Issue - meetings

To receive and consider the report of the Deputy Chief Executive.

The Committee welcomed Victoria Willett, Shared Service Lead - Transformation and Partnerships. She explained that the report was an end of year document and planning was underway to set the priorities for the coming year to support the corporate objectives.

The current business plans contain a total of 170 projects,

·         84 (49%) of projects were green,

·         18 (11%) amber,

·         55 (32%) had been completed,

·         9 (5%) on hold and

·         4 (2%) not started.

The report contained a graph representing the progress of each project, and for each project that was not green, the reasoning and planned action to correct the project was provided.

The cause of most of the amber indicators was related to the ongoing Covid recovery, capacity and staffing, ICT, and the prioritisation of other projects, in addition to other external factors outside the control of the Council.

Achievements to be highlighted included the resident satisfaction survey results, the 2021 events programme, delivered action on climate change, Astley Hall, the new Volunteering Policy, the South Ribble and Chorley Partnership and the previously covered Market and Town Centre improvements.

Appendix A contained the full list of 170 projects and their status. Those that were on hold to not started were to be evaluated, and a decision actioned if they were to move forward or to be differently resourced and prioritised.

It was confirmed that the list would be checked and monitored for any errors that may indicate that items were previously classified as red and were now classified as ‘not started’. To explain how projects went from ‘not started’ or ‘red’ in the previous monitoring to ‘completed’ at this point in the year, it was likely that additional resource, such as external consultancy, had been allocated to accelerate and complete certain projects.

When considering capacity to deliver projects, recruitment to key roles was highlighted as being critical. Recruitment was ongoing, however, the Council intended to recruit internally to ensure opportunities and pathways for staff development, but this impacted time to fill all vacancies. The Council recently changed the way recruitment and roles were advertised. On the old system, the process was in house and an example provided was that an advertised position received 7 applications, on the new recruitment platform the same advertised position received nearly 80, which provided a broader range of potential candidate. The Council also intended to develop a People Strategy, which set out workforce development and succession planning by targeting particular markets or to grow and develop staff in house through apprenticeships and graduate schemes.

IT have reviewed their service with substantial work completed on systems behind the scenes as a priority; as a result the Council is now in a much better position and had been far more resilient to recent security risks. Focus was now on the front end technical support across the organisation.