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Agenda item

Publica Transition Plan

Purpose:

To consider the Local Partnerships report and to consider the findings and recommendations therein.

 

Recommendation:

That the Committee scrutinises the Publica Transition Plan and agrees any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Council’s Executive.

 

Invited:

Councillor Andy Graham, Leader of the Council

Giles Hughes, Chief Executive

Andrew Pollard, Interim Programme Director

Minutes:

The Chief Executive Officer introduced the report that considered the Local Partnerships report and other findings and recommendations therein of the Publica review.

Frank Wilson had been recruited as the new Interim Managing Director of Publica. Christine Gore had been appointed as the new Chair of the Board and Andrew Pollard had been appointed as the Interim Programme Director.

The report explained that most Council services were delivered through Publica, a joint vehicle owned by the Council together with Cotswold District Council, Cheltenham Borough Council and Forest of Dean District Council. An options appraisal review of Council services and the way in which they were delivered had been undertaken by a company called Human Engine in 2023. The final report recommended that a significant number of services should move from Publica and return to being under direct control of the Councils. This would leave Publica delivering a range of support and customer services for the Councils.

The Human Engine report would inform the preparation and implementation of a detailed transition plan that would be presented by the Interim Programme Director and Chief Executive later in the year.

Local Partnerships come with a wealth of experience and were well placed to be able to refer to the wider public sector’s experience of insourcing to provide illustrations of governance, organisational design and service transformation, having been involved in undertaking service reviews for a number of councils in the past. This knowledge and approach facilitated bringing services back in-house following best practice, rather than simply ‘lift and shift’. The brief agreed with Local Partnerships was for the provision of a high-level set of recommendations, following those set out in the Human Engine report, to enable the councils to take the project forward. The Local Partnerships report did not intend to seek to identify all service areas to be transferred, but to give a high-level overview of and suggest key phases of services as part of the transition. It would be for the Interim Programme Director to develop this further with more specific detail in due course. It was envisaged that the detailed transition plan would be completed by the end of April, with subsequent reporting back through the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Executive.

The Interim Programme Director introduced himself and outlined his experience whilst explaining how he could go about developing a detailed, fully analysed and costed Transition Plan.

Various questions and points of clarification were raised with Officers providing answers and points of clarification as follows:

  • Member consultation would be organised in due course; however, all service options would be considered for a reasonable and sensible approach to ensure economies of scale and resilience. There would need to be robust frameworks and agreements in place to protect all Councils.
  • There were two aspects and the Interim Programme Director explained the hub and spoke approach that used the many hands principles and that there were gatekeepers to keep track of the costs. It was also explained that all options would be examined and considered.
  • It was explained that it was important for an organisation to recognise its ethos and values and then to recognise what was wanted, needed and what was affordable. Those were the three key elements that needed capturing and then what the purpose was and how that fit with the Corporate Plan. The design and structure and needed to be balanced with TUPE, the law and the Council’s the obligations and responsibilities to its employees. It was extremely important that all this was considered. The communication work stream was also very important to mitigate risks.
  • There were no costs available for this plan as of yet and it was emphasised that it was very important to consider and explore joint service arrangements, other partnerships and sovereign services. There would be options and choices within each service.
  • There were often various reasons for shared services to split and each authority would have a different reason for doing this.
  • No redlines had been expressed and those would be revealed after analysis and consideration of the options; therefore, none had been identified at this time.

 

RESOLVED that the Committee NOTED the report.

Councillor Cooper and Leverton wished it to be recorded that they were not in favour of the report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting documents:

 

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