The Overview and Scrutiny Board met to discuss the council's savings progress, HR metrics, customer service strategy, and annual report. Councillors expressed concerns about savings targets, agency worker usage, sickness absence, and the need for improved customer service. The board approved its annual report for submission to the full council.

Savings Progress Update

The board reviewed the progress of savings outlined in the 2025/26 budget, noting that the budget was balanced using an £88 million capitalisation direction¹. Catherine Heffernan, head of finance, business partnerships, reported that of the £15.3 million in savings written into the 2024/25 budget, £10.3 million had been delivered, £3 million were delayed, and £2 million were not achieved.

Some savings, such as those related to early help, were not achieved due to changes in government policy following the agreement of the council's budget.

For 2025/26, the council agreed £10.254 million of savings. These were classified as green (either already delivered or fully on track), amber (not yet fully delivered but still possible), or red (not on track or delayed and unlikely to be delivered in 2025/26).

Concerns were raised about the absence of the cabinet member for finance, and the board requested their presence at future meetings where budget or savings issues were being discussed.

Specific savings that were queried included:

• Libraries: Councillor Keith Prince questioned what the £150,000 projected saving for the libraries service represented.
• Family Welcome Centre: Councillor Jane Keane noted that the Family Welcome Centre project was delayed, and asked for a detailed summary of the reasons for the delay. Councillor David Taylor echoed these concerns about modular units, and requested a written response on the causes of delays.
• Agency Levy: Councillor Patel noted that the full saving on the agency levy may not be reached as the council was now using less agency staff, and suggested this could be clarified in the report.

The board made several recommendations, including:

• That a future version of the report should be presented alongside the risk register.
• That an updated version of the report should be presented to the board with the cabinet member and strategic director present.
• That a fuller breakdown of savings achieved or anticipated should be given in future versions of the report.

Corporate HR Metrics - Agency Workers and Sickness Absence

Jo Budden, Assistant Director of Resources and Organisational Development, presented an update on agency workers and sickness absence. She reported that the proportion of agency workers had decreased from 17.3% to 14.2% as of May 2025, but this was still above the London average target of 12%. The council was focusing on reducing the number of agency workers earning over £75,000 and reviewing all agency workers with more than two years of service.

The report also noted that sickness levels had reduced to 9.8 days per employee per annum, with the London average being 9.1 days. The cost to the council of sickness absence had decreased to £3.1 million.

Key points raised during the discussion included:

• The reasons for engaging agency workers, with the most significant driver being cover for vacant posts.
• The impact of the Ofsted judgement on the use of agency staff in children's services.
• The need for succession planning to address key person dependency.
• The potential for an in-house agency recruitment team.
• The impact of the working from home policy on sickness levels.
• The need to review the council's sickness policy and the language used to describe it.

The board requested data on the number of absences rather than just total length, and recommended that it be investigated if the working from home policy was impacting sickness levels.

Update - Customer Services Strategy

The board received an update on the council's customer services strategy from Louise Roast, Assistant Director of Customer Registrations and Bereavement Services. The strategy aimed to embed a customer-centric culture, modernise service delivery, and improve the customer experience. Key initiatives included:

• Launching a new intranet page dedicated to customer services.
• Establishing a Customer Services Champion Network.
• Implementing a mandatory customer service objective in staff performance development reviews (PDRs).
• Reviewing Town Hall services and providing a regular customer service presence on reception.
• Rolling out case tracker for complaints and member enquiries.
• Removing old web content and refreshing the website.

Councillor Taylor suggested that the council should use the term 'resident satisfaction survey' rather than 'customer satisfaction survey' because residents are taxpayers and 'our boss'.

The board recommended that participation in the customer service strategy should be extended to include the council's out of hours contractor and the Mears call centre.

Annual Report 2024/25

The board approved its annual report for submission to the full council, with an amendment to include a statement of thanks to the Statutory Scrutiny Officer.