The Chair introduced this item
and welcomed Ian Davis as Chief Executive. He asked Ian to give a brief overview of what he
considers to be the Council’s key priorities for the future
and asked whether his views on this had changed since his
appointment, last June.
Ian Davis had met with the
Leader and Members of the two main political parties, feedback from
both parties was consistent.
Key priorities
include:
·
Safeguarding, including a greater emphasis on
safeguarding of children
·
Customer Experience
·
Public Health and inequalities in relation to
this
·
Regeneration and Housing including the changing
nature of the world we live in.
To deliver these priorities the
organisation must be structured to ensure we have the right
behaviours. Firstly, the
authority’s finances must be kept under control with a more
strategic and earlier focus on the budget during the year. This
will include more regular meetings and more involvement with
Members.
Secondly, the culture of the
organisation needs to be effective by having an open and honest
approach which residents expect.
Recruitment of the right staff
is key, with a move towards the
employment of long term staff and a reduction in the number of
interim managers.
A reorganisation is currently
underway which will reduce the number of managers in the management
team. Following on from this there will
be a review of the next tier of management at service head level,
with a move away from the AD manager level. The intention is to
make it clearer to see who has responsibility for each area. It
should also provide budget savings.
The following questions/ issues
were raised:
- In
answer to a question about whether there may be conflicts/ issues
resulting from a reduction in the number of departments, Ian Davis
answered that whenever you create a structure that creates a
‘silo’ it is important the ‘silos’ work
together to provide the correct outcomes. It is useful to work together on shared
responsibility ‘themes’ for example on the subject of
‘modern slavery’.
- An
Enfield Youth Parliament (EYP) representative referred to
responsibility for a key area such as housing and asked if it meant
that responsibility mainly lies with just one person. Ian Davis spoke of the empowering of staff and how
the structure of departments should enable staff at all levels to
have an input, an example of this is when looking at the Corporate
Plan.
- A
Customer Experience Strategy is to be put in place for the first
time.
- Councillor Smith said he thought it was difficult for
‘behaviours’ to change, it is important that people are
accountable for their actions and that there are clear lines of
responsibility. It was thought better
that people are open and clear if any mistakes are made to ensure
issues are resolved, and not to have a ‘blame’
culture.
- Concerns were raised that in previous reorganisations some very
capable people had left the organisation, we needed to ensure that
those officers who ’go the extra mile’ do not leave the
authority.
- Ian
Davis said he thought there may have been problems in the
restructure process in the past due to a lack of communication with
staff and a lack of clarity of the process. He said this would not
happen in the future. He also said we
were moving towards a ‘blind’ recruitment process where
an applicant’s age/ sex/ culture characteristics would not be
known. He referred to the need for an
embedded culture, where staff would continue to ensure that public
money is spent wisely.
- Ian
Davis was asked about his approach to customer service further to
Enfield 2017 and he answered that a Customer Service Strategy is to
be introduced with customer surveys taking place regularly as well
as staff surveys. There would also be a
re-introduction of mystery shopping, for example, in relation to
the council tax and planning services.
A ‘score card’ system would be introduced about quality
issues which would enable the service to be able to respond by
identifying and changing any problems quickly. We will ensure we have a first class service for
customers.
- It was
suggested that a move away from an electronic approach for all
customers would be beneficial. Also the
internet system for accessing council services should be easier
-within a ‘few clicks’ people should be able to access
Enfield’s services as it is possible with some other local
authority sites.
- Councillor Smith referred to accountability and performance of
services being driven by EMT (Executive Management Team). He asked
if this would continue as it currently does? Ian answered
that it was anticipated there would be more linking together
between finance and performance. In
future it is anticipated that staff would be able to clearly see
their teams’ performance.
- The
Safeguarding of Adults and Children is one of the key areas the
Chief Executive will be focusing on. An assurance board would
assess all aspects of the services, checking with monitoring
officers would be undertaken to ensure services are ‘fit for
purpose’.
- The
use of benchmarking services with other authorities was
mentioned. Ian Davis said whilst this
is a good starting point, it is necessary for us to look closely at
every service to see if improvements can be made.
- Reference was made to pressures on budgets especially on
Children’s Services. At the
moment, many of our children with Special Educational Needs and
Disabilities (SEND) are attending specialist schools outside of the
borough. We are aiming to expand existing specialist SEND provision
for children within the borough in order that they may return/
remain within the Enfield area.
- There
has been an increase in demand for support for children with
special educational needs, over recent years, and Ian spoke of the
need for a streamlined approach. He is speaking to Tony Theodoulou
and James Carrick about these issues. One of the EYP Reps referred
to the support he had received at school and spoke to Anne Stoker
(AD Children’s Social Care) after the meeting about his
experience.
- Councillor Rye spoke of public health and the budget for
this, he thought there should be more
flexibility in the way it is applied.
Ian Davis spoke of his great interest in public health and how it
is the key link and priority for all Council services.
- Councillor Levy spoke of key themes that may cover all services,
for example – the scrutiny work stream on the issue of
loneliness.
- Ian
Davis would like to achieve a greater oversight of proposals/ plans
before matters go to Cabinet. It was thought more pre-decision
scrutiny of items coming to OSC would be useful and would avoid the
need for many ‘call -in’ meetings.
Councillor Levy thanked the
Chief Executive for attending the meeting and for giving an
overview of what he considers are the Council’s key
priorities. He suggested that he may
wish to come along to a future meeting of OSC to give a further
update to the new committee members and suggested that this could
be done in parallel with the Council Leader.