Venue: Function Room, South Holland Centre, Market Place, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE11 1SS
Contact: Democratic Services
01775 764454
Items
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17. |
Declaration of Interests.
Where a Councillor has a Disclosable Pecuniary
Interest the Councillor must declare the interest to the meeting
and leave the room without participating in any discussion or
making a statement on the item, except where a councillor is
permitted to remain as a result of a grant of dispensation.
Minutes:
Although not a member of the Panel, Councillor
Newton advised that she did not have a Disclosable Pecuniary
Interest, but in the interests of transparency, declared that in
relation to agenda item 5, she was a member of the PSPS board.
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18. |
Attendance by Superintendent Mark Housley
Following a request by
Performance Monitoring Panel at its meeting on 27 January 2021,
Superintendent Mark Housley will be in
attendance to answer members questions.
Minutes:
Following the Crime and Disorder Partnership
update to the Performance Monitoring Panel on 27 January 2021,
Superintendent (Supt.) Mark Housley attended to answer
Members’ questions.
Supt. Housley thanked members for the
invitation to the meeting of the Performance Monitoring Panel, and
gave an overview of policing and crime figures in the area which
included:
- Confirmation of the Command Team
relevant to South Holland: the local leader and operational contact
was Nick Waters; the Chief Inspector for Boston and South Holland
was Amy Whiffen; the Superintendent across the East was Mark
Housley.
- Demand for emergency calls had
increased.
- Crime had decreased by 3.9% in South
Holland due to impact of Covid which had forced the closures of
town centre shops and night-time economies.
- Violence had increased, particularly
domestic abuse. The Supt. would investigate the reasons for the
increase so issues could be dealt with earlier. Feedback would be
given to the Panel when figures and trends were known.
- The busiest times for police had
been during the rush hour, around 5pm – not late evening as
had often been perceived.
- The response target time of twenty
minutes had been considered reasonable for a rural area.
- Stop searches were few and only
carried out where intelligence had been received, not random.
- Anti-social behaviour reports had
reduced but it was acknowledged that this had been dependent on
tolerance levels which was not controllable.
- Theft of motor vehicles and vans had
been linked to two ATM thefts in the area.
- Burglaries had decreased.
- Data relating to suspects under
warrant and individuals bailed was shared.
- The Supt. acknowledged that
communication with victims of crime needed to improve.
- Demographic data, such as
unemployment statistics and population ages, had been considered
when crime prevention strategies were planned. This had included
work to protect residents from fraud and rogue trader activity.
High unemployment rates were linked to crime, but these were low in
both Holbeach and Spalding at 6% and 4.8% respectively. Areas of
deprivation were challenging and demanded a higher proportion of
resources.
- The police strategy needed to be
compatible with local ambitions.
- A review of resources included: PCSO
numbers; the instigation of a Rural Crime Action Team; Roads
Policing Team; 30 additional officers.
Members thanked the Superintendent for the
update and made the following comments:
- Members questioned employment
retention of police and whether the 20,000 recruited nationally
would have made a positive impact.
- Supt Housley replied that retention
had been good and that leaver numbers were low outside of
retirement. A benefit had been seen from the 1220 recruitments in
the area.
- Members commented that feedback from
Parish Councils had highlighted there had been a lack of engagement
from PCSOs in rural communities which impeded intelligence
gathering and the exchange of information. PCSOs priorities were
misplaced and had not been community based. How could this have
been improved?
- Supt. Housley
acknowledged that engagement could have been improved. Strategies
had been imposed rather than drawn from local needs which had been
driven by measures to ...
view the full minutes text for item 18.
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19. |
Northgate system
Members will receive a
demonstration by Officers on the capabilities of the
Council’s Housing System, Northgate.
Minutes:
Following the Digital Work Programme update to
the Performance Monitoring Panel on 18 March 2021, the Housing
Project Manager and Housing Project Officer attended to demonstrate
the capabilities of the Council’s Housing system.
Officers introduced the system with a
presentation, which included the following points:
- a dedicated resource need had been
identified to improve the management of both customers and
assets;
- an innovative approach had been
taken. Officers had secured secondments to concentrate on the
Northgate project so that greater effectiveness and efficiencies
could be achieved. Throughout the project, officers had worked with
PSPS colleagues in ICT, Customer Services and the Digital Team. The
officers had also worked with Northgate which had created a new job
schedule module;
- A 360 View had been adopted which
had recorded and maintained holistic details of every property,
this included: customer contact; customer applications; customer
advice and support cases; tenancy management; property repairs;
void works; planned maintenance programmes and contracts. The 360
view had also been used by Customer Services who raised and
appointed jobs through the system;
- Further development was planned to
enable customer online access.
Officers stated that whilst the presentation
had given an overview of the Northgate system, members had also
been invited to shadow the team to obtain a greater understanding
of its capabilities.
Members thanked officers for the presentation
and confirmed that the implementation of the system had been much
welcomed. The following questions were raised:
- Members asked whether the system had
the facility to send reminder notifications of planned work to
residents.
- Officers confirmed that a new piece
of work was planned around notifications for residents, which had
included the facility for SMS and email messaging.
- Members asked whether the online
system had been accessible for all residents.
- Officers responded that contact had
currently been restricted to telephone calls and the online system
had not yet been implemented.
- Members asked whether the diary
management system had raised any scheduling issues, such as missed
appointments, and had the job allocation process taken longer.
- Officers stated that the Customer
Contact Centre had been connected to a shared diary system which
had been easier to use than the previous spreadsheet process.
- As the system required a wider
description of each potential task, members questioned whether the
input process had been longer. Had time been saved?
o
Officers confirmed that the input process had reduced from five
minutes to one minute and that workers had given positive feedback.
Considerable time saving efficiencies had been experienced.
- Members asked if workers had been
able to complete jobs which were not as originally reported.
- Officers confirmed that engineers
had been able to update incorrect details on the system which
enabled the completion of each job.
- Members asked whether the Northgate
system recorded all aspects of the property.
- The officers confirmed this was the
case and stated that over 4.8 million data lines relating to
properties and assets had been programmed. All elements had been
itemised, and details included install dates and repair
condition.
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20. |
ICT and Digital Work Programme 2019-2022 Progress Update PDF 169 KB
To provide an update to
Performance Monitoring Panel on the progress of the Council’s
ICT and Digital Programme (report of the Portfolio Holder Corporate
and Communications enclosed).
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Following the Digital Work Programme update to
the Performance Monitoring Panel on 18 March 2021, the Portfolio
Holder for Corporate and Communications, the Programme Manager
– Commercialisation, the Communications Manager and the Head
of ICT and Digital (PSPS) attended to present an update on the
ICT and Digital Work Programme and
answer questions.
The Portfolio Holder for Corporate and
Communications gave a short introduction and confirmed that the
programme had been signed off in 2019. The request by the
Performance Monitoring Panel to review the work programme had been
a useful exercise and the strategy would be reviewed further as
part of his Portfolio Holder responsibilities.
Officers introduced the report and confirmed
it had been written from a Programme and Project Management
perspective, and included commentary which related to:
- SHDC and PSPS staff resources. The
officer noted that there had been a nine-month delay between the
proposed start date and the achievement of agreed South Holland
staff resources to undertake the work;
- the Covid pandemic and associated response from both
the South Holland resource and the shared strategic resource which
had championed the programme of work;
- the place-based resilience forum
approach taken by Breckland District
Council and South Holland District Council. The strategic working
process became fully Breckland-focussed
and had been place-based at Breckland;
- an analytical report from South
Holland’s perspective of the Programme and Project Management
approach taken which reflected the separation of the strategic
partnership with Breckland in 2021,
which had not been anticipated at the outset.
- a summary of financial information.
The officer noted that the South Holland team had been seconded to
the Digital team as part of the interim South Holland
management’s formalised approach in response to the
pandemic;
- South Holland’s resourcing
challenges: the digital skill set had not existed within the
council and there had not been a post in South Holland’s
establishment to fulfil project delivery or day to day
functionality;
- an exploration of what
‘digital’ meant to South Holland;
- commentary on the impact of
Covid;
- an analysis of the programme’s
delivery approach. A fully scoped programme of activity from SHDC,
which included resources, had not been robust enough which had a
negative impact on the programme;
- The officer highlighted that
sections 10.5 and 10.7 of the report had related to South Holland
and not PSPS;
- The report noted areas for
consideration and reflection, such as section 10.11, which the
Portfolio Holder needed to take forward.
Members considered the presentation and made
the following comments:
- the original programme had been
drafted at a high strategic level without an accompanying detailed
business case or scoping exercise which had negatively affected its
delivery;
- the complexity and resource
requirements had not been fully appreciated at the outset;
- Members expressed disappointment
that allocated funds for the digital post had been inadequate, and
in addition that the budget had been spent. Investigations were
needed to understand why a monitoring process had not been in
place. It was appreciated some achievements had been made and that
the unforeseen ...
view the full minutes text for item 20.
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