Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Deputy Edward Lord, Jeremy Mayhew, Deputy Dr Giles Shilson and John Tomlinson.

There were no declarations.

To agree the public minutes and non-public summary of the meeting held on 16 March 2012.

MATTERS ARISING

The Deputy Town Clerk highlighted the action in relation to improving the use of the City Corporation’s CRM database and advised Members that work was continuing although further work was required on joining up the departmental diaries to create a central Corporation diary.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 16 March 2012 be approved as an accurate record.

Joint report of the Town Clerk and Chamberlain.

The Sub Committee were asked to consider and endorse the proposals for its future work programme. Members were broadly happy with the proposals, so long as the programme was flexible, allowing for matters to be added or removed as necessary. In particular, Members endorsed the new focus on wider City Corporation issues (rather than departmental reporting) so long as they reserved the right to review individual departments as and when particular issues arose. The Chamberlain agreed to report on possible trigger points and metrics which could be used by the Sub Committee to decide whether a department should be reviewed in detail.

Members were also keen to receive and update on all the actions agreed as part of the departmental reviews which had been undertaken over the previous year and it was agreed that Officers would report this at the Sub Committee’s next meeting.

RESOLVED: That:-

(i)            the list of proposed issues for further research (as set out in the report) be endorsed on the basis that it would be adapted as required;

(ii)           the Chamberlain would report on possible trigger points and metrics which could be used by the Sub Committee to decide whether a department should be reviewed in detail; and

(iii)          an update report on agreed actions from the departmental reviews be brought to the meeting on 12 July 2012.

Joint report of the Deputy Town Clerk and the Chamberlain.

The Deputy Town Clerk advised Members that £150,000 efficiency savings within the HR department had been achieved as planned with a further £150,000 savings anticipated as part of phase 2. She also advised Members that the newly appointed Comptroller & City Solicitor had updated the Transformation Board on his experience of cross-borough working. Members requested that he be invited to the next meeting as they were interested in hearing this first hand.

Members were then advised of two minor corrections to the report in that the role of ‘HR Consultant’ (as at paragraphs 3 and 7 of the report) should have been ‘Head of Corporate HR’ and the subtotal (as at Table 3 on page 18 of the report) should be 17,279, not 177,279.

RESOLVED - The report was received and that the Comptroller & City Solicitor would be invited to the next Sub Committee meeting in order to provide an overview of his experience in cross-borough working.

Report of the Chamberlain.

The Sub Committee were advised of a new corporate project being set up to identify new income streams for the City Corporation. Members were supportive of the approach and were keen to receive updates on how the project progresses, particularly in sharing current good practice and embedding a more commercial approach within certain areas of the organisation.

RESOLVED: That:-

(i)            A Corporate Project is to be initiated to work with Chief Officers to identify new income streams and identify priority areas to increase the level and scope of charges made for existing services; and

(ii)           Within this, consideration will be given to identifying services which, in accordance with the Local Government Act 2003, might require the establishment of trading accounts in order to exploit income generation opportunities.

There were no questions.

There was no other business.

MOTION - That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of the Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act.

Part 2 – Non-Public Agenda

MOTION - That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of the Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act.