Agenda item

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee consider the Service Plans for 2022-25 relevant to their remit and make any observations or comments to the Executive.

The Policy and Performance Officer will introduce this agenda item.

The Committee received service plans for Business Transformation, Finance and Property and Policy and Governance, each presented by the relevant Head of Service.

The service plans were similar to those proposed last year however, officers would highlight any areas of major change and the key areas of focus going forward.

The Head of Business Transformation stated that the main changes were around the new post- Covid working environment which had not yet reached a “new normal” due to the Omicron variant.   Office redesign, booking systems and marketing space on the second floor of the Burys were other items his service had been working on.  

Cyber activity was a critical issue and therefore the Council was investing in ways to prevent it happening.  The work around channel shift also presented a significant risk.

Business transformation reviews were underway and there had been focus on recruitment in engineering and in other technical areas and re-advertisement of roles was becoming more frequent. 

Progress was measured through individual’s appraisals and through the quarterly performance monitoring.

The Head of Finance and Property advised that a transformation project in the revenues and benefits service was nearly complete.  Part of the process was implementing a self-service portal on the Civica software that was used to manage both of those services workloads which was important for business transformation.  All key governance controls around reporting and data management had been consolidated into one team.  The Council currently had an arrangement with Reigate and Banstead in respect of debt recovery and this function would be coming back in-house in April 2022.  The current Adelante system would be replaced with Civica pay over the next financial year which would bring new functionality and cost reduction.

The Head of Policy and Governance stated that there were three key changes from the previous year's plan, firstly the reference in the previous year's plan that related to a general discussion across Surrey about local government structures had been replaced in the current plan with a more specific objective related to the Guilford - Waverley collaboration.  Secondly the current plan continued to focus on customer service and performance improvement and finally the plan reflected the increased importance of promoting staff and counsellor well-being.  Business as usual functions such as the provision of legal advice, committee administration, HR support, change management, employee relations, internal and external communications and maintaining the electoral register would continue.  The Service had also supported the Guildford-Waverley collaboration focusing on the inter authority agreement in the coming year.  The service had also supported the Where Work Happens project looking at how managers lead in a hybrid environment, how performance is managed in a hybrid environment and how to maintain a team spirit.  He further noted that the constitution review would continue to take place.

There was further discussion of Councillors not wanting to go paperless.

RESOLVED

The Committee THANKED officers for producing and presenting extensive service plans.

The Committee RECOMMENDED the following clause was appended to the text of action with the Reference Number SP22/25 BT5.6: “whilst also respecting the reasonable wishes of those members who prefer to discharge their responsibilities using paper copies of agendas provided by Waverley Borough Council”.