Agenda item

To receive and consider the report of the Deputy Chief Executive

The Chair, Councillor John Walker, welcomed Chris Sinnott, Deputy Chief Executive, and Councillor Peter Wilson, Deputy Executive Leader and Executive Member (Resources), to the meeting.

Councillor Peter Wilson presented the report which provided contextual information with regards to the overall Directorate summary, including the budget position and the key performance summary and key project update for 2020/21.

The Policy and Governance directorate was last considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Panel in January 2020. The directorate incorporates a number of services including; governance, shared financial services, transformation and partnerships and communications and visitor economy.

Members noted that the Policy and Governance directorate has led on delivering phase one of shared services. It was reported that the new shared services started working together on 1 April and have benefitted from the increased resilience offered by a larger, more diverse workforce, particularly when responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Members had previously held concerns regarding the Terms and Conditions, however they were reassured that there had been numerous consultation opportunities for staff. Shared Service employees had adopted the new terms and conditions which were agreed by both councils in July.

Following queries on the terms and conditions, it was reiterated to Members that the new terms and conditions applied only to Shared Service staff at this time, and as more employees entered into the shared service they would also adopt the new terms and conditions. There was no plan at the moment for all Chorley Council staff to go under the new terms and conditions but this would be kept under review.

Overall performance for 2020/21 had been good. For key corporate projects, there were four projects that fell under the Policy and Governance directorate, with all four of these performing on target for quarter two. For key service level performance, overall there were 38 indicators; 24 (63%) were performing on or above target, 3 (8%) were performing worse than target but within the threshold and 11 (29%) were performing below target. Members recognised the indicators that were off target which related to visitors to events or attractions and website visitors for these events or attractions and understood the impact Covid-19 had had on this.

The directorate budget was underspending by £160k, which created a 3.5% variance against the original cash budget. Savings were made as part of the shared services and the events programme as the Covid-19 pandemic meant that many events such at the flower show had been taken online.

In response to queries by the Chair, Members were advised that due to Covid-19 and working from home, shared services had happened differently than planned however staff had adapted well. It was understood that a couple of weeks were lost following this but now all staff were entirely able to work from home.

With regards to the HR Policy Framework, Members were advised that this was now in place and staff had been consulted with along the process. Good progress had been made to integrate the two HR teams and no redundancies had been made.

Members recognised a decrease in staff sickness absence and discussed how working from home had affected this. Reassurances were made that managers were monitoring the performance and productivity of their staff under the new ways of working.

The Chair thanked Chris Sinnott and Councillor Peter Wilson for their attendance and thanked staff for all of their work, in particular with shared services during difficult times.

Decision: That the report be noted.