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Corporate Resources and Economy Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday, 5th November, 2024 7.30 pm

November 5, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meeting Watch video of meeting
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Summary

The meeting heard presentations on progressive procurement, an update from the Executive Member for Equalities, Communities and Inclusion, the Corporate Performance for quarter one 2024-25, and the Annual Workforce report. The committee also heard the Chair's report, and there were no public questions.

Scrutiny review of progressive procurement

The committee heard a presentation from Guy Battle, Chief Executive of the Social Value Portal, on the council's progressive procurement strategy, in particular its use of the Themes, Outcomes and Measures (TOMS) framework to measure social value.

Mr Battle explained that TOMS is the most popular measurement framework for social value in the UK, and is used by 80-90 councils. He highlighted that the framework is broken down into four key themes:

How do we promote good work? How do we support the local economy? How do we build a flourishing community? And then how do we regenerate our planet?

He argued that this enables a pound value to be put to the social value that you're generating, reflecting the fiscal, economic and social benefits of a procurement decision to the community. This pound value is derived from Government data sources.

Mr Battle praised the council's use of TOMS in its Affordable Workspace program, stating that it had unlocked an additional 30p of social value for every £1 spent. He also argued that a pilot project on a recent procurement had unlocked 41% of social value.

So that is the amount of social value per pound in additional value we've unlocked by working with your team. So for every pound spent, we've unlocked with you an additional 30 pence worth of social value at no extra cost for the people of Islington.

Given that Islington spends £600 million per year on procurement, Mr Battle argued that the council could unlock between £120 million and £240 million of social value through embedding social value into its procurement activities.

Mr Battle then discussed progressive procurement in the context of the Procurement Act 2023. He highlighted two key elements of the act: the move from Most Economically Advantageous Tenders (MEAT) to Most Advantageous Tenders (MAT), and the requirement for validation.

Mr Battle argued that the move to MAT means as the procurement team, they have to take into account the wider benefits from an environmental and social economic perspective, but basically putting the community first in your decision making. He also said that the requirement for validation means that you'll be held accountable, especially for projects over £5 million, although he suggested a lower threshold of £100,000.

Mr Battle then provided 10 lessons for progressive procurement, including:

  • Embed social value into standing orders so that it becomes business as usual for the procurement team.
  • Understand local needs, and help suppliers to understand them.
  • Engage with suppliers early and be transparent.
  • Make it easy for suppliers to respond, and provide access to council programmes.
  • Ensure that procurements over £100,000 embed social value.
  • Weight social value in evaluation criteria at a level of 15-20%, potentially rising to 25%.
  • Ensure that officers, not external consultants, evaluate social value.
  • Implement robust contract management, and use contractual remedies such as liquidated damages to ensure that suppliers deliver what they promise.
  • Be transparent about what is being done, including publishing reports for the public.
  • The council should walk the walk by acting as a deliverer of social value.

Mr Battle then argued that place-based social value involves maximizing the social, economic and environmental value generated by anchor institutions within a specific place. He explained that the National Social Value Task Force had published a four-step programme to achieve this:

You make it core to your organisation. You ensure that you're accountable and that your partners are accountable. You create capability within your supply chain. And then finally, you think about collaboration. We call that radical collaboration because it's all about collaborating across boundaries.

This involves building relationships with private sector anchor institutions such as Google, Microsoft and Arsenal FC, in addition to public sector organisations.

Mr Battle concluded by recommending six actions:

  • Embed social value into all procurements over £100,000.
  • Set a target of at least 20% additional social value.
  • Make it easy for suppliers to unlock and deliver social value.
  • Use social value to build trust within communities.
  • The council should act as a deliverer of social value.
  • Develop a place-based strategy that involves partners within the borough.

Update from the Executive Member for Equalities, Communities and Inclusion

The committee heard a presentation from Councillor Sheila Chapman, Executive Member for Equalities, Communities and Inclusion. She discussed a number of areas within her portfolio, including:

  • Access Islington Hubs. Councillor Chapman stated that the hubs were going really well. There are currently three hubs, and she plans to relocate at least one of them. She also said that the council needed to do more to promote digital inclusion among residents who find it difficult to access online services.
  • Bright Lives Wellbeing Coaching. Councillor Chapman explained that this programme provides residents with trauma-informed support to improve their mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. She said that it is expensive, but it really will in the long term save us a lot of money. She also expressed concern that the service is not attracting as many residents from global majority backgrounds as expected, despite a high proportion of referrals.
  • Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS). Councillor Chapman said that the council is developing a new VCS strategy in response to rising need and constrained funding, including by using the Wellbeing Index to inform funding decisions. She explained that the council was looking to make them sustainable and it's not just about here's your grant for the next four years, including by supporting them to diversify their income, and by considering discounting business rates. She also explained that a new grant management tool would be introduced.
  • Challenging inequalities. Councillor Chapman explained that the council is refreshing its Challenging Inequalities Strategy, including by using the Local Government Equalities Framework to measure performance, and to set measurable targets.
  • Asylum seekers. Councillor Chapman expressed concern about the rising number of asylum seekers in the borough, saying she was very worried about the situation. She said that there are over 900 people in the two hostels run by the Home Office, with over 300 new arrivals in the past two months. She explained that she was seeking a maximum occupancy for the hostels and exploring what the council could do to bring numbers down, saying that people shouldn't have to live like that.
  • Black Cultural Centre. Councillor Chapman confirmed that the Black Cultural Centre would open tomorrow, and that four organisations had been given use of the building for two to three months each as part of a pop up programme. She said that this approach had enabled the council to take more of a risk and offer a lighter touch due diligence than during the last procurement process, which had been unsuccessful. She explained that the long-term future of the centre would be decided by a new procurement process in 2025.

Corporate Performance – Q1 2024-25

The committee considered the Corporate Performance report for quarter one, 2024-25, focusing on corporate resources. Key points included:

  • The council is forecasting an overspend on its General Fund budget of £0.6 million in quarter one.
  • The proportion of the workforce employed through agencies has fallen from 17% in quarter four 2023-24 to 16.96% in quarter one 2024-25.
  • The council is forecasting that 27% (£2.874 million) of the savings target for the year will not be delivered.
  • The rate of subject access requests (SARs) completed within the target of one calendar month was 73%, below the target of 90%.
  • The rate at which calls to the council were answered was 16%, below the target of 90%.

Annual Workforce Report

The committee considered the Annual Workforce Report for 2023-24. Key points included:

  • 43.51% of the council's workforce identify as Black, Asian or Multi-Ethnic, higher than the Islington working age population (of 36.1%).
  • The council has a mean gender pay gap of -2.26%, meaning that female employees are paid more on average than male employees.
  • 9.37% of employees have shared that they have a disability, lower than the Islington working age population of 15.1%.
  • There are 82 senior officers in the council, which represents 1.68% of the workforce. This is an increase on previous years, and has been driven by a variety of factors including the in-housing of previously outsourced services such as IT.