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Agenda item

Publica Business Plan

Purpose

To consider the Publica Business Plan 2022-25 and any comments made by the Finance and Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the draft Business Plan and to recommend that the Leader (as Shareholder Representative) approves the plan, subject to any comments the Cabinet wishes to make and those made by other Shareholder Councils.

 

Recommendation

That – subject to any comments it makes - the Cabinet recommends the Publica Business Plan 2022-25 be  approved by the Leader, as the Council’s Shareholder Representative for Publica Group (Support) Ltd and subject to any minor amendments that might arise from the final stages of consultation with the Shareholder Councils and/or general editing.

Minutes:

Members received a report from the Chief Executive which asked them to consider thePublica Business Plan 2022-25 and any comments made by the Finance and Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the draft Business Plan.  The Cabinet were asked to recommend that the Leader (as Shareholder Representative) approve the plan, subject to any comments the Cabinet wished to make, and those made by other Shareholder Councils.

 

The report explained that as part of the establishment of Publica Group (Support) Ltd. (Publica), twelve items were identified as Reserved Matters for Shareholder approval to ensure that shareholder Councils retained the necessary control over their Teckal company.

 

The Reserved Matters decisions fell to the Shareholder Representatives to determine. For each shareholder Council, the Shareholder Representative was designated as the Leader of the Council and “Adopting or amending the Business Plan in respect of each Financial Year”was one of these responsibilities.

 

The Business Plan for 2022-25 was attached as Annex A to the report.

 

There were no alternative options detailed in the report.

 

The Business Plan had been considered by the Finance and Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 13 April 2022 and the comments they made, mainly relating to grammatical amendments were noted. 

 

The Leader introduced the report and thanked the Finance and Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee for their consideration of the report and subsequent input.  She advised that this document had been worked on for some time, with the initial draft being considered by the Shareholders at a meeting in February.  Councillor Mead felt that it was a good plan that focused on Planet, People and Place as the key themes and she advised that the final version, incorporating the amendments, would be circulated.

 

This was seconded by Councillor Harvey, who agreed that the key themes supported the Council’s own plan and aspirations.

 

Following a question from Councillor Cooper, clarification was provided on the differing recruitment processes between Ubico and Publica.  He asked what the cost implication would be if Publica started the recruitment process when they first became aware of a staff member leaving. 

 

The Managing Director of Publica, Jan Britton addressed the points raised which had also been discussed at the scrutiny meeting the week before.  The Leader reminded Councillor Cooper that Ubico and Publica were separate companies and could therefore manage their recruitment as they wished.

 

Councillor MacRae highlighted that due to the service being delivered, Ubico needed to recruit quickly should a vacancy come to light.  Chris Urwin, Finance Director from Ubico, addressed the meeting and concurred with the comments made by Councillor MacRae.  He advised that Ubico would often employ agency staff to cover any vacancies, however, there was more leeway when it came to replacing members of the corporate team.

 

In response to Councillor Cooper’s query relating to the removal of the vacancy factor, the Locality Directory, Frank Wilson, advised that this would cost each authority approximately £200,000.

 

Councillor Graham asked when the other partner Council’s were considering the Business Plan and was advised that it had already been approved by the relevant Cabinet at Cotswold and the Forest of Dean District Councils.

 

Having been proposed and duly seconded, the Cabinet

 

Resolved that the Publica Business Plan 2022-25 be approved by the Leader, as the Council’s Shareholder Representative for Publica Group (Support) Ltd and subjectto any minor amendments that might arise from the final stages of consultation with the Shareholder Councils and/or general editing.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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