Agenda item

Following on from the Committee meeting on the 13^th August (minute 74) the Committee agreed that its proposed response to the Cabinet on this matter would be circulated to the Committee Members for confirmation.  The Chairman has decided to reconvene to formally endorse that response.

A report of the Head of Democratic Services and Elections was submitted to the Committee for its consideration. The report reflected on the discussion at the Committee’s last meeting on 13 August around ‘Back to Business’ and the outputs from that meeting, as recorded in the Minutes of that meeting, were set out at Appendix A to the aforementioned report.

The Committee was also reminded that, in relation to its consideration of the Outturn 2020/21 item at its meeting on 13 August, there was a desire to hone further the Council’s delivery of projects to ensure that every penny of public funds was effectively used in order to deliver against the Council’s Corporate Plan if the ambitions of that Plan were to be realised to their maximum. The relevant Minute recorded the Committee’s recommendations to Cabinet on this matter as follows:

(a)      Implement the invitation from the Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance to convene a meeting with the Chairman of this Committee, and other interested Councillors, to examine in detail the financial reserves and provisions to look at progressing further and speedier with those schemes or releasing the funds with a view to the outcome of that meeting being reported to the meeting of this Committee to be held on 21 September 2020;

(b)      Note this Committee endorses the decision to allocate £862k from the 2019/20 General Fund Outturn variance to ‘Back to Business’ Initiatives and associated activities; and

(c)       Consider establishing a corporate dedicated project completion resource, with project management skills, with a direction to progress projects and priorities of corporate significance to the Council, support delivery milestones for those projects and unlock capacity and other issues that could frustrate delivery of those projects and priorities. 

Through the combination of a review of the Council’s reserves and provisions and the establishment of a dedicated project completion resource it was envisaged that the Council could build further confidence that progress with achieving the approved Corporate Plan (as approved by full Council) would not falter for any of a range of reasons.

The above decisions concerning the Outturn 2020/21 and the discussion around ‘Back to Business’ suggested that a clear and deliverable action plan should be developed by the Cabinet taking in the range of proposals.  Those proposals now needed to be assessed and the component parts examined in order to identify the various steps that were necessary to achieve them.  The timing and financing of those proposals needed to be thoroughly worked through in order to avoid wasted energy and wasted public funds.  Initially, schemes and services that were already in place or were anyway going to be implemented in this timeframe could be better started or refocussed with minimal delay.  This would ensure that the Council did not defer intervention while the range of proposals were worked on.

As ‘back to business’ steps were developed they could themselves suggest that related or associated steps be also taken.  Such associated and related steps could help deliver enhanced benefits and maximise the deliverables that could be achieved through the ‘back to business’ agenda.  To help encourage this approach it would assist to theme the proposals.  Through an agreed themed plan a more coherent approach could be encouraged.  A suggested theme for the ‘back to business’ plan was set out at Appendix B to the report now before the Committee.  This in itself identified that in many areas proposals would fit into more than one theme and thereby could achieve advantage across those themes.

The Committee was made aware that the ‘back to business’ agenda was not intended to replace the Corporate Plan and so there would be activities on-going to achieve that Plan and it was vital that this activity continued.  Indeed, some of the more long term proposals arising from the ‘Back to Business’ discussion would fit well with delivery of the Corporate Plan goals.

Having deliberated on the report submitted to the Committee, it was RESOLVED:

(a)      To confirm the Committee’s decisions of 13 August 2020 in respect of the outputs from its discussion of ‘Back to Business’ (and the Outturn 2020/21, Minutes 73 and 74 refer);

(b)      To recommend that the Cabinet approves the necessary work to assess the various ‘Back to Business’ proposals, proceeds to implement those schemes and services that can be speedily focussed on ‘Back to Business’, develops an Action Plan of assessed and costed proposals (based on short, medium and long-term measures) and sets about the delivery of that Action Plan;

(c)       To further recommend to Cabinet that the themed approach to ‘Back to Business’ at Appendix B to the report be adopted; and

(d)      To record the Committee’s intention to monitor the development of the Action Plan referred to in (b) above and its delivery.  This will include project management and performance (which itself will include success measures and milestones towards delivery) and to approve that the work programme for this Committee shall be prepared to provide for this.