Agenda item

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and its appendix and to make the following resolutions and also the recommendation to the Council:

RESOLVED BY THE CABINET

(1)  That the Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services Project Initiation Document in the appendix to the report be approved.

(2)  That it be noted that from 2018-2019 the annual revenue budget will include savings estimated at £177,000 as a result of this project, rising to an estimated £224,000 by the 2020-2021 budget.

RECOMMENDED TO THE COUNCIL

That the Council approves a total budget of £327,000 to be allocated from reserves to fund the one-off delivery costs.

RESOLVED

(1)  That the Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services Project Initiation Document in the appendix to the report be approved.

(2)  That it be noted that from 2018-2019 the annual revenue budget will include savings estimated at £177,000 as a result of this project, rising to an estimated £224,000 by the 2020-2021 budget.

RECOMMENDED TO THE COUNCIL

That a total budget of £327,000 to be allocated from reserves to fund the one-off delivery costs be approved.

The Cabinet received and considered the agenda report and its appendix (copies attached to the official minutes).

The report was introduced by Mrs Plant.

Mr Buckley was in attendance for this item.

Mrs Plant outlined how the Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services Project (RBCSP) was one of what would be several in-house CDC projects to be undertaken following the decision by the Cabinet on 10 January 2017 not to pursue the shared services proposal with two other local authorities. The details of the RBCSP were set out in full in the project initiation document (PID) appended to the report and the three key work-streams were summarised in section 5 of the report, a particular feature of which would be the deployment of new software to enable a significant increase in customer self-service functionality. The estimated annual revenue savings to be generated by the RBCSP were set out in para 7.3 of the report and section 7 of the appended PID. The project plan timetable was detailed in section 11 of the PID.  

Mr Buckley did not seek to add to Mrs Plant’s presentation.

Members spoke in support of the RBCSP.

Mr Buckley, Mr Ward and Mrs Shepherd responded to members’ questions with regard to (a) the continued availability of Customer Services to assist individuals with the use of the software (para 9.1 of the report); (b) the Channel Shift Targets table in Appendix A to the PID (page 83); (c) the transfer of investigation of revenue benefit fraud from local authorities to the Department for Work and Pensions and the verification procedure for information provided by customers (CDC’s corporate fraud remit was now subsumed within its Internal Audit section); (d) the objective of achieving an overall reduction in staffing levels across both services would involve full consultation and engagement with staff as outlined in section 8 of the report (which included CDC’s employment stability policy) with a view to mitigating RBCSP’s impact on staff and the risk of staff leaving the organisation ahead of possible redundancies as well as supporting staff and affording an opportunity to learn new skills and seek promotion opportunities. 

Mrs Keegan emphasised the importance of broadband roll-out across Chichester District if customers were to be expected to use the new software system. She also asked for details of the current staff turnover rate and the average length of service for staff within both services.

Mr Buckley undertook to provide after this meeting a written answer to Mrs Keegan’s question about staff turnover and length of service.*

Decision

The Cabinet voted unanimously on a show of hands in favour of the resolutions and also the recommendation to the Council set out below.     

RESOLVED

(1)  That the Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services Project Initiation Document in the appendix to the report be approved.

(2)  That it be noted that from 2018-2019 the annual revenue budget will include savings estimated at £177,000 as a result of this project, rising to an estimated £224,000 by the 2020-2021 budget.

RECOMMENDED TO THE COUNCIL

That a total budget of £327,000 to be allocated from reserves to fund the one-off delivery costs be approved.

*[Note A written answer by Mr Buckley to Mrs Keegan’s question was circulated by Member Services to all CDC members the day after this meeting and a copy is attached to the official minutes for information]