Agenda item

Report of Deputy Chief Executive.

Cabinet lead member: Councillor Troy Tester.

SSDS progress update and the range of additional shared roles and services currently emerging between Eastbourne Borough Council and Lewes District Council and the commitment to future shared services outlined in the report agreed.

14.1 Cabinet considered the report of the Deputy Chief Executive updating members on the progress made within the SSDS programme, with particular reference to the implementation of shared corporate services, the ‘Future Model’ programme plan (phase two); and the corporate landlord implementation plan.

14.2 The publication of the final target operating model (TOM) enabled the staff recruitment process to begin, and the first (internal) phase of this was completed in early June.  External recruitment to the vacant roles began in June and would continue over the rest of the summer.  Successful recruitment to vacant roles in the new structure would be a factor in the timetable for the implementation of the new teams and processes.  The number of staff in scope of phase two was reduced from 219.5 to 168.1 full time equivalent (FTE) roles.  There were 141.5 FTE roles in the new model, a reduction of 26.6.  Following internal recruitment there were 34.6 FTE redundancies, of which 17.9 were as a result of voluntary redundancy requests.  Implementation of new systems and ways of working was being undertaken on a phased basis with the current focus on housing services.

14.3 Another major programme milestone was the successful relocation of Eastbourne Homes Ltd. (EHL) from Ivy House to 1 Grove Road and the completion of the redesign of the customer contact centre at 1 Grove Road.  Following the EHL relocation and a detailed analysis of the outcomes of the recruitment process, the programme savings were estimated to amount to £1.45 million, which included £1.2 million of staff related savings (consistent with the original business case estimates).

14.4 The human resources (HR) and legal shared services went live on schedule in April 2015, with Eastbourne BC hosting the HR shared service and Lewes DC hosting the legal shared service.  Staff transfer under TUPE had been completed successfully and all bar one staff member were in post.  The next step will be the development of service level agreements (SLAs) for both services.  The early success of the arrangements had already resulted in some interest from other authorities about potentially joining the service in future.

14.5 The information technology (IT) shared services roadmap was currently being developed and envisaged a 5-year transition programme.  Due to the different financial systems used by EBC and LDC, the shared service opportunities for finance were currently focussing on sharing expertise across the two authorities and moving to common financial reporting formats.  The alignment of the property teams across EBC and LDC was ongoing, with recruitment to joint posts underway and a shared statutory compliance officer in post.

14.6 In October the 2 councils’ cabinets had authorised their chief executives, in consultation with the respective council leaders, to take advantage of opportunities as and when they arose to align systems or posts in order to generate benefits in terms of quality, savings or resilience.  Since then a number of opportunities had been taken to do this, namely:

·         Two further shared roles at senior management level (Senior Head of Planning, Regeneration and Assets and Senior Head of Tourism and Leisure).

·         Shared printing service, hosted by EBC.

·         Sharing of specialist skills around council tax and the community infrastructure levy (CIL).

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14.7 Resolved (key decision): (1) That the SSDS progress update be agreed.

(2) That the range of additional shared roles and services currently emerging between Eastbourne Borough Council and Lewes District Council and the commitment to future shared services outlined in the report be agreed.

(Note: See minute 11 above for personal interest declared by Councillor Tutt.)