5 January 2010 Minutes of Barnet Council Directors group

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PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

London Borough of Barnet

Minutes of the Counci l Directors Group

5 January 2009

Present:

Nick Walkley Chief ExecutiveBrian Reynolds Deputy Chief Executive & Executive Director of Environment &

Regeneration

Andrew Travers Interim Deputy Chief Executive

Zina Etheridge Assistant Chief Executive

J an Willis Interim Director of Finance

Irene Findlay Director of Adult Social Services (chairing the meeting)

Val White For Robert McCulloch-Graham, Director of Childrens Services

Stewart Murray Director of Planning Housing & Regeneration

Dorne Kanareck Director of Environment & Operations

Craig Cooper Acting Director of Corporate Services

J ulie Oldale Acting Commercial Director

J eff Lustig Director of Corporate Governance

Also attending:Kate Kennally, for items 1, 2 and 3 below

Apologies for absence:

Robert McCulloch-Graham, Director of Childrens Services

Max Wide, Executive Director, Organisational Development & ChangeAction by

1. Sheltered Housing Judicial Review

Irene Findlay and Kate Kennally took the Group through the options to bepresented to Cabinet Members following the High Courts quashing ofCabinets decision.

The Group accepted that the High Courts decision

related specifically to certain disabilities aspects of the EqualitiesImpact Assessment and its role in the Councils decision-making

process; essentially validated the other aspects of that process.

Accordingly, the Group agreed that Cabinet Members should berecommended to support an approach based on carefully addressing theareas which the High Court had found defective, and then revisiting andrehabilitating the decision.

A briefing paper on the overall approach will be brought to the CabinetBriefing Meeting on 18 J anuary. A further paper is to be brought to CDGbefore more concrete proposals are put to Cabinet.

It was fully accepted, and would need to be made clear to Cabinet, thatthis approach implied a significant delay in implementing the shelteredhousing proposals, with consequences for

the validity of the consultation exercise which would probably need

IreneFindlay

IreneFindlay

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achieving the budgeted savings.

The Group also noted the wider implications for corporate decision-making and asked that

the Equalities Group arrange for additional advice to be given toreport authors to make the Equalities section of reports;

Democratic Services undertake a review of the equalities content ofrecent reports.

ZinaEtheridge

J eff Lustig

2. Free Personal Care at Home

Irene Findlay alerted the Group to the implications of the Personal Careat Home Bill which would shortlybegin its Parliamentary stages. The Billwould remove the ability of Councils to charge individuals with criticalsocial care needs if this care was provided within their home.

Work was in hand to quantify the implications of the legislation but, at thisstage, the Group noted that generally the proposals

aligned poorly with promoting independence and choice;

would create administrative burdens in defining eligibility and incarrying out additional assessments;

implied additional costs falling on the Council after the budget wasset.

3. Right to Control Trailblazer application

The Group warmly endorsed the submission of a Trailblazer applicationto pilot a Right to Control programme in the Borough. By placing social

care and benefits-related funding for disabled people under the control ofthe individuals concerned this initiative would promote independence andchoice and aligned very closely with Future Shape aims.

IreneFindlay

4. Value for Money Benchmarking

The Group reviewed the results of external auditors Grant Thorntonscomparison of Barnets services with other appropriate authorities interms of cost and performance. This would form part of the evidencebase for the next Use of Resources Assessment.

The findings of the exercise generally confirmed existing perceptions of

the services concerned. However, whilst no previously-unrecognisedissues may have come to light, it was clear that more work needed to bedone to explore and address the areas of comparative high cost/lowperformance identified. Craig Cooper will therefore co-ordinate anexercise to identify actions to meet the Benchmarking findings.

The Group thanked Grant Thornton for their work on this exercise.

CraigCooper

5. Staff Conduct

The Group considered the report submitted to the Standards Committeeon 17 December on complaints related to staff conduct. Overall the

position revealed was a good one, but the report prompted the Group toask that the recording of staff-related complaints should be co-ordinatedwith partner bodies, particularly Barnet Homes.

J eff Lustig

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6. Update on Data Protection/Management Information Strategy

Recognising that the current fragmented arrangements for DataProtection gave major cause for concern, the Group gave their firmagreement to proposals submitted by J eff Lustig for

an action plan to get the right policies and procedures in place tomeet the challenges ahead;

a set of revised polices; revisiting the Link Officer arrangements to strengthen and support the

work on Data Protection at service level.

The Group asked that this work be backed up by a strongcommunications effort.

In the wider context, the Group agreed that there was a need for anoverall Management Information Strategy and asked that the Director ofCorporate Services bring to the Group some proposals on what such aStrategy might look like.

J eff Lustig

ZinaEtheridge

CraigCooper

7. Childrens Centre Programme Phase 3

The draft report was cleared for Cabinet Resources Committee on 19J anuary subject to it being considerably expanded to make clear tomembers the issues involved in particular the Governments distancecriteria determining the location of the Centres. A briefing paper formembers should also accompany the report enlarging on these issues.

8. Economic Development

The Group agreed proposals for a new approach to economicdevelopment in the Borough based on a drawing together of the currentdisparate workstreams. One of these was meeting the Councils duty topublish a Local Economic Assessment (LEA) by March 2011, and theGroup agreed arrangements for carrying this out.

It was agreed that from more coherent integration of work there wouldemerge a shared evidence base which would, in turn, allow the creationof a set of consistent principles to guide future economic development.However, the Group stipulated that

It had to be made clear that these arrangements did not represent areturn to outdated interventionist models;

No additional funds could be made available for the LEA which would

need to be carried out within existing financial and staffing resources The question of a project sponsor for the LEA is to be discussed and

decided by Brian Reynolds, Stewart Murray and Zina Etheridge;

The LEA Steering Group should include representatives of YoungPeople;

The scope of the work should embrace Crime and Disorder issues aswell as the forthcoming duties in relation to Childhood Poverty;

The 8 key questions should be refined to establish more clearly thepurpose of economic development in the Barnet context;

The London and regional context (NLSA, A5 corridor) needs to bedrawn out.

A briefing paper on the action being taken is to be submitted to a Cabinet

ZinaEtheridge

ZinaEtheridge,plus

BrianReynolds,StewartMurray

ZinaEtheridge

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Briefing meeting before the elections.

9. Behavioural Change Final Assessment of Pilot Schemes on

As requested by the Group at the meeting on __October, Zina Etheridgesubmitted a draft of the final assessments of the two pilot behaviouralchange schemes commissioned by the Council from consultants Futerraon behalf of the DCLG.

The Group noted the conclusions and lessons learned from theseexercises. Some of these had been negative but had served to prove aneed for a much better understanding of the target audience and thedevelopment of packages of incentives carefully adapted to each socialgroup. A short-term time-frame had also been shown to be unrealistic.

There would be particular lessons for the Councils FS prototyping, andfurther work was needed on the implications for future projectmanagement.

The report was endorsed for submission to the DCLG, but the Group alsoasked that

The officers should prepare to demonstrate the value achieved for thepublic funding invested;

A paper on the outcome of the pilots should be submitted to a futureCabinet Briefing meeting on the political leadership dimension, re-emphasising the FS point that pioneering work in this field could notbe without risk.

ZinaEtheridge

ZinaEtheridge &DorneKanareck

10. Minutes of Previous Meeting

In relation to the budget headlines,

Directors confirmed that briefings for new Cabinet Members had beenarranged or were about to take place;

A paper is to be brought to a future DG on the Capital Programme;

The CE confirmed that Trade Union briefings had taken place on 4J anuary, and meetings with individual Directors had now beenrequested by the Unions.

J an Willis

11. CDG Forward Plan

This was agreed as amended subject to clarification of the item on LABV BrianReynolds,

StewartMurray12. East Barnet Emergency over the Christmas Period

The CE expressed his huge gratitude to the staff who had given their timeover Christmas to assist with the East Barnet emergency. He asked theGroup for suggestions to mark the Councils appreciation in concreteform.

A full report would be prepared on the emergency, looking at such issuesas the Community Leadership role and the responsibilities of the NationalGrid. The CE would also be suggesting to Group Leaders that this would

be a very suitable topic for review by Scrutiny.

All tocontributesuggestionsto CE

NickWalkley

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13. Pre-Election Purdah

J eff Lustig reminded the Group that purdah for the local elections and anyGeneral election if not held earlier, would begin on 25 March. He askedDirectors to maintain their vigilance in preventing any event involvingmembers that would breach the principles of purdah and agreed toproduce a simple guide for officers to that effect.

All

J eff Lustigto produceguide

14. Craig Cooper and Julie OldaleWith the new Director of Corporate Services about to take up his duties,the CE recorded his thanks to Craig Cooper for acting up to cover for thispost and to J ulie Oldale for covering for Craig during the interim periodsince the establishment of the post.

Chief Executive

11 J anuary 2010

Circulation: Group Members, Teresa Main, Wendy Stout, Harris Lorie

Documents

5 January 2010 Minutes of Barnet Council Directors group