought approval to revised weekend opening hours for the Libraries service . This  decision was agreed to not be within the remit of the General Purposes Committee’s terms of reference and understanding was sought on whether this issue had been discussed as part of a previous Cabinet report? It was noted that  this decision was required as a result of the withdrawal of Area Based Funding which supported the provision of this weekend  service. The Committee recommended  that  the Assistant Director for Culture, Libraries and  Learning seek advice on the correct decision making body to enable this decision.

RESOLVED

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

2. That the revised structure to be implemented from the 01 May 2011 be noted.

3. That the level of savings to be achieved  from the review in 2011/12 outlined in paragraph 11 be noted.

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