This Committee recorded at its meeting on 21 June 2023 (minute 21 refers) that there was, in its view, value in inviting to each of its next several meetings, a different Portfolio Holder to address it on the focus for their Portfolio. For this meeting, Councillor Kotz (Portfolio Holder for Assets) has been invited to address the Committee in respect of his Portfolio. Previously, the Committee has been addressed by the Leader & Corporate Finance and Governance Portfolio Holder (Cllr M Stephenson), the Deputy Leader & Economic Growth, Regeneration and Tourism Portfolio Holder (Cllr I Henderson), the Portfolio Holder for Housing & Planning (Cllr Baker) and the Portfolio Holder for the Environment (Cllr Barry). The purpose of the invitation is to enable the Portfolio Holder to provide a broad introduction to their Portfolio, including their current issues and challenges (as well as priorities for 2024/25).
Minutes:
The Chairman of the Committee welcomed to the meeting the Portfolio Holder for Assets, Councillor Peter Kotz. The invitation had been made as part of a process of inviting to each of the Committee’s meetings, a different Portfolio Holder to address it on the focus for their Portfolio (Minute 21 of 21 June 2023 refers). The purpose of their invitation was to enable the Portfolio Holder to provide a broad introduction to their portfolio, including their current issues and challenges (as well as priorities for 2024/25).
Councillor Kotz introduced the various services within his portfolio and raised the current issues/challenges that they were dealing with, and projects that were being worked on or work that was envisaged to begin.
The challenges and projects within the Corporate Asset Management area highlighted included:
- Halting progression of potential disposal or development action for 69 areas of land owned by the Council, to propose a more focussed progression of a small number of sites.
- Conclude the disposal of the redundant office site at Weeley.
- Review of the Property Strategy.
- Team resources challenged by significant caseload, work will be done to get these issues regularised.
- Drafting a new Public Conveniences Strategy.
- Completion of the transfer of bus shelter responsibilities to Essex County Council. They proposed to use the revenue generation to facilitate service improvements.
The challenges and projects within the Building Services and Facilities Management area highlighted included:
- Establish the Dangerous Structures service within the two areas it is shared between, the Council’s Building Control and surveying function.
- Recognising that the Councils offices and other facilities are a significant cost and substantial part of the Councils carbon footprint and so ensuring that the most is being made of what the Council has and having consideration to beneficial ways to share with our delivery partners.
The challenges and projects within the Bereavement Service area highlighted included:
- A priority with Colleague Cllr Barry is to resolve the issues that have led to difficulties of achieving the standard of grounds maintenance that is aspired to.
- Work toward extension project of the Clacton Cemetery if burials are to be continued there.
- Ensure that there is a financial provision for the lifecycle of the machinery at the Crematorium and establish working methods that reduce gas consumption for now and for the next renewal of the plant.
Councillor Kotz also highlighted the services, work and projects undertaken by the IT team and highlighted their day to day work providing professional, knowledgeable, high quality support and services for the Council’s 726 IT users, and residents and customers.
He also provided an update around the Council's new website and the My Tendring customer self-service portal. He raised that further work was being undertaken to enhance the usability of both and plans to further adapt them.
Councillor Kotz provided the Committee with figures around Information Governance such as the average amount of data requests the Council responded to and how this had increased in recent years. He also highlighted the importance of Councillors being vigilant in relation to information security as the Council information they held could be subject to SAR and FOI disclosure.
Another issue Councillor Kotz warned the Committee of was the global cyber security threat to the UK. He made the Committee aware of the work to ensure that the Council’s information stayed secure from those threats.
He advised the Committee of the new in house Developer team within the IT service that had established itself as the ‘go-to’ team for creating new Council Applications. In addition to this he raised that utilising the in-house services had created major savings such as the digitisation of the Planning Services’ microfiche records.
Finally Councillor Kotz informed the Committee of the Procurement Partnership between the Council and Essex County Council. He highlighted that the shared resource provided advice and support to colleagues across the Council on how to source goods and services, in accordance with the Council’s procurement procedure rules. He also advised that the service had adapted to feedback through its operation and was currently creating a questionnaire for users to provide their opinion of the process and where improvements could be made.
The Committee then asked questions of Councillor Kotz in relation to the challenges, projects and ongoing work he had advised them of. The Committee asked questions in relation to: the cost and progress of the disposal of the Weeley Council Offices; assurances that the new equipment at the Weeley Crematorium was sufficient and would last its natural lifecycle; and there were also questions in relation to the Shared Procurement Services.
It was AGREED that following the meeting a written reply on the questions around the disposal of the Weeley Council offices would be circulated to all Members of the Committee.