Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Sub-Committee considered a report of the Deputy Town Clerk which provided the latest update in respect of the Service Based Review cross-cutting reviews and key departmental projects in the format of the Service Based Review Roadmap. The report advised there had been no changes in project status since the last meeting.

With regard to the Strategic Asset Management programme, the Chairman asked for clarification regarding whether this programme was rated as Amber due to the risk of not achieving the savings required or due to difficulties in implementing the programme. Members also commented that it may be beneficial for the Sub-Committee to be presented with the full programme risk register and a detailed scorecard for the programme, to allow the Sub-Committee to understand the risks of the project and what it would deliver.

The Deputy Town Clerk explained that she was confident that the savings would be achieved, but the risk with the project was in implementing and delivering the new way of working across all sites. She confirmed that she was confident that the programme had buy-in from all Departments, and explained that the documents requested could be provided to a future meeting. The Deputy Town Clerk advised Members that a Project Manager had been appointed to implement the programme. The City Surveyor commented that the key challenge would be to ensure that Service Departments developed the skills and controls to give them confidence in managing their assets through a third party (the City Surveyor’s Department).

The Chairman reminded the Sub-Committee that it had previously been agreed Members would be informed of any difficulties encountered from the Service departments in the implementation of the review.

The Sub-Committee also noted an appendix to the report, supplied by the Chamberlain, which identified the lessons learnt from the Service Based Review. The Chairman commented that the Review had often demonstrated that, on some occasions, a silo mentality continued to exist within the Service Committees. The Chairman also commented that he agreed with the finding of the report that the Corporation required greater project management resources for similar projects, particularly citing the Review of the Effectiveness of Grants as an example of this.

RESOLVED – That the Sub-Committee notes the report.