3:10
Hilary Cameron, Finance Lead Transforming OCS Project, and John McKenna, Oxfordshire Customer Services, will attend to give a brief presentation to the Committee.
The presentation will update the Committee on the On Boarding Project for the Partnership arrangement with Hampshire County Council for the provision of HR and Finance Services from 1 July 2015. The presentation will set out progress to date and advise on arrangements for ensuring the wider Council is ready for the forthcoming changes.
The Committee is RECOMMENDED to receive the presentation.
Minutes:
The Committee had identified the need to monitor the risk, control and governance arrangements in relation to the proposed partnership arrangements with Hampshire County Council. Accordingly Lorna Baxter, Chief Finance Officer for OCC and Carolyn Williamson, Section 151 Officer, Hampshire CC had been invited to attend and give a presentation to the Committee on this issue.
The presentation updated the Committee on progress on the ‘On Boarding’ Project for the partnership arrangements with Hampshire County Council for the provision of HR and Finance Services from 1 July 2015, including an overview of the governance arrangements of the Project, highlighting key changes in processes for HR and Finance and advice on arrangements for ensuring the wider Council is ready for the forthcoming changes. It also considered changes to internal controls and data security arrangements as well as updating the Committee on savings.
Mrs Baxter explained that the project governance was effected through an on-boarding project board which comprised senior officers from Hampshire, Deloitte and Oxfordshire. The board was responsible for making strategic and operational decisions, monitoring project progress and addressing identified risks, The project team was also drawn from the three organisations and they were responsible for delivery of eleven workstreams from the design phase, through build and test phases and finally the deploy phase.
The existing Hampshire partnership was legally underpinned by an unincorporated public to public partnership. This enabled each public body to jointly deliver and share the benefits of shared services between themselves. As a partnership rather than a commercial outsourcing, the expectation was that all partners (including Oxfordshire County Council) would collaborate and work together for the good of the partnership. Oxfordshire would join the partnership through a joint working agreement, retaining influence on the partnership through an operational forum which provided a basis for consultation and the exercise of influence in the management of the overall joint working arrangements.
The joint working agreement included: governance arrangements; service standards and performance measures; role and responsibilities of each partner in the process steps for each service area and apportionment of costs, benefits and liabilities.
A number of reserved matters were also being agreed which would ensure Oxfordshire was able to influence any proposals in relation to the partnership which might affect Oxfordshire’s fundamental interests. These were currently being negotiated and would form part of the joint working agreement.
Oxfordshire was working closely with Hampshire to develop a performance management framework, based on financial and non-financial measures being collected as part of the governance arrangements above.
Mrs Baxter further outlined 100% user acceptance testing (details in the presentation) and the OCC business readiness events plan.
With regard to Risk Management, Mrs Baxter went on to explain that the partnership worked on a cost share basis. The mechanism for controlling cost increases was now covered in the proposed Deed of Accession which aimed to protect Operational Partners from ‘disproportionate impact’. In addition all matters relating to changes to levels of financial contribution would be approved in the setting of the annual budget in accordance with the Governance Protocol.
The Operating model had now been live for just over 12 months during which time all new partners had on-boarded on time, commencing with Hampshire County Council in April 2014, 500+ Hampshire Schools in July 2014, Hampshire Fire & Rescue in August 2014 and Hampshire Constabulary and Police & Crime Commissioner in November 2014.
The experience to date had indicated that ‘on-boarding’ was a significant change programme which affected the whole organisation and the adoption of the new model by the organisation and its suppliers has been shown from the partners who have on-boarded to date to take around six months to embed. The expectation was similar for Oxfordshire.
In accordance with the project timetable, systems and user testing was still in progress and matters arising are being risk assessed in order to prioritise project resources both pre and post project go-live. The most significant project risk in the run up to and just after go-live is resourcing. This was being monitored closely by the Oxfordshire project board.
In relation to risk, the Committee asked Mrs Baxter if she could give an example of a high or low risk. In response Mrs Baxter that an issue such as not being able to print would be classified as a ‘medium’ risk.
In relation to the Committee’s concerns over the ability for Hampshire to change their way of working, Ms Williamson advised that the agreement contained aspects which would cover if one of the partners wished to change something. All partners would look at it and decide together whether they wished to share the cost, but the agreement contained clauses if the partner’s decision had a disproportionate and significant detrimental effect to the other partners.
Ms Williamson further assured the Committee that there was no intention to outsource the IBC and operating model. There was a clear intention to grow the partnership and within time to invite like-minded organisations on board.
The Committee sought assurance from the Chief Internal Auditor as to whether Oxfordshire County was protected from any risks arising from the Partnership. Mr Dyson, Chief Internal Auditor stated that whilst he could give a general assurance that the Council were protected as he believed the project would be ready by 1 July 2015, he would not be prepared to give complete assurance at this stage as further testing needed to be carried out to assess the risks to OCC if the project did not go forward on time.
In response to questions from members over financing the project, Ms Williamson confirmed that Oxfordshire had capped risks in investment in the project, whilst Hampshire did not. In practice, this meant that if future upgrades came to more than operational cost, Hampshire would cover the extra cost. There was a commitment from partners for the 1st couple of years to contribute towards the cost, but tight controls were in place for Oxfordshire.
RESOLVED: to receive the presentation from the Chief Finance Officer of OCC and the Section 151 Officer, Hampshire CC and to request a further update at their meeting in September.