Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room One, County Offices, Newland, Lincoln LN1 1YL

Contact: Emily Wilcox  Democratic Services Officer

Items
No. Item

27.

Apologies for Absence/Replacement Members

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Mrs P A Barnett (Parent Governor Representative), Miss A Sayer (Parent Governor Representative) and Councillor C E H Marfleet.

 

Apologies for absence were also received from Councillor B Young (Executive Councillor for Community Safety and People Management) and Pete Moore (Executive Director Finance and Public Protection).

28.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest at this point in the meeting.

29.

Minutes of the meeting held on 28 February 2019 pdf icon PDF 156 KB

Minutes:

RESOLVED:

 

            That minutes of the meeting held on 28 February 2019 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman. 

30.

Announcements by the Chairman, Executive Councillor for Resources and Communications and Chief Officers

Minutes:

The Chairman advised that he had attended the meeting of the Executive held on 5 March 2019 and had highlighted the comments from the Board on the Quarter 3 Council Business Plan 2018/19.  In particular he emphasised the Board's concern regarding the order of reporting for this item to scrutiny committees, the Board and Executive.  As requested, officers had looked at a number of options for how this could be addressed.  The options had been presented to Group Leaders and Corporate Management Board for their input, and a report on a proposed new way for reporting the Council Business Plan would be presented to the Board at its next meeting on 25 April 2019.

 

In relation to concerns which had been raised regarding adult social care and safeguarding where the source of risk was the service provider, it was noted that these would be addressed by the Executive Director and a new indicator was being developed which would measure those reports which lead to a Section 42 investigation.

 

As agreed at the last meeting, a joint workshop with the Audit Committee had been arranged for 30 May 2019 at 1.30pm to look at Culture and Accountability.  This followed on from the last workshop in December 2018 which looked at what lessons could be learnt from Northamptonshire County Council in relation to financial resilience.  An electronic appointment had been sent to members.

 

It was also reported that at the last meeting of the Board, a report on the membership of the Local Government Association (LGA) was considered and the Board recommended that the termination for 1 April 2019 be withdrawn and replaced with a further 12 months' notice to terminate membership of the LGA, which would mean the Council could leave the LGA on 1 April 2020.  The Chairman reported that the Leader of the Council's decision was in accordance with the recommendation from the Board.

 

31.

Consideration of Call-Ins

Minutes:

None were received

32.

Consideration of Councillor Calls for Action

Minutes:

None were received

33.

Corporate Support Services Contract – IMT Progress Report pdf icon PDF 668 KB

(To receive a report from John Wickens (Chief Digital Officer), which provides an update on the progress made against key IMT-related transformation and transactional projects being undertaken by Serco and other third party suppliers)

Minutes:

Consideration was given to a report which provided an update to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB) on the progress made against key IMT – related transformation and transactional projects being undertaken by Serco, and other third party suppliers.    Page 15 of the report set out those projects which had been completed since the last report.

 

Members were provided with an opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         In relation to the open text migration project, it was queried when it was likely that the status of the project would move from red to green, and how far behind the project was.  The Board was advised that the project was about three weeks behind target and that the impact of this would carry on for another three to four weeks.  However, it was noted that this was due to a delay in getting the technical resource from the vendor.  In terms of impact, the Council would continue to use the existing platform for longer than planned as some compatibility issues had been identified with Office 365.  Officers were exploring ways to resolve the outstanding issues.

·         It was queried whether the Council was incurring any additional costs due to the delay to the introduction of Open Text Migration. It was acknowledged that there were some associated costs, but the delay had been caused by a third party.  The costs were mainly in terms of resources from the extension of the project.

·         It was queried whether the makers of the software were getting any benefit from the changes requested by the authority to integrate the Confirm Highways System, and it was noted that this was a bespoke system that was developed specifically for LCC.

·         It was queried what 'Planned Stage Boundary' referred to in terms of project impact, and members were advised that this meant the project manager required information from third parties.

·         In relation to the conversion to Windows 10 software, it was commented that after the automatic updates were installed there seemed to be a slowing down of the computer, and it was queried whether all of the new computers and laptops being issued to staff would have the automatic updates function switched on.  Members were advised that it had been possible to defer release of the updates until they had been tested but Microsoft's update-release strategy meant the updates would automatically update eventually.

·         In relation to the Corporate Card Payments project on page 16 of the report, it was queried what the 'other modern methods' referred to, and it was also highlighted that the customer not present transactions held a lot of risk and it was also queried whether customers would also be able to pay by credit card online.  It was noted that there were agreements with different card processors to enable online payments in addition to the one for card holder present and contactless payments.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

34.

Scrutiny Committee Work Programmes pdf icon PDF 300 KB

(To receive a report which sets out the work programmes of the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee; Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee; and the Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee, in accordance with the Board's agreed programme)

 

Minutes:

The Chairman of the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee, the Chairman of the Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee and the Chairman of the Flood and Water Management Committee outlined the recent work undertaken by their committees, and the prospective work programmes.

 

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the Chairmen in relation to the information contained within the update and the work programmes, and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

 

Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee

 

  • The potential impact on County Farms of replacing the European funding subsidy was referred to.

·         It was felt that there could be some negative impacts within the Agriculture Bill including whether there would be any impact on the ability of the County Council to dispose of county farms land.  However, it was observed that it was not the Council's policy to dispose of county farms.  If a tenant was reaching retirement age, then the authority would look at succession planning and would encourage this where possible.  It was also noted that if there were a number of small parcels of land that the Council would see if these could be combined to form a larger parcel.

·         Members were advised that Councillor Dobson, Chairman of the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee had attended the forum which aimed to influence the Agriculture Bill.

·         There was a need to consider the availability of electric car charging points in car parks throughout the county. It was suggested that the North Sea Observatory might be a good location for a charging part in that area of the east coast. (Councillor K Cook declared an interest and left the meeting as her company was an installer of electric car charging points.)

·         It was noted that the Council was working with Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) sites to find out what could be done in terms of simplifying the message around recycling.

·         It was noted that the company Mars had a scheme encouraging customers to return plastic bags from their pet food products to them free of charge for recycling.

·         In terms of education, it was highlighted that the Energy from Waste facility in North Hykeham ran a programme of school trips for young people to learn about how the waste was processed.

·         Councillor Mrs Brockway requested that if there was any action in relation to the Riseholme site, she would like to be informed.

·         It was noted that the theme for this years' Looked After Children and Care Leavers FAB awards had been recycling.

·         In terms of the future work programme, interest was expressed in further consideration of Lincolnshire's developing relationship with the Hunan province in China and that as part of this it was important to consider the ethics of any business relationship.

·         It was noted that there was a reference to an item in relation to the Skegness Countryside Business Park and members were advised that this outline plans for the development of a new business park in Skegness.

 

Highways and Transport Scrutiny  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

35.

Overview and Scrutiny Management Board Work Programme pdf icon PDF 269 KB

(To receive a report which enables the Board to consider and comment on the content of its work programme for the coming year, to ensure that scrutiny activity is focussed where it can be of greatest benefit)

 

 

 

Minutes:

Consideration was given to a report which enabled the Board to consider and comment on the content of its work programme for the coming year to ensure that scrutiny activity was focused where it could be of greatest benefit.

 

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

 

·         There were three pre-decision scrutiny items scheduled for the April meeting

·         It was queried when the working group on exiting the EU would be completed.  Members were advised that Justin Brown in Economic Development was leading on this, and further meetings had been set up for May/June.  It would be requested that a progress report be provided to the Board at a future meeting.  It was noted that there had recently been an article in The Municipal Journal which suggested that there may be more money available for local authorities and the Chairman would circulate this to members.

 

RESOLVED

 

            That the Board's work programme, as set out in Appendix A of the   report, be noted and agreed.

 

 

 
 
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