Transcript

the cabinet and as it's the first meeting of the year, I think we could all introduce ourselves. So, Lin. Councillor Lin Warrall, Deputy Leader. Councillor Sarah Maudowney, Cabinet Member for Resources. Councillor Lee Watson, Portfolio for Good Growth. Councillor Mark Hooper, Portfolio Holder for Health, Social Care and Well-being. Councillor Vicki Hartstein, Cabinet Member, Portfolio Holder for Children's Services and Education. Councillor Valerie Morris-Cook, Cabinet Member for Community and Partnerships. Councillor Victoria Holloway and the Cabinet Member for Place and Environment. Thank you all. Can I start by reminding everybody present that this meeting is being live-streamed and recorded and will be uploaded onto the Council's website as soon as is practicable. I don't think we have any apologies for absence, do we, Rhiannon? No, thank you. So, we come on to item two, which is the minutes of the cabinet meetings held on the 13th of March and the 18th of March, 2024. They're included in the agenda and will be noted as a record of those meetings, as none of the current cabinet members were, of course, present at that meeting. Is everybody happy with that? Thank you. As we move on to item three, which is items of urgent business. I haven't been informed of any items of urgent business. Rhiannon, do we have any? No, thank you. Item four, does any member have any declaration of interest they wish to make? No. Does any officer have any declaration of interest they'd like to make? No, thank you. We come on to item five, which is statements of the leader. And I think the only thing I want to say here is that I want to move back to the tradition of only using this by exception. I don't think that statements by the leader should be something that is taken advantage of month in, month out. If there's something exceptional, then I'll report. Otherwise, I won't. So, we come on to item six, briefings on policy, budget and other issues. We have none this evening. Item seven, petitions. No petitions have been submitted by members of the public. And we come to item number eight, which is questions submitted by non-executive members. And I'm not aware of any, but if there are members here who wish to, there's only one member in the gallery, but should the member in the gallery wish to ask a question, just wave and we'll call you in. So, we move on to item nine, which is matters referred to the cabinet for consideration by an overview and scrutiny committee. And at this stage of the municipal year, it would be quite remarkable if there were any. So, we move on to item 10, the delegated decisions report. These are delegated decisions taken since the last meeting. And a table of those decisions is provided on page 27 and is also published online. Does any member have any comments they wish to make? Nope. Okay. Item 11, update on the corporate plan 2024 to 2029. As this is the first formal meeting of our cabinet since the people of Furuk voted for change and voted to put their trust in us, it is an honour for all of us to be asked to serve. And it's an opportunity to demonstrate that things can and must be done differently here in Furuk, to put the people of Furuk at the heart of everything that we will do. I am driven and I know that portfolio holders are driven by deep sense of service. And I know that we all want to make a positive change in our borough. We know that this won't be an easy task in the years ahead. Our council is failing. Commissioners are here overseeing our work as we face significant challenges to address the failings of the past. Our council is functionally bankrupt. Not only do we have a significant toxic debt to deal with, but we also have a general fund spend that is out of control. We have to make state savings to stabilise this council in excess of £60 million in the medium term and over £20 million in this year alone. And that's in addition to having received direct financial support from government to help us balance the books. We need to rebuild trust with our communities and to let our partners know that we have changed too. We cannot go on as we were and the change our communities have called for has to be deep, meaningful and lasting. And it's this cabinet's ambition to deliver sensible and sustainable financial management, to do things differently and to place the residents at the heart of our thinking and to reach out beyond these buildings and to listen to our communities, to our partners and to volunteers across the borough to hear from them their ideas of how we can change, how we can make progress on our improvement and recovery journey. So we need a corporate plan that articulates this, articulates this change that builds on our recovery plan and becomes the basis of all the work to come. And I am genuinely pleased to present an introduction to that plan this evening. It sets a new purpose. It's a call to arms to bring together residents, businesses, the third sector, the wider community of Thurrock and our partners to both understand the scale of our ambition but also to understand that we have a better chance of meeting these challenges if we can work together to address them. And it speaks to three priorities, to be an enabling council, to focus on people and to focus on the place. And it sets clear values that members and officers will uphold. It's the foundation that we need to be honest, to be open and to be transparent. Now we all know that there is much to do and I will invite cabinet colleagues to talk about the work within their portfolios to deliver the ambition of this plan this evening. Before we bring, and that's before we bring a more detailed version for consideration later in the summer. So I'll just close by saying that this plan is clear. So am I. We will get the basics right for the people of Thurrock and this is the start of a different and better Thurrock. I will open it up to contributions from portfolio holders. Lynn. Thank you. Thank you, John. I'm honoured to have this portfolio and the opportunity to drive forward the improvement agenda across our council. This role is not just a position, but a commitment to ensuring that we meet and exceed the expectations of our residents. The corporate plan outline document that lays before us tonight, lays the foundations for the change that we need. As we develop the plan over the coming months, it will provide us with a clear and strategic basis for our transformation. However, having a plan will be just the beginning. We must focus on delivering effectively and efficiently. A new operating model is at the heart of this transformation. We must embrace new approaches, adopt cutting edge technologies, and implement efficiencies that will make our organisation fit for the purpose of the modern era. These challenges are not optional. They are essential for our success. I understand that our culture will be crucial in effecting this change. It is not just about what we do, but how we do it that will truly count. I am committed to working with all 49 members and officers to embed the values outlined in this document into our daily operations. Our actions must reflect our commitment to excellence, transparency, and accountability. Looking ahead, I'm excited that we will share the fuller version of the corporate plan over the summer. This will be an opportunity to delve into the details, set clear milestones, and ensure that our progress is visible to the residents that we serve. We must make tangible and measurable improvements that our community can see and that they can feel. It is important that we make these improvements and changes in the council at a pace that works for our residents and meets the expectations of the government and the commissioners. I truly believe that together we can make a real difference. The people of Thoreauk have given us their trust and we must honour that trust by delivering the change that they have already called for. Thank you. Councillor Mordoney. Thank you, Leader. It's very clear that the lack of a corporate plan previously was one of the factors that allowed the council to drift along in a state of what the best value inspection report called Unconscious Incompetence. I fully welcome the development of this plan. Obviously, it's just a snippet of it tonight and there's a lot more to come. It's good to note that the corporate plan has come out of engagement with staff and members from across the council. I would absolutely support and endorse that. As well as taking into account, of course, the recommendations of the commissioners and further reports of commissioners and the Secretary of State. As a new administration, I think we are all determined to be honest, open, fair and respectful, learning the lessons of past failures whilst looking towards the future success of the borough. As cabinet member for resources, obviously I would like to emphasise that one of the key principles of the corporate plan is getting the council to a place of financial stability and sustainability. This is the absolute foundational principle that we all need to be working towards. We're very much still in the foothills of financial recovery and I do not underestimate the work that we will have to do to get the council back onto that sustainable financial footing. I don't underestimate that we will have to make difficult decisions as we proceed on this journey. I do agree that there's also a huge opportunity here to challenge the ways of working that have dominated the council, to bring in different ways of doing things that are going to work better for our residents and for our staff and to also look outside the borough and learn from best practice from other organisations and also to really work with our communities in a way that I think has been tried in the past but has never really actually been followed through to completion for various reasons. I think one of the key bright spots about the terrible position that we're in financially is that that is now a driving force for us to achieve those new ways of working and for us to really work with our communities to co-design the best solutions for all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Watson. Thank you, leader. So I've been given the privilege of the good growth agenda which I'm actually absolutely going to relish and need to take forward to ensure that we enable and help our residents in going forward. I want to collaborate with the residents and the community, all our relevant stakeholders and businesses to help shape our borough to what we want it to be. This approach will ensure that good growth is a shared journey with input from all sectors from all parts of the borough. I want to develop a plan for prosperity for Thoreau that encourage collaboration between the private, public and voluntary sectors. This plan will engage the communities, the faith groups and the social enterprise sectors to foster a common understanding and a vision of what the good growth agenda really means for us and for everyone. To help improve the investment, to improve our infrastructure, housing, transports our education capabilities, I want to create jobs and transform places. These improvements would be guided by the principles of the good growth, ensuring that they're sustainable and we have equitable developments. I want to ensure that good growth provides opportunities for the Thoreau residents, communities and local businesses. We are committed to foster an environment where good growth benefits all stakeholders and residents and we can create a thriving and resilient borough. I want to increase the opportunities for people to find good growth or start a business here by promoting what we have, what we do and I want to aim to ensure that our economic landscape and support those businesses and those small SMEs that want to come forward and employment that contributes to the overall prosperity of what Zurich is and will be. We are very strategic where we are situated and we need to take advantage of that and that's one thing that I really want to take forward for us and our community. Thank you. Councillor Hartstein. Thank you. I'm delighted to introduce our corporate plan this evening which will guide our efforts initiatives in the coming years. By delivering this plan we will achieve the following within children's services and education. Firstly we'll work collaboratively with all officers who support adults ensuring that our services are integrated to support the families in living good lives. This holistic approach will provide comprehensive care and support to those in need and to the most vulnerable within our community. We will improve access to high quality placements for the children and young people who require them. Our commitment is to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive in a safe and nurturing environment across all of children's services. We will continue to develop new approaches to prevention and early intervention. By focusing on these areas we will support children to live safely within their communities. Our aim is to reduce the number of children and families requiring formal intervention enabling them to flourish independently. Finally we will collaborate with schools academies training providers and businesses to increase work programs and employment opportunities for young people particularly those who are most vulnerable. By expanding these opportunities we will help our young people gain the skills and the experience they need to make to thrive and to make a purposeful and valid contribution to their communities. Together through these initiatives will we create a brighter future for our children, our families and our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Hooper. Thank you Lida. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be cabinet member for health social care and well-being and I'm really looking forward to the challenge. I'm very enthusiastic about the corporate plan. It's a roadmap designed to shape a brighter future for our communities. By delivering this plan we should achieve the following. First we will work differently to integrate our services in the community working closely with family residents to live better healthier lives. By adopting holistic approach we will ensure that everyone has access to the resources they need. Second we'll focus on preventing long-term damage to people's health by dealing with health issues early to stop our children our adults and our families becoming having long-term illnesses. So we will work proactively to address this issue before they escalate. Third we will reduce the inequalities by co-designing opportunities for people to have better outcomes and well-being for everyone. By engaging with our communities we will create a society that everyone can thrive in. And finally we will support individuals to improve their skills, find employment, progress their careers or become entrepreneurs. Our community will be empowered by people to achieve their full potential and contribute meaningfully to our economy. Together I believe this plan will help our community thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Maurice Cook. Thank you leader. I think this is an extremely exciting role that I have in enabling to be able to develop our communities and partners and devolving decision making. It actually starts to rebuild the trust with our residents that has been sadly lacking in the past seven to ten years. It ensures that our stakeholders of all communities are at the heart of our plans for the future and at every decision we make there will be a resident at the end of that decision. It maximises our strengths and assets. Our greatest asset of course is our people in any shape and that's our wonderful volunteers and obviously is the anniversary of the volunteers this week. It is the employees that work with us. It is our residents. It builds community capacity to allow our community and volunteer groups to grow and thrive in an exciting time. We will work together with a can-do attitude getting things right first time. Thank you. Councillor Holloway. Sorry I saw a hand over there it must have been must have been Val. Okay is anybody anything further to add? No? Okay thanks everybody for your contributions. The corporate plan is vital to setting us on the road to stability. It's not as expansive as any of us would like but I think that given the fact that we are still a failing council it's essential that we set firm foundations so that we're ready to move on and to do some of those things that we'd all like to do in the future. I'm going to move the recommendations. Recommendation one is to review and support the key principles of the corporate plan as articulated in appendix one. We will agree to that. Thank you and the second is to note that the full corporate plan for 2024-29 will be presented to cabinet in July ready for onward recommendation to full council in July. Are we all agreed? Thank you. To move on to item 12 which is appointments to outside bodies statutory and other panels. I'm going to have to put my glasses on for this. So number one Anglian Eastern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee nominate Councillor Liddiard. Are we all agreed? Association for Public Service Excellence. Councillor Maldoni. Are we all agreed? Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust Council of Governors. Councillor Fletcher. Are we all agreed? The next we come to is Essex County Traveller Unit. Councillor Watson. Are we all agreed? Thank you. The next is Tharuk Arts Council. Again, Councillor Watson. Are we agreed? Thank you. Thames Estuary 2100 Strategic Program Board. Again, Councillor Watson. Thank you. Thames Freeport Subcommittee. We're proposing Councillors Worrall, Watson and myself. Are we agreed? Thank you. Tharuk Community Safety Partnership. Councillor Panjala. The Association of South Essex Local Authorities will be me. Are we agreed? And finally High House Production Park. Councillor Holloway. Agreed? Thank you. And Rhiannon will make sure that we get those to you in writing. So we move on. Next item is Item 13. The Oracle Fusion Three-Year Contract Award and I'll invite Councillor Maldoni to introduce this item. Thank you, leader. So this paper is about the Oracle Fusion Three-Year Contract Award. Oracle is our enterprise resource management system. It's used by the council to manage corporate tasks such as human resources, payroll, finance and procurement. It helps employees with self-service tasks such as requesting annual leave, claiming expenses and managing budgets. Oracle is connected with other service applications allowing it to provide data that can be used across different departments. So it's an essential piece of software underpinning the effective running of the council. What is being proposed in this paper is a three-year extension with our current supplier who are Oracle beginning in August 2024. This extension will allow the council sufficient time to plan and transition to a new supplier if Oracle does not win the tender scheduled for August 2025. Concurrently with the three-year extension, we plan to initiate a pre-tender process in August 2025 to evaluate available systems and award a five-year contract to the most suitable contender option. This new contract will commence in April 2026. Our objective is to optimise value for money and ensure that the chosen solution aligns with the council's strategic ambitions. So the long-term plan for ERP which is integral to the council's operations and will play a key role in several service improvements and efficiencies identified in the corporate services business case. The pre-tender and subsequent tender process will ensure that the council secures a cost-effective fully integrated and efficient ERM solution through to 2031. The open competition process will allow various system providers to demonstrate how effectively they can meet Thorex requirements whilst addressing our financial constraints. An improvement programme is already underway to ensure high quality data and optimised processes preparing for a potential migration should the need to move away from Oracle arise in the future. I'm open to any questions on the report. I think that was very clear and I think this is an essential upgrade. There are some really important things in there that will help with the improved efficiency and improved running of the authority. I'll invite questions or comments. None? OK. Councillor Muldooni, if you'd like to move the recommendations. Thank you, leader. I'd like to move recommendation 1.1, the commencement of a pre-tender exercise for an enterprise resource management system in August 2025 to inform and to be followed by the commencement of a procurement process for an ERM system for a five-year contract from the 1st of April 2026 with an option to be extended for up to a further five years subject to, in the council's view, the delivery of best value by the provider. Are we all agreed? Thank you. And recommendation 1.2, the direct award of a new contract extension for the provision of the current ERM system with Oracle systems from the 30th of August 2024 to the 31st of August 2027 for a total fixed contract price of 1.85 million by award under the crown commercial's back office software framework, RM6194. Again, are we all agreed? Agreed. OK, thank you. We move on to item 14 which is the re-procurement of education case management application. And once again, I'll ask Councillor Mordoney to introduce the item. Thank you, leader. So, again, this is another software procurement paper. The education case management application is the primary case management software used by the education and skills services. Its key functions include school admissions, free school meals, early years funding and school census, all of which form part of our statutory duties pertaining to returns for the Department of Education. It houses both current and historical data for over 100,000 pupils performing key functions around admissions, free school meals and funding. It also records key information on children missing education, children who are being home educated and children in alternative provision. The software is instrumental in producing various statutory returns such as special educational needs returns and early years census. So what the paper proposes is using the Crown Commercial Services Framework, we're proposing the procurement of a five plus five-year contract of an education case management system. So at the moment, we've got two systems running. So basically, what we want to do is replace the current synergy application and consolidate the data onto a single platform. This makes sense in all kinds of ways. It will simplify data reporting, improve data accuracy, provide better transparency for child information and move the council closer to having a single view of the child, which is becoming increasingly important to produce robust accurate returns for the DFE. The long-term plan for education case management system is essential for children's welfare and for providing required reports to the Department for Education. Moving to a single platform and securing a long-term contract will give the council a stable system for up to 10 years, allowing for further improvements and integrations. Most importantly, it will provide greater transparency and optimise care processes. So this should help our staff to provide a better service for the children of the borough. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, I think that's very clear. Councillor Worrall. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Muldoonie. First of all, I'd like to comment on the report itself and I really liked the risk section set out at point three and I think that it's something that lays clear what we should be looking at and I'd like to see that adopted wherever possible across other areas in the council so that we can clearly see where the risks are, particularly budgeting and re-procurement. So I welcome whoever wrote that report and that they put that in there, so please pass that comment on. And I do have a couple of questions, so if I give them both to you and then maybe you can come back. So first of all, how confident are we that the exit provision clauses are tight enough to allow for a seamless transition to a new provider? And the second one, and something that we should always be focusing on, is when will we realise any budget savings in this re-procurement of this important service? Councillor Muldoonie. Thank you for those questions, Councillor Worrall. I think it's really important that we're all open to challenge. I really welcome your questions and your challenge. In terms of the exit clauses, I am going to hand over to Dan for that. This was a question that I asked earlier but I haven't received the reply from Marta, who isn't here tonight, but Dan does have it. In terms of budget savings, this is not about realising budget savings. This is about having an integrated system. There may be some efficiencies that fall out of it further down the line, but primarily this is about bringing these two systems together, one from education and skills and one from children's social care, bringing them together so that they're integrated. There may be cost savings from that, but at the moment I think that would be extremely difficult to predict what they would be at this point without having gone through any kind of tender process. But certainly the key principle here is about fulfilling our statutory duties to the DFE and providing a better service which will help our staff provide a better service for the borough's children. And I'll hand over to Dan for the exit clauses. Thank you, Councillor Mordoney. Mr Fenwick, do you want to give us that now or do you want to circulate it after the meeting? I would also point out that as part of the risk management we do have a community-theory transition between the two systems, that there are difficulties with compliance with those executive clauses. We have that additional time to be able to ensure that the data is transferred and also is useful and safe to tell. Thank you. Councillor Hartstein. Thank you. It was just a comment really rather than a question. It was just to say that I do support the procurement of a single platform to bring together children's services and education. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Morris-Cook. Thank you. Just going back to-and like Councillor Worrall, I actually welcome the risks. It's really useful and I think helpful to actually see a robust risk management and analysis that's been done on this. In the clause about data protection risk, does this cover-does this stop when a child stops going to school in effect? Does it go on to cover higher education, potentially going to a college or to university? And if it does, when does the data stop and how long do we have to keep it for? Because as we all know, the longer you have to keep data, the greater the risk of a data breach. Councillor Mordoney. That's a really good question, which I haven't got that level of detail about in terms of operational, but Dan may be able to answer this question. But I do just want to credit Dawn Calvert for the risk management section. This is something that she's brought in. It was something that she identified very early that we weren't doing as a council, which was quite a shock, although maybe not that surprising, giving our situation. But she's already rolled that out. I think she's really identified some key areas that will support our decision-making and I'd just like to credit her for that. Thank you. Thank you. Again, Mr Fenwick, would you like to answer that now or do you want to circulate it later? I'll circulate the detailed information later, but on that point about how long do we hold the data for, what the Data Protection Act, the principle under it say you hold it for as long as necessary. So it's a combination. If we did have an ongoing duty, we would continue to hold it, but only what's necessary. But if we no longer had duty towards that child, then obviously there's a retention period and we'd make sure we do have effective records management systems in place to ensure that it's destroyed at the appropriate time. Thank you. Councillor Holloway. Yes, thank you and thank you, sir, for your report. It is an important system for the council. My queries with regards to the recommendation 1.2, which obviously we see quite as a standard in a lot of reports with regards to delegating decisions to the executive director in consultation with the portfolio holder, I'm always really mindful about what we're delegating away from cabinet and bearing in mind the importance of this system and its implications for the children that we look after. I wonder, is it something that we should be delegating away? I'm not sure what it means in consultation with the relevant portfolio holder, so what exactly that means if the portfolio wasn't happy with the decision, for example. Is this something that should come back to cabinet once we are aware who's going to be offering this service? I'll hand over to Dan to answer that one. Thanks, it's a good question and in the broadest terms it's at the discretion of cabinet what decisions are delegated down to officers. Usually, as in this report, there's a level of detail here so you can understand at a strategic level what we're doing and often the award is there because it's the practicalities of the outcome and the consultation, as they would say about consultation, needs to be meaningful, so the portfolio holder needs to be happy with the outcome that it's delivering what we said the procurement would do and if they had concerns then there's always the ability for cabinet to take back the decision-making power if there was a particular issue it was to look at. I would, however, say with open procurement processes, because they're highly regulated, it's often by the end of that process that there is only an option to award to the most economically advantageous bidder, so the person who came first, or to decide not to pursue the decision and therefore very often there is in a lot of councils there's that delegation down but it is also always open to council cabinet to do that and I would I think often you know if you have a contract and it is delegated down then you know it is important that there is that oversight of performance particularly coming back and that should be again through the portfolio holder. Council Holloway, do you want to come back? Yeah, I think that that explains the issue and I'm very happy to keep the recommendation as is. Thank you so much for the explanation, Dan. Thank you. I've seen nobody else indicate, so Sarah do you want to sum up and move the recommendations? Thank you, Leader. So I'm going to move the recommendations 1.1 to commence the procurement of an education case management software system as described in this report using the Crown Commercial Services vertical application solutions framework RM6259 for a period of five plus five years from the 1st of September 2024 with an option to extend for a further five years conditional on satisfactory performance for an estimated total contract value of 2.13 million and recommend - is that agreed? Yeah, is that agreed? And 1.2 to delegate the award of the contract to the executive director of corporate services in consultation with the relevant portfolio holder. Thank you. That concludes the business of the meeting this evening. Can I thank everybody for their attendance and input and wish everybody a safe journey home. Meeting closes at 7.39. Thank you.