Agenda and minutes

Venue: Rennes Room, Civic Centre, Paris Street, Exeter. View directions

Contact: Howard Bassett, Democratic Services Officer (Committees)  Telephone 01392 265107 or email  howard.bassett@exeter.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

23.

Election of Chair

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 previous Chair was an East Devon District Councillor and the one before a Teignbridge District Councillor.

 

In accordance with Standing Orders, the Chair cannot be an East Devon District Councillor, as an East Devon District Councillor is to chair the Strata Executive Committee.

 

Minutes:

Councillor Lyons of Exeter City Council was elected as Chair for the next 12 months.

 

24.

Apologies

To receive apologies for absence from Committee members.

 

Minutes:

These were received from Councillors Dent, Haines and Leadbetter and the Teignbridge Strata Director.

 

 Councillor Nicholas was substituting for Councillor Dent.

 

 

25.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 169 KB

To sign the minutes of the meeting held on 16 March 2017.

 

 

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 March 2017 were taken as read and signed by the Chair as correct.

 

26.

Declarations of Interest

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.

 

Minutes:

No declarations of pecuniary interest were made.

 

27.

Questions from the Public Under Procedural Rules

A period of up to 15 minutes will be set aside to deal with questions to the Committee from members of the public.

 

Each individual will be restricted to speaking for a total of 3 minutes.

 

Where a question does not relate to an agenda item details of questions should be notified to the Proper Officer of the Relevant Council at least two working days prior to the meeting.

 

Minutes:

None.

 

28.

Question from Members of the Councils under Procedure Rules

To receive questions from Members of the Councils.

 

Where a question does not relate to an agenda item details of questions should be notified to the Proper Officer of the Relevant Council at least two working days prior to the meeting.

 

Minutes:

None.

 

29.

Past Chairman's Report pdf icon PDF 172 KB

To consider the report of the past Chairman.

 

Minutes:

The Chair presented the report of the past Chair and it was noted that it had been agreed with the Strata IT Director that updates would be provided on progress in a format that is readily comprehensible for laypeople.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted the report.

30.

Strata IT Director's Report pdf icon PDF 1 MB

To consider the report of the Strata IT Director.

 

Minutes:

The Strata IT Director presented his comprehensive report providing an update on the function of the Strata organisation, the aim being to provide background to the core areas of specialisation within Strata and identifying key activities, successes and areas for improvement. He detailed a SWOT analysis developed in conjunction with the Strata Board and Strata staff and highlighted the following key areas:-

 

Improved communication

 

A number of activities had been undertaken both internally within Strata and externally with the three authorities including their respective management teams, major suppliers and Exeter College and he tabled the first edition of the Strata Newsletter.

 

The HR Lead for Strata emphasised the value of the new approach to communication and welcomed the newsletter. Members asked that the newsletter be distributed wider including all Councillors of the three authorities.

 

Supplier Management

 

Suppliers were being categorised as either key, strategic or business and there was focus on VMWare (Global Desktop), VMB, Virgin Media Business (performance), Nexus (Global Communications), Midlands HR (HR and Payroll) and Redcentric (credits).

 

Project and Business Change Request -Workload

 

A review and analysis of workload had shown a lack of progress in some areas including Business Change Requests and problem management and work was continuing in this area. Work over the last two years had been mapped against available staff time identifying issues relating to the management of workload and associated work related stress.

 

Members noted that the introduction of the Global Desktop project had been a significant contributory factor. Although introduced as a one year project, it had become apparent that a two year implementation period would have been more realistic. A software problem had also proved a major stumbling block. Referring to this and the new data centre as the two major initial projects, the Teignbridge Members were particularly concerned regarding the slowness of the global desktop widely reported at their Council and reference was made to Excel spreadsheets - Excel and other issues were common across the three councils with outlook crashes being a recent phenomena. Members noted that the newly implemented Global Desktop Improvement Programme would seek to progress the project and all migrated users had been surveyed, issues had been categorised and a programme of work underway to address the problems.

 

Security – Cyber threats

 

Following significant global cyber-attacks in May that had affected, amongst others, the NHS (and with reports of attacks to BA and University College London on this day), Strata had put in place precautions which had protected the three authorities and extra vigilance was being applied. An East Devon Councillor asked how, given the global communications project involved the incorporation of the telephony service into the Global Desktop, could breakdowns be reported by telephone. It was explained that, although telephony was part of the same system, there was inherent resilience in the overall system which prevented total breakdown as a result of a cyber-attack.

 

Individual mangers presented their respective areas as set out below:-

 

Compliance and Security – Robin Barlow

 

The Compliance and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

31.

Strata Budget Monitoring Out-turn Report 2016/17 pdf icon PDF 52 KB

To consider the report of the Director Responsible for Finance.

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director responsible for Finance reported that Strata had been set a savings target of £254,052 in the original business case. Following approval to move staff to new Strata terms and conditions, a revenue saving of only £26,964 had been projected at the start of the financial year 2016/17. However, the strata budget had delivered £310,950 of revenue savings for 2016/17 including employee savings of £51,695 resulting from lower than planned redundancies and vacancies and £318,356 from income, notably Central Government funds, especially for Revenue and Benefits systems.

 

The Company had repaid £100,000 to the Councils and the Board had identified the following options for the Strata Joint Executive Committee:-

 

·         return the additional £200,000 to the Councils; or

·         following the IT Director’s review, two areas of the business had been identified which would benefit from additional resource in order to strengthen the service provided to Councils and to generate further savings. The Board had recommended the appointment of two Project Managers and one Supplier Engagement Manager on fixed term contracts for two years. The cost was estimated at £132,000 a year, with the balance of funding coming from anticipated additional savings generated by the Supplier Engagement Manager. 

 

The two Project Manager posts would support the Business Analyst teams in delivering IT projects. This would enable the Business Analysts to focus on delivery and allow for better engagement with the client services. It would also alleviate many of the problems identified in the IT Director’s report in respect of the strain and excessive workload that the team was currently facing. 

 

The Supplier Engagement Manager post would work more closely with suppliers to drive greater efficiency in contract negotiation, again removing another element of work from the team.  By having dedicated experts in project management and supplier engagement, the Company would be better placed to use the skills of its team to match the requirements of the customers.

 

Members, in debating the proposed option, noted that the importance of training and upskilling was acknowledged and that there were growing links with Exeter College.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted the report and supported the second of the above options.

 

32.

Strata Training and Development Plan 2017/18 pdf icon PDF 170 KB

To consider the report of the HR Lead for Strata.

 

Minutes:

The HR Lead for Strata presented the report setting out the Training and Development Plan 2017-2018 which was broken down into the following elements:-

 

·         mandatory training for everyone

·         mandatory training for managers

·         other training

·         health and safety training

 

Training included e-learning, face to face and a health and safety hub as well as NVQ’s.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted and supported the report.

 

33.

Strata Performance Excellence Review Form pdf icon PDF 347 KB

To consider the report of the HR Lead for Strata.

Minutes:

The HR Lead for Strata presented the report setting out the performance excellence reviews framework.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted and supported the report.

 

34.

Strata - Employee Referral Scheme Policy pdf icon PDF 245 KB

To consider the report of the HR Lead for Strata.

 

Minutes:

The HR Lead for Strata presented the report setting out the referral policy. It had been introduced to incentivise staff to use their personal and professional networks to recommend Strata as a place to work. Where a person was referred to Strata and, had gone through the recruitment process, offered employment by Strata which they accept, the staff member introducing them would receive a £500 net payment.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted and supported the report.

 

35.

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 - Exclusion of Press and Public

 

RESOLVED that, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of items 14 to 17 on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Part I, Schedule 12A of the Act. 

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED that, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Part I, Schedule 12A of the Act.

 

36.

Update on Discussions with Software Supplier

To consider the report of the Strata IT Director - verbal.

 

Minutes:

Strata officers updated the meeting on progress with a compensation package with a software supplier following the identification of a number of faults with the product.

 

Whilst stating verbally that the system had contained a number of genuine bugs and working with Strata to deliver fixes and then benefitting from upgrades to the system, the company had not legally acknowledged guilt. Unusually for a software supplier of the size of VMWare, they had made a written gesture of goodwill and had offered to extend the five year contract by 12 months and to offer professional support to assist with the upgrade.

 

The financial details of this offer were detailed, Members noting that this was less than half of the estimated cost to the three Councils. The company had been made aware by the Board that both this Committee and the Strata Joint Executive committee would need to consider their offer.

 

Members discussed the offer and the way forward proposed by the Strata Board.

 

Members would be kept updated on progress.

 

37.

Teignbridge Digital Platform

To consider the report of the Business Systems Manager.

 

Minutes:

The Strata IT Director presented the report updating the Committee on changes to the timescales of the Digital Platform project.

 

Although it had been the intention to implement a Digital Platform for either East Devon or Teignbridge in March 2018, the former had commenced the refurbishment of Forde House to accommodate an external organisation and wished to commence digital convergence by September, the aim being to streamline service delivery to customers by taking a “digital first” approach and making the customer the heart of the process. There were no resource or cost implications for Strata.

 

Members supported bringing forward this project noting that a detailed business case, whilst nearing completion, was not yet ready

 

The existing Lagan system at East Devon would continue.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted the report and supported the order of implementation and proposed change to timescales for the Digital Platform project.

38.

Virgin Media Business

To consider the report of the Strata IT Director - verbal.

 

Minutes:

The Strata IT Director reported that significant problems had been encountered with the performance of the above supplier, the implementation of a major system taking over 250 working days rather than the originally proposed lead time of 25 working days. It had been necessary to tightly manage the project with ongoing discussions at a senior level with the company.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted the position.

 

39.

Street Naming and Numbering Policy

To consider the report of the Strata Manager Programme and Resources.

 

Minutes:

The Strata Manager Programmes and Resources presented the report proposing a common Street Name and Numbering policy for adoption by Exeter City Council, Teignbridge District Council and East Devon District Council enabling a consistent and resilient administration of the function by Strata and reducing the risk of challenge and complaint.

 

It was proposed that East Devon District Council and Teignbridge District Council retain, and Exeter City Council adopt, the Town Improvement Clauses Act 1847 as a single and consistent basis for providing the Street Naming and Numbering function administered on behalf of the Councils by Strata.

 

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee noted the report and supported the adoption of a common Street Name and Numbering policy and a revised discretionary charge of £147 with effect from 1 April 2017.