Agenda and minutes

Members are reminded that at the start of the meeting they should declare any known interests in any matter to be considered, and also during the meeting if it becomes apparent that they have an interest in the matters being discussed.

The Chair reminded members of the need to declare any known interests in any matters to be considered at the meeting. No declarations were made.

To receive the minutes of the meeting held on 25^th January 2021.

Resolved – That the minutes of the meeting held on 25^th January 2021 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

See explanatory note on the Agenda frontsheet. Please contact the Committee Officer whose details appear at the top of this agenda if you need further guidance.

During Covid-19, questions must be submitted by 3.00pm two working days before the meeting.

There were no public questions submitted.

The Committee considered a report that provided an update on the progress made against the IT & Digital Strategy 2020-22 since it came to this Committee in March 2020 (Minute 25 2019/2020 refers).

Councillor Robert Jandy (Cabinet Member for Operational Excellence) introduced the report and referred to the three-year timescale of the Strategy, of which one year had already passed. Councillor Jandy highlighted that the year had been unprecedented due to Covid-19, but that a lot of things had been achieved under the Strategy.

Mr Phil Murkin, Chief Digital Officer, then highlighted the following points:

• Progress has been made on developing a business case around applications hosted in the Cloud.
• Officers from across the Council have been working together to improve cybersecurity awareness, response and preparation, the results of which have so far been positive.
• Officer support has been provided for the commercial deployment of full fibre and gigabit capable broadband, with regular contact with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport being maintained to help design a national approach for gigabit intervention into areas that will not be covered by commercial deployment.
• Updates and improvements have been made to the Council’s website (that are currently in the testing phase and due to go live shortly) which will further the digital offer to residents.
• The biggest area of improvement has been on the digital workforce, with an increase in the adoption and confidence in staff around their IT skills and ability.
• New products like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint have been successfully rolled out, as well as telephony solutions for the Council.
• Emerging technologies have shown benefits, with the use of robotic process automation and artificial intelligence to support services.
• Benefits have also been realised from the investment in the last three years on reducing paper and digitalizing front facing services.
• Progress has been delayed in the areas of digital economy and the digital offer to residents, with plans being refocussed based on priorities.

Following the introduction of the report, the Committee discussed the level to which service areas are driving these changes and the improvements to those service areas that these changes would bring. The Committee noted that any future reports on the Strategy would include information on what IT changes are being requested by service areas to help indicate which improvements are being driven by business needs.

Resolved – To note the contents of the report.

The Committee considered a report that provided a summary of the current arrangements in relation to business intelligence provision and information management in the Council and plans for future development. The report set out how the provision of robust, insightful business intelligence is essential to ensure the Council is able to manage delivery of the Council Plan, Vision, Priorities and Pledges, and how the availability of good quality information to support effective decision-making is fundamental to ensuring continued development of the Council’s modern, efficient and effective approach to delivery of services.

Councillor Jandy introduced the report and stated that any organisation is only as good as the information it holds. Councillor Jandy also referred to the fact that the Council holds a lot of information but that no in-depth work has been done to look at the interaction of that information.

Mr Simon Phillips, Head of Data, Performance and Insight, then highlighted the following points:

• The importance of having the correct information to make sound decisions when planning and setting directions for services, as well as having the ability to review and hold services to account for delivery against objectives. 
• The significant progress made so far in terms of developing business intelligence, management information, and analysis capabilities.
• Other initiatives that have taken place such as the work done in conjunction with Public Health around aggregating the data received from Public Health England and the NHS on Covid-19 outbreaks.
• The concepts delivered by the Emerging Technologies Team, which have assisted in the adoption of more modern information management and business intelligence and analytics techniques, an example of which is the establishment of a prototype “data warehouse”.
• How the organisation has been operating for several years without a data strategy, which has led to the creation of disjointed individual arrangements aligned to service area needs and complex analysis and reporting tools for information existing in silos.
• The areas for future focus, which include:
  • A number of processes based on legacy technology which do not take advantage of capabilities available in the marketplace today.
  • A number of manual processes for producing data, which take longer and are more prone to error.
  • The lack of ability to carry out real time analysis where it would be helpful to identify potential service failure in advance.
  • Geospatial analysis, which brings a sense of place in to the way that data is analysed.
  • Refreshing the approach to information and data governance, to ensure it is being managed well, to give confidence in its quality and its use in decision-making.
  • Introducing efficiencies in to the process for producing information to make sure it is more timely and cost effective.

Following the introduction of the report the Committee discussed the following matters:

• How it would assist Members if service quality was reported at a Ward level, the introduction of which will be investigated by officers subsequent to the meeting.
• The unintentional duplication that can be caused by silo working.
• How a “data warehouse” designed and built on the basis  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24.

The Committee considered a report that provided an update on information in relation to the Council’s Commercial Property and Estate Management functions. The report contained references to commercial property and estate management functions, which are linked to the Council’s Vision, Priorities and Pledges, Corporate Strategy, Plans and Policies.

Councillor Jandy introduced the report and highlighted that it covered commercial properties as well as the estates management function, and the impact of Covid-19 on those.

Ms Kathy Sherratt, Head of Property Management, then highlighted the following points:

• That the report did not relate to the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) or housing portfolio of the council, the management of which is undertaken by a separate team.
• The non-HRA portfolio held by the Council is a significant resource, with a current approximate asset valuation of stock at just over half a billion pounds.
• The properties are predominantly commercial land and property and, within this, there are approximately 900 commercial tenancy agreements.
• The portfolio can be further split into non-operational and operational properties, with all estate management undertaken by the in-house Property Assets Team.
• The non-operational portfolio comprises a mix of industrial, retail, office properties, residential garages and solar farms, and together these generate a revenue income for the council of approximately £8m per year.
• The significant impact from Covid-19 on both commercial rent generation and officer resource during the last year.
• The proactive stance taken to mitigate against the risk of an increase in void property / void costs, with the aim of enabling as many of the Council’s commercial property tenants as possible to remain in business.

·         The approach taken to operational property by co-locating service delivery functions where possible using the Civic Campus as the main office base, and the introduction of new working practices to optimise utilisation.

·         That the future of the operational office estate is under review, recognising the move to home working for the majority of office-based staff due to the impact of Covid-19.

Following the introduction of the report the Committee discussed the following matters:

• That, typically, there is around 3 – 5% vacant stock in the commercial property portfolio in any given year.
• How, in terms of numbers, the Council has a small amount of vacant stock but, in terms of value, a few properties are “rent heavy” which distorts the figures.
• That the majority of vacancies in the past year had not arisen as result of the pandemic but had arisen because tenancies changed.
• The current voids and the value of that stock, a synopsis of which will be circulated to members of the Committee subsequent to the meeting.

Resolved – To note the contents of the report.

The Committee considered a report that set out the lease agreements the Council has with GLL for the Council’s leisure centres, and reviewed activity related to these agreements. The report also considered the impact of Covid-19 on leisure and the Oasis.

Councillor Dale Heenan (Cabinet Member for the Town Centre, Culture and Heritage) introduced the report and highlighted that it gave a factual account about the current position as requested by the Committee.

Mr Rob Richards, Head of Property Assets, then highlighted the following points:

·         In July 2014, Council approved the grant of leases for six leisure centres to Greenwich Leisure Ltd (GLL), which was the preferred party following the marketing of the centres.

·         The objective of seeking an alternative operator was to secure a sustainable future for provision at the leisure centres, and to relieve the Council of the on-going liability for funding the annual revenue subsidy of the facilities and the backlog maintenance.

·         25-year leases were granted for the centres with GLL receiving no payment. No management agreements were put in place, allowing GLL to provide the services how they see fit. It was recognised that GLL took on what were loss-making facilities, and no revenue support was provided by the Council to GLL.

·         GLL has invested around £2.5m of funding on improvements, mainly to the Link Centre with the installation of a trampoline park.

·         Concerns were raised regarding the Health Hydro (a listed building) at the beginning of 2018 as it had the biggest backlog maintenance and was running at the highest loss, making it difficult for GLL to successfully operate. The Council recognised that investment would be needed to bring the building in to a better operating condition so, following an options appraisal, the Council provided £1.5m of capital funding for improvements.

·         GLL had the ability to break its leases for the Health Hydro and the Dorcan Recreation Complex at the end of the fifth year if it chose to do so. To avoid this, in summer 2019 the Council provided a grant support of £125k per year for five years to offset the losses GLL were incurring.

·         A further £5m has been included within the Town Funds bid for the Health Hydro that, if successful, would result in £6.5m of capital funding for its full refurbishment. S106 funding has also been made available for improving the leisure centres.

·         The impact of Covid-19 has been significant on the income that the leisure centres have been able to generate. The impact of leisure centre closures has also been recognised by the Local Government Association, which provided a guidance note setting out options for how councils could support providers. The Council has, to date, provided £200k of support to GLL.

·         In December 2020, the Government introduced the National Leisure Recovery Fund which it made available to Local Authorities to assist direct leisure providers to re-open centres. The Council has not yet received the results of its bid to support GLL with this.

·         The Oasis has been leased  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.

The Committee considered and noted a report of the Scrutiny Officer setting out the topics that had been considered by it during the 2020/2021 Municipal Year.