Agenda item

Councillor Laura Price had given notice of the following question to Councillor Judith Heathcoat:

“Could the Deputy Leader explain why, at a time when Oxfordshire is considering the implementation of a new operating model with significant implications for staff, the creation of 6 new Deputy Director posts was authorised? Where was the public business case for the appointments and how many other senior positions have been created, or are planned to be created without scrutiny?”

Councillor Heathcoat replied:

“Following Cabinet agreement to the Senior Management Review (SMR) in December 2016, the senior management of Communities (specifically the Environment & Economy areas) was left to be reviewed and adjusted during the restructuring processes underway. This was prior to the initiation of the Transformation programme or Fit for the Future. Following the appointment of the Strategic Director for Communities, his first major task was to review and put in place the senior management teams for the new Department. The first stage of that was to establish new Director posts to reflect the direction of the organisation and align this with other departments to fill out how Communities would engage in cross council work participate in the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) – again this was prior to Transformation getting under way. The new Directors were then tasked with developing structures which could both meet our MTFP commitments, but also meet the emerging challenges we were facing at the time: unitary council, devolution, property issues arising from Carillion and the development of partnership working.

In the autumn of 2017 an operational decision was taken to add Assistant Director posts into Communities. These new posts would be part of restructuring activity to address the volume and nature of the work in Communities and the need to be prepared to deal with Fit for the Future. This injection of capacity and capability would enable us to address some major issues affecting Communities and indeed the Council. Most significant was how to:

• deal with a failing Carillion contract (prior to their collapse);
• develop and solidify the emerging Growth Deal and Housing Infrastructure Funding proposals;
• develop and deliver a new approach to asset management and investment;
• completely overhaul how we deliver our capital programme; and
• develop and implement the department’s part in developing and implementing the emerging target operating model (TOM).

To wait until we agreed the TOM to change our operational leadership structure was not operationally possible because we would not be able to achieve existing MTFP savings (particularly for Planning & Place directorate) and we would not be in a robust position to begin the implementation of the TOM. Similar decisions had been taken previously in People Directorate (both Adults and Children’s Services). Although we had no absolute clarity on TOM when we started the process to recruit in January 2018, we knew enough about the emerging layers, the major principles of transformation and the workload priorities to enable us to recruit the skills and capacities we would need to see us through.”

Supplementary: “Given the assertion in the answer that these Assistant Directorships were crucial to achieving the savings in the existing Medium Term Financial Plan, could you outline where we will be able to scrutinise the impact of the Directorships in relation to delivering the savings? Would it have been more prudent to wait until we were rolling out the new operating model?”

Councillor Heathcoat asked Peter Clarke to respond as follows: “The appointments of the Assistant Directors within Communities are essential given the scope and scale of the Housing and Growth Deal, the HIFF fund and the half a million potential investment in the infrastructure in Oxfordshire.   In reality, the Strategic Director and all directors in communities have been actively involved in the work around the Operating Model and have agreed the full range of principals that relate to the operation of that work, and therefore the appointments were seen as being essential in order for them to fulfil that agenda rather than to wait.  The housing and growth deal was made many months ago and we have been actively involved in the Growth Board, we need to get on with fulfilling those requirements and in those circumstances the directors have made the necessary appointments that they feel are necessary in order to fulfil their service.  The point on Scrutiny is that is if they fail or there are any issues around performance those will be addressed in Performance Scrutiny.”

Councillor Howson had given notice of the following question to Councillor Lindsay-Gale:

“Could you list the revenue balances for all maintained primary schools in Oxfordshire at the end of the 2017/8 financial year and show what percentage of revenue income the balance represents and how the percentage has changed since the end of the previous financial year, as well as the latest available number of pupils on the school roll?”

Councillor Lindsay-Gale replied:

“Please find below the information required for all maintained primary schools in Oxford. This list includes the primary schools maintained as at 31 March 2018 and the data used for the number on roll is at October 2017.”

Supplementary:  Lord Agnew, the Minister of State told Auditors of Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) and committees that they may approve the virements of cash between schools in a Multi Academy Trust or a Multi Academy Committee.  Is the Cabinet Member prepared to ask Multi Academy Trusts or Committees in Oxfordshire not to take money from one school to support another and especially with those Multi Academy Trusts with Headquarters outside Oxfordshire, not to transfer money away from any school in Oxfordshire because we have been a member of the F40 Group and it would be unfair if money was taken from a school in Oxfordshire to support a school in a much better funded part of the Country.  If MATs won’t agree with this, would the Cabinet Member be prepared to write to the Secretary of State, asking for the same virements arrangements that are available to schools in MATs to be available to the State schools and stand-alone academies.”

Councillor Lindsay-Gale responded that she would be very happy to support that as Oxfordshire money should be for Oxfordshire Schools and anything she could do to support that she would be happy to undertake.