Agenda and minutes

Councillor Alcock was elected chairman for the duration of the meeting.

Where a Councillor has a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest the Councillor must declare the interest and leave the meeting 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.

There were no declarations of interest.

To set out the recommendations from Stage One of the Review of the future of the Integrated Shared Management Structure and Joint Working Arrangements between Breckland and South Holland District Councils (report of the Head of Paid Service & Strategic Advisor enclosed).

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Paid Service and Strategic Advisor which set out the recommendations from Stage One of the Review of the future of the Integrated Shared Management Structure and Joint Working Arrangements between Breckland and South Holland District Councils.

The Head of Paid Service and Strategic Advisor provided members with an overview of the report’s content.  Members were then provided the opportunity to feed back, and the following issues were raised:

·         As many staff and members were currently working remotely, could the Authority consider the option of a partnership with another authority further afield, given the advantages and efficiencies of working remotely?

o   Officers responded that there were clearly strong arguments for being in partnership with another organisation however, as the difficulties in responding to the Covid pandemic for the two authorities across different counties had demonstrated, if the partnership was not relatively local, it made the partnership less meaningful.  However, as a result of having to work differently, there had been additional learning that could be taken forward.

·         Members responded that with regard to remote working, it was important to evaluate how the current arrangements had worked, and to learn from both the negative and positive aspects of this, should this way of working continue.

·         Members felt that it was not clear where the figures quoted within the report had come from.  It was felt that it was weighted towards the preferred option, with not much background – how had the weightings been arrived at?  How could the Authority measure its ambitions within a new partnership when the type of partnership was not yet known?

o   Officers stated that there had been a lot of work undertaken that supported the report, and this process was explained. Initially, an appraisal had been undertaken by the Directors individually within both organisations, which had then been considered by them, together with the Head of Paid Service and Strategic Adviser, to compare and contrast the information and to provide some substance.  Each option had been ranked against criteria, as either high, medium or low, and these had then been converted to the final scoring of 3, 2 ,1.  This information has been brought together with political weighting, initially undertaken separately by the Cabinets at each authority, with an agreed political weighting and consensus then being arrived at during a joint meeting of both. The purpose had not been to assess a particular partnership or stand-alone model, rather to evidence what was required, and what it would be expected to deliver.  This was done by looking at what had already been achieved by the current shared arrangements, case study information from across local government, and the organisations’ aspirations with regard to taking the preferred option forward.  With regard to the quantity of data currently available, this could not be elaborated upon until a detailed business case stage was arrived at.  At the current stage therefore, the report could only include assumptions of what could be achieved, to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

There were none.