Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Carter (Councillor Mathew substituting) and Councillor Sherwood.

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The report (which is to be considered by each of the Scrutiny Committees on 15 December) forms part of a series relating to the Service and Resource Planning process for 2012/13 to 2016/17.

Each Committee will meet in turn to consider the Business Strategies and savings proposed for their service areas. Comments from each Committee will then be considered by Strategy & Partnerships Scrutiny Committee on 12 January 2012 prior to being fed back to Cabinet in order that they can take the comments into consideration in proposing their budget and Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) in January 2012.

The following annexes are attached:

The Assistant Chief Executive & Chief Finance Officer and Director for Environment & Economy will be available to respond to questions, together with the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Property.

The Committee received a presentation from Huw Jones (Director of Environment & Economy) on the Environment & Economy (E&E) business strategy in relation to Property and Oxfordshire Customer Services (including ICT) and looked at changes and variations in Annex 4 in detail.

Huw explained that the majority of savings in E&E going forward would be achieved by changing the way the directorate works, through strategic asset management, ICT and workforce planning.

Proposals for savings in the property area were discussed first.

In giving their support for the proposals some Members did express concern about risks to the Council being increased through exposure to external providers. Huw Jones explained the due diligence processes in place and offered to explain the approach to contracting further to any Members that were interested.

Cllr Brighouse was happy to accept this offer.

Oxfordshire Customer Services (OCS) and ICT were then discussed. Members were keen to understand more about the decision not to pursue arms-length trading in OCS. The substantial changes to the market caused by the financial constraints in local government and significant savings already achieved in OCS were explained as the reasons.

The Committee were interested to hear about the challenges facing the Oxfordshire Community Network (OCN) and Public Service Network. Officers stressed the importance of investment in the County’s ICT offer, particularly in the context of the expansion of superfast broadband to ensure it remains competitive option for schools and other users.

Members were happy with the explanations given for variations to the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP). Huw Jones welcomed questions from the scrutiny committee on implementation throughout the year.

Chief Executive’s Office

Four minor variations to the MTFP as set out in Annex 4, were explained by Sue Scane (Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer). The committee expressed concerns about the impact that staffing reductions in the Chief Executive’s Office was having on staff workload and stress levels.

Councillor Fooks asked for a report on changes to staffing arrangements in the Chief Executive’s Office to be added to the future work plan of the committee. This was agreed by the Chairman.

The importance of working differently and maximising the use of IT in future in order to maintain levels of service to frontline customers was stressed by both the Assistant Chief Executive and Councillors Robertson and Couchman.

The Committee broadly supported the Chief Executive’s Office Business Strategy.

Capital Strategy

Members supported the capital strategy as set out in Annex 7b.