Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

There were no reserve Members.

To receive declarations of personal or prejudicial interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Committee, Sub Committee, Panel or Forum;

(b)               all other Members present in any part of the room or chamber.

RESOLVED:  To note that the following interests were declared:

Agenda Item 8 – Business Transformation Partnership

Councillor Paul Osborn declared a personal interest in that he had been the Portfolio Holder for the business transformation remit and also the Chair of the BTP Panel.  He advised that he would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon, unless specific decisions were raised which he might have been responsible for.

Councillor Paul Osborn further declared in respect of the Gifts and Hospitality Register that he had been the recipient of hospitality from Capita as the former Portfolio Holder.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 26 October 2010 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 26 October 2010, be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

To receive questions (if any) from local residents/organisations under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions were put, or petitions or deputations received at this meeting under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rules 19, 16 and 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution) respectively.

(if any).

There were no references.

Report of the Corporate Director Place Shaping.

The representative of the Corporate Director Place Shaping introduced his report detailing the progress to date in preparing the Proposed Sites and Policies Consultation Document, a key stage in the preparation of the joint West London Waste Plan.  He advised that there were 3 existing sites within Harrow but that he anticipated only one site within Harrow would go forward as consideration for one of the proposed future locations.

The Committee noted that the Plan would be one of the policy documents which would comprise the overall Local Development Framework for the Borough which would eventually replace the Unitary Development Plan.  The report had been prepared jointly by the six west London boroughs of Harrow, Brent, Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond.

A Member referred to the sizing of such sites and also queried whether the performance indicators utilised within the report would continue to be relevant following recent decisions by government.  The officer confirmed that the lowest optimum site size was approximately 0.9 hectares and that although he anticipated the Performance Indicators would cease to apply the requirements for such provision remained with LATs.

A Member queried whether the Kodak Site had been considered as a viable option, as part of a larger relocation of civic amenities, including the Civic Centre, on the site.  The officer stated that all sites considered were set against a robust methodology criteria and the Kodak Site had not met the threshold required for consideration to go forward.  However, he accepted that this could be a proposal that the Council might seek to revisit in the future.

A Member queried alternative sites not within Harrow and it was confirmed that other sites would come through from the partner authorities for consideration.  A decision on a future location would not be made until all such potential sites had been considered.

A Member noted that the content of the consultation was jargonistic and contained numerous acronyms.  He queried how officers would make the document more accessible to the public in term of language and content.  The officer agreed that the document was comprehensive, noting that it also served as the consultation vehicle with the waste industry.  He advised that the Council utilised a specific consultancy partner who undertake a range of consultation measures, including video blogging to ensure the information was understood by the widest possible audience.

Resolved to RECOMMEND: (to Cabinet and Council) 

That the Draft West London Waste Plan: Proposed Sites and Policies Consultation Document be approved for the purposes of public consultation.

Report of the Director Business Transformation and Customer Service.

The Committee received a report outlining the background to the Business Transformation Partnership, describing its way of working and detailing past and present aspects of the overall programme.

The Director of Business Transformation and Customer Services advised that the original agreement had been entered into in October 2005 and that there was an option to extend the agreement after 5 years.  She explained the operating practice, based on “open book” methodology and a fixed price financial modelling.  She outlined the robust processes in place to ensure the Council received full value, noting only upon milestone points within projects were payments released to Capita.  She then outlined the inception of a initial business case to the production of a full and viable Business Case for implementation.  She further noted that the costs of Business cases were fixed at the initial and full stages and were index linked to control rises in future years.

The Director further explained, with the assistance of her Project Manager, the processes used for project management methodology, noting these were derived from the Prince2 processes and that a completion aspect of “lessons learnt” was an integral part of this delivery.

A Member referred to the IT System uses and queried whether consideration had also been given to systems such as “Sprint for BPR purposes and it was advised that Capita utilised its own BPR system process which officers had examined and were satisfied were of a comparable standard to Sprint.

The issue of process mapping of services was raised and whether this was used across the Council and also revisited after a period of approximately 2?3 years being in operation and whether there were any challenges in making the cultural change required by the proposals both underway and planned.  The officer advised that all process maps produced were held by the relevant Service Manager and that at this point in the partnership a revisit of successful implementation had not occurred as the projects were less than 3 years old.  She further noted that outside the specific mapping undertaken by Capita very little process mapping had taken place within the Council.  She agreed that Capita had faced some challenges in the early days with the Capita project areas.  However, officers felt that a depth of understanding and culture change was becoming embedded.  To this end training of 16 staff members had been undertaken in the principles of LEAN which it was hoped would contribute to improving service delivery from an internal resourcing across various business responsibilities.  If the implementation of such MEAN champions was successful the aim would be to increase the number of staff members with such skills.

A Member noted the costs and opportunities within the contract and asked how officers guaranteed best value against open competition processes and outlined examples in respect of the impacts of IT outsourcing, impact of the voucherising of social care clients and the proposals around meals on wheels outsourcing.  The Director responded that the original Capita contract had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69.