Meeting documents

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 27^th April 2017.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 27^th April 2017 were approved as a correct record and were signed by the Chairman.

Apologies of absence were received from Councillors Mike Best, Anna Groskop, Graham Middleton and Carol Goodall.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (as amended 26 February 2015), which includes all the provisions relating to Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI), personal and prejudicial interests, Members are asked to declare any DPI and also any personal interests (and whether or not such personal interests are also "prejudicial") in relation to any matter on the agenda for this meeting. 

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no members of the public present during the meeting.

Councillors are requested to note that the next Audit Committee meeting is scheduled to be held at 10.00am on Thursday 22^nd June in the Council Chamber B, Brympton Way, Yeovil.

Members noted that the date of the next meeting of the Audit Committee was scheduled for 10am on Thursday 22^nd June in Council Chamber B, Brympton Way, Yeovil.

The Chief Executive Officer presented his report to members with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation to explain how the savings would be achieved through the Transformation Project.

He explained that the Transformation Team had looked at all the activities which the council carried out and how much time was spent by the authority on each activity, such as leadership and management and specialist knowledge tasks.

He explained that the time spent carrying out each of these tasks could be reduced by applying ‘benefit drivers’ to each activity. These benefit drivers would include;

·         Providing better information to the customer to reduce, increase or redirect demand from customers.

·         Enabling customers to self-serve and to do more to help themselves

·         Remodelling and reallocating work to ensure specialist staff use their time to carry out specialist tasks.

·         Stripping out waste in processes

·         Agile working, which will empower employees to take control of their work

He explained that the IT systems would enable customers to track things such as planning applications online and that information that we must have from customers would only need to be collected once. The new IT systems would also enable workflow and provide performance measures for managers.

He advised members that of the 480 staff, which was the equivalent of 420 full time members of staff, all 263 roles had been analysed.

He clarified that by the end of 2019/20, staff costs will be reduced by £2.5 million per year.

During the discussion, members expressed concern over the risks which would be involved in the project such as the loss of knowledge from staff leaving or being made redundant.

The Chief Executive Officer advised members that he had been looking at options for an HR training specialist and at ways of investing more into supporting staff to help ensure that knowledge is retained.

He further advised that the Council would become more efficient, and explained that this was not a plan to reduce services.

RESOLVED:  that members noted the report.

Members noted the Audit Forward Plan.