Issue - meetings

A year end update on the work programme relevant to the portfolios for 2017/18 for Councillor Pearsons’ (Portfolio Holder for Support Services), will be presented.

Councillor Pearson presented an update on the priorities of the Portfolio Holder for Support Services for 2017/18 as follows:-

·           the digital customer platform (Firm step) would provide an end to end digital service for any public wishing to contact the City Council in that way. He was pleased to announce that the latest service added was garden waste.

·           the introduction of the place based brand Exeter Live Better, set up to recognise the city’s strengths and foster civic pride included in kind support and adoption to get behind the branding for the city.

·           the prioritisation of the Council’s IT requirements to ensure effective and efficient delivery by Strata Solutions will ensure the right focus to take the long term decisions forward.

·           the city centre policing hub, currently being established at the Civic Centre will open shortly.

·           the introduction of new procurement arrangements had been completed with the appointment of a new dedicated team in line with the original business case.  A more innovative way had been employed to tender for the forthcoming cleaning contract at the Civic Centre, and other Council buildings with a recent invitation to tender for the bid in its entirety or in divided lots had drawn great interest from a range of organisations, as well as the knowledge that their employees would enjoy some of the benefits of Exeter’s local authority employees such as the Exeter Living Wage.

In response to a Member’s question, the Portfolio Holder welcomed the digital customer platform and integration of the Council’s services and anticipated the launch of the council tax and rent accounts on line service very soon. The platform would provide a focus on the integrity and offer a tie line point of access for customers in one place, and from a back office point of view, there were many benefits to having a single view of the customer where it was appropriate do so. 

Corporate Services Scrutiny Committee noted the report of the Portfolio Holder Support Services.