Agenda, decisions and minutes

To elect a Chair - in accordance with procedural rules this shall be in a rotational basis with the Chair to be appointed for 12 months unless agreed otherwise by the Committee. The Chair was previously held by East Devon District Council.

Councillor Edwards was elected Chair. He expressed his thanks to Councillor Diviani for his hard work and welcomed Councillor Thomas.

To receive apologies for absence from Committee members.

Apologies of absence were received from the Chief Executive & Growth Director, Exeter City Council.

To sign the minutes of the meeting held on 5 January 2018.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 5 January 2018 were taken as read and signed by the Chair as correct.

Councillors are reminded of the need to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests that relate to business on the agenda and which have not already been included in the register of interests, before any discussion takes place on the item. Unless the interest is sensitive, you must also disclose the nature of the interest. In accordance with the Council's Code of Conduct, you must then leave the room and must not participate in any further discussion of the item.  Councillors requiring clarification should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer prior to the day of the meeting.

No declarations of disclosable pecuniary interest were made.

To consider the report of the Strata IT Director.

The Strata IT Director presented his report to update Members on the progress within Strata – presentation attached to minutes. Highlights included:-

·         Savings made by the three authorities;

·         The success of the global desktop during the winter snow storms;

·         Improvement in staff morale and Service desk;

·         The Audit Partnership showed Strata was operating to a good standard;

·         The introduction of the Business Intelligence Reporting for internal staff;

·         The progress of the convergence mapping remodelling.

In response to questions, the Strata IT Director and the Director responsible for Finance responded:-

·         The business intelligence reporting allowed users to create their own reports, easing the burden on Strata providing them;

·         A request for a data analyst to support Strata was being considered;

·         The cost of not transferring systems to the Global Desktop would be difficult to calculate;

·         Contracts could be looked at as part of the business plan amendments. The original business plan had been written in 2014 and had had been amended several times, the last time being in early 2017. Contracts would be addressed in the next amendment;

·         Accumulative savings would be available through the business intelligence reporting;

·         There were increasing costs of spending, to stay up to date with ever changing technology, such as new tablets and phones and investment needed in the Data Centre environment.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

The Strata IT Director presented the report, which had been considered at Scrutiny on 31 May 2018. It proposed the introduction of a roving IT training resource to enable the three authorities to deliver a more professional approach to IT and develop skills.

The costs for each Authority were provided, representing the percentage contribution for each authority to cover the £42,000 annual resource charge. A roving training resource would ensure that no single authority would carry the full cost.

A discussion was held on the funding of the IT training post and the financial impact to each authority. Members emphasised the vital need for this resource to also be made available to Councillors of all three authorities.

RESOLVED that Strata would cover the initial costs of the gap analysis exercise to ascertain the need and scope of the IT Training Service to be delivered. The subsequent findings and outcomes would be reported back to the Strata Scrutiny and Joint Executive Committees.

The Strata IT Director reported that there was currently no formal agreement for the support of Councillor IT equipment at either East Devon or Teignbridge. Councillors provided their own IT equipment (desktops, laptops, printers, tablets) from their allocated budgets. Strata did not currently support or provide equipment used by Councillors. At Exeter, Councillors had been provided with iPads to enable them to access both email and various IT systems including Modern Gov. These devices were owned by the authority and were supported by Strata.

A discussion was held on the four available options outlined in the report. Members considered the options for the long and short term periods considering the use of tablets for all its Members from 2019. The Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee considered the report at its meeting on 31 May 2018 and its comments were reported.

RESOLVED that option 4 be approved with implementation in May 2019. Councils would need to approve the budgets for this in their Council Budgets for 2019/2020.

The Strata IT Director presented the report advising Members of the purpose of the Customer Service Plan, which had been created to improve the level of service for the three authorities currently served by Strata. The Service Desk was responsible for supporting and logging incidents and technical support queries and ensuing that all telephone, email and portal queries were resolved. It also provided a system generated interaction number which was used to track the call from initial log to closure.

RESOLVED that Customer Service Plan be noted.

The Strata IT Director presented the report setting out the role, mission statement, terms of reference and reporting lines of the newly created Joint IT Steering Group explaining how it fitted within Strata‘s overall governance framework.

Following a review of the governance structure of Strata it had been concluded that there was no one body overseeing the prioritisation of projects and programmes across the three authorities. This had led to Strata prioritising projects.

RESOLVED that Joint IT Steering Group Terms of Reference be noted

To pass the following resolution:-

RESOLVED that, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of item 10 on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part I, Schedule 12A of the Act. 

RESOLVED that, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of item 10 on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part I, Schedule 12A of the Act. 

To consider the report of the Director responsible for Finance.

The Director responsible for Finance presented the report on Strata’s final accounts for 2017/18. The 2017/18 Business Plan had revised the savings profile set out in the original Business Case over the initial ten year period of the Company. Strata had delivered a revenue savings of £575,804 in 2017/18, with the key variation being the former comparing well against the original target of £252,836.

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee considered the report at its meeting on 31 May 2018 and its comments were reported.

In response to a Members’ question, the Director responsible for Finance stated that improvements had been made to the process of identifying spending need and where there would be an under spend.

RESOLVED that the report be noted including the Pension Fund deficit.