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Agenda item

Publica Review - Local Partnerships Transition Plan

Purpose

To consider the Local Partnerships report and for Cabinet to approve the recommendations therein.

 

Recommendation

That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee scrutinises the report and agrees any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Cabinet meeting on 7 March.

 

Invited

Councillor Joe Harris, Leader of the Council

Robert Weaver, Chief Executive

Minutes:

The Chair stated that the item would be taken as the first substantive item on the agenda.

 

The purpose of the report was to consider the Local Partnerships report and for Cabinet to approve the recommendations therein.

 

The Deputy Chief Executive introduced the item and invited the Interim Programme Director for the Publica Transition and the Local Partnerships Project Director to speak to the Committee. The Interim Programme Director introduced their experience, including experience of establishing and disbanding Teckal companies.

 

The Interim Programme Director explained that they had set up a programme office including officers from human resources and finance. The Director was involved in the build-up phase of the project, utilising the framework that local partnerships had put into place.

 

The Interim Programme Director stated that an early finding was that there was no overarching Publica structure chart, and one was being set up to ease the transition.

 

The Director from Local Partnerships also introduced the report, the aim of which was to provide high level recommendations for the Programme Director to utilise in setting up the transition programme.

 

The Cabinet Member for the Local Economy and Council Transformation referred to the recommendations to Cabinet resulting from the report.

 

As well as raising broader questions about the programme members discussed the report and its annexes. Members raised the following points which were addressed by Officers and the Cabinet Member;

  • As in their introduction, the programme director confirmed that there was no overarching Publica structure chart.
  • Members referred to the accountable officer on the report, which was listed as the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive confirmed that future reports would likely be in the Programme Director’s name instead.
  • Members referred to the complexity involved with officers working for multiple stakeholder councils. The Programme Director stated that at previous organisation they had set up a time sheet as means of recording who was working at each Council but such a system was not currently in place for Publica employees.
  • Members discussed the timescales for commencing the transition. The Programme Director emphasised that delivering the transition quickly was important but that they did not yet have specific timescales besides those suggested by Local Partnerships in their report. In regard to which employees would be transferred when, the Programme Director and the Director from Local Partnerships stated that the areas to be transferred first were ‘easier’ areas and that the more complex ones would be left within Publica until a later stage. The phases had come out of the workshops and the officers felt it was important to include these. However, the Director from Local Partnerships emphasised that the Programme Director could be flexible with this if the partner councils wished to be.
  • Members discussed the design led model of the approach, and asked the officers which approach had been taken. The Programme Director stated that the approach had been designed based on the six principles in the Local Partnerships report but that there was no particular systems model they had chosen. The Cabinet Member stated that the current organisational structure could best be described as ‘matrix’ (in programme management terms).
  • Officers and Members agreed on the importance of communication throughout the process as a way to maintain staff retention throughout.
  • Members discussed cost, and specifically the ability to find efficiencies as part of the transition process. The Programme Director said that opportunities to do so would exist but that the decisions would be of the Partner Councils, if they chose to take them.
  • Members discussed the PID (programme/project initiation document) and confirmed that the Programme Director would be writing this alongside the Director from Local Partnerships.
  • The focus groups had only included senior members of staff, with no consultation of staff carrying out non-managerial roles. The Programme Director stated that this was due to the lack of time available to include non-managerial staff, but assured members that they would be speaking to officers at all levels in the coming months.

 

The Chair thanked Officers, the external guest and the Cabinet Member for attending the meeting and members for their input.

 

RESOLVED: To note the report

Supporting documents:

 

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