East Scrutiny Network meeting

9 October 2015

Attendees

Blaby District Council Linda McBean Sandeep Tiensa District Council Cllr Iain Hewson Cllr Les Phllimore Blaby District Council Rebecca Haines Broxtowe Borough Council Cllr Tony Harper Chesterfield Borough Council Anita Cunningham Cllr Tricia Gilby Council Cllr Dr Colin Morgan County Council Cllr Clive Moesby Jackie Wardle Councils Kirsty Lowe East Council Cllr Jake Vowles Erewash Borough Council Angelika Kaufhold Kettering Borough Council Cllr Mick Scrimshaw City Council Jerry Connolly Alex Sargeson Northamptonshire County Council Cllr Allen Walker James Edmunds City Council Ravi Kalsi County Council Alex Daynes Natasha Brown

Apologies

Bassetlaw District Council Vanessa Cookson Charnwood Borough Council Cllr Richard Shepherd Gedling Borough Council Helen Lee Leicester City Council Cllr Paul Newcombe Lincoln City Council Cllr Jackie Kirk District Council Cllr Tracy Reader North East Derbyshire District Council Cllr Jayne Barry District Council Cllr Amy Plenderleith

Notes

Welcome

Cllr Allen Walker welcomed network members and invited a round of introductions due to the number of new people in attendance.

The note of the last meeting were agreed.

Commercialism in Local Government – Nottingham City Case Study

Cllr Walker thanked Rav Kalsi for agreeing to present at the Scrutiny network meeting on commercialism within Nottingham City Council. Rav started his presentation by outlining his own role, in Scrutiny and Governance. He went on to provide a comprehensive presentation on commercialism at Nottingham City Council. The presentations covered;

 Perceptions in local government spending

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 Nottingham City’s development and approach of working in a commercial way and what is incorporated  Setting up companies responding to need – Fuel Company, responding to fuel poverty in the East Midlands. Scrutiny work on fuel poverty in the East Midlands.  Rav provided a list of companies that are owned or part owned by Nottingham City Council  Details of their In-house services on fleet maintenance  Rav covered details of their most successful service area – parking, recognised the potential, increased occupancy. Looking at competitors and developing the commercial thinking and understanding in the area  Integrated facilities management – research into and developed an integrated offering, which has led to the authority taking on external work.  Working competitively – working commercially  Increase commercial bid – fleet maintenance for the fire service  Diversification into catering  New markets – fuel and need for affordable food Robin Hood Energy, e-monitors  Roles, skills and culture – change in culture and approach  Scrutiny looked on change in focus on workforce, employees thinking and working commercially this is where scrutiny supported the development

What about Scrutiny?

 Review notion of commercialism before identifying specific topics as part on an Initial session  Encouraging managers to work more commercially, attitude change to allow managers to think commercially  Efficiencies  Need to show a benefit of scrutiny, scrutiny thinking commercially itself and the contribution that it can make. Role of planning and identifying where value can be added.  Use of visits to enable understanding  Developing of external companies – working with them to write in governance and scrutiny. Working from the outset. Into the governance arrangements, trust in the process.

Cllr Walker offered thoughts on changes in councils and development of services and experiences of working with county and district councils.

Questions and discussions

 A discussion took place regarding the turnover figures, accountability and support  How car parking squares with green policies – workplace parking levy as context. Money from workplace parking levy to improve the car park and improve occupancy rate  Development or recruitment of staff  Not profit making and decisions that have been undertaken  Use of enforcement system – some authorities have developed internal bailiff service (in other authorities)  Some people regard commercialism as privatisation – perceptions of what commercialism means  Leadership from Chief Executive and development of staff, encouraged to think about commercialism for all staff  Councillors interest in subsidising areas – focusing on particular areas and developed the commercialism in that area. Create a surplus of income and direct back at particular groups  A discussion around modelling done on the car parking fees and support used to understand the risks. 2

 Services remaining in city council control and how is this ensured protected in the future  Use of consultants for market analysis and the costs – citizen survey is used to generate the understanding. Use external consultants to undertake this survey. Try not to use consultants where possible, any use above certain point requires sanctioning  Ownership of companies and physical legal structure. Public procurement and best value for customers. Public liabilities and some of the companies, need in future to set up companies with commercial liabilities, this is something that they are looking into. Councillors on the boards for all the companies.  Companies that it had known for a long period of time – existing knowledge in some areas  How scrutiny has been involved? Challenges of pre-decision scrutiny and commercial agenda. Encourage scrutiny and proactively approached scrutiny. Areas are keen to come to scrutiny and keen for engage with public  Anti-competitive, how do you prevent this – discussion around others experiences of this  Buying out of companies and the potential in the future  Technical change or cultural change?  Commercialism is a corporate decisions – relationship with fees and charges. Discussion on fees and charges and where others are reviewing this.  Scrutiny needs to be seen as a corporate resource, importance of accountability and influence

A discussion followed on how the subject of commercialism could be explored further in the future. A suggestion was to invite the chief executive of Nottingham City Council to a future network meeting. An addition suggestion was made to invite a Section 151 officer to talk about the governance and finance issues.

Kirsty mentioned an event of 6 November that EMC are organising, which will include a presentation from Cllr Graham Chapman, Deputy Leader of Nottingham City Council on Commercialism.

Action: Kirsty to circulate details of the event.

Action: Presentation to be circulated.

Budget Scrutiny

Cllr Walker thanked James Edmunds for attending the network meeting. James provided a presentation on the approach of Northamptonshire County Council to budget scrutiny.

How they go about doing pre-budget scrutiny

 O&S committee structure  Budget Scrutiny Review Process  What is included in each of the phases of the budget scrutiny  Scrutiny works feeds into during the whole year  It’s a circular motion and feeds into other area  Key principles that feeds into the process  Waste collection treatment – example from last year’s budget scrutiny. Revisited by scrutiny during 2015/16.  Points that they have consider o Centrally-led or across scrutiny committees o Done with private working groups or public committees o Public involvement in budget scrutiny and co-ordinated with corporate consultation o Scrutiny of alternative budgets

Questions

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 Experience from other authorities – problem experienced, budget scrutiny being ‘high jacked’  Tips around public engagement – various methods and good for scrutiny to do as much as it could.  Scrutiny of alternative proposals – options available  Waste – were the impacts looked at?  Rutland – quarterly finance updates, try to avoid surprises. Have changed how they present budget over the year.  Does challenging the proposals slow the process down?  Scrutiny doesn’t get into looking at alternatives?  External advice/information/evidence used to challenge, did that help?  Public involvement – budget survey done by Blaby, scrutiny uses that.

Action: Presentation to be circulated.

Devolution in the East Midlands

Kirsty provided a brief overview of the combined authority’s bids in the region and invitation to discuss and talk about bids in the region.

 Information that has been made available  Derbyshire experience  Relationships and managing

A presentation with information on the bids to be circulated.

Kirsty suggested that perhaps at the next scrutiny network meeting further information on progress of devolution bids could be updated.

Any other Business

No additional business was raised by network members.

Date of next meeting

Friday 11 December at City of Lincoln Council.

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