Agenda and minutes

That the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet held on 18 April 2011 be confirmed and signed as an accurate record of the proceedings, and that the outstanding actions be noted.

That the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet held on 9 May 2011 be confirmed and signed as an accurate record of the proceedings, and that the outstanding actions be noted.

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Nicholas Botterill.

If a Councillor has any prejudicial or personal interest in a particular report he/she should declare the existence and nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of the item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a prejudicial interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter. The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken, unless a dispensation has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

Where members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance, then the Councillor with a prejudicial interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration, unless the disability has been removed by the Standards Committee.

Councillor Elaine Chumnery declared a personal interest in item 5 (Tri Borough Implementation Plans) as an employee of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The Leader welcomed everyone to the meeting and invited the Opposition to address Cabinet.  Councillor Cowan noted that the Council had not engaged consultants to develop the proposals but was concerned at the lack of independent advice sought either from a senior academic or central government.  He was of the view that the Council had not followed best practice models used in private or public sector organisations while developing the programme.

He queried the benefit of sharing a Joint Chief Executive with Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea as well as the Council employing a Managing Director and Head of Paid Service.  He was not convinced that the Council required a super Director of Children’s Services, Head of Planning and Director of Resident’s Services. He further queried the resource allocation policy and the possibility of resource shunting between boroughs.  He raised concerns at the possibility of the Council raising fees to levels charged by other boroughs without a corresponding rise  in the quality of services received by residents. 

In response, the Leader expressed his delight that all the work to develop the tri-borough proposals to date had been undertaken in house without costly external capacity support.  The development and implementation of the proposals were owned by the three Boroughs’ management teams.  Finding £33m of savings including the reduction of the management overhead cost is a challenging plan for any management team to develop.  He disagreed that there was no need to appoint a joint Director of Children’s Services across the three Boroughs as it was critical to the implementation plan to have a single point of contact.

He noted that the three Boroughs were developing models to control and cut cuts.  The Council had looked at best practice across the country.  The Adult Social Care model was based on the Torbay model which was commended in research undertaken by the Kings Fund.  Finally, he reiterated that through integration, the three boroughs were working towards saving over £33m, drastically reducing borough overhead costs; over 35% around management overheads for Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and Environment Services.  This will protect frontline services from cuts and improve service delivery to residents.

1.        That the recommendations set out below be approved.

1.1       Children’s Services

• To agree the business case as a basis for moving forward.

• To set up a joint steering group of two Members of each participating Borough to supervise further refinement and implementation of the proposals.

• To endorse the financial implications in the Business Case and to include these in the financial planning for each Borough.

• To note that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and City of Westminster will appoint Andrew Christie as Designate Director of Children’s Services, subject to a final Member interview before 31st December 2011.

• To proceed to formal exchange of documentation between the three boroughs by the end March 2012.

• To refer the proposals for further comment by scrutiny committees and for further formal consultation with the trade unions.

1.2       Adult Social Care

·        To agree  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

That a contribution of £335,000, from the Efficiency Projects Reserve, toward the cost of developing a specification for the Project Athena Managed Solution Stream be approved.

1.      That approval be given to the award of the Framework for Pension Administration Services,  on behalf of the Council, to Capita Hartshead Ltd, to commence on 1 October 2011 for a period of 4 years, with provision to award call-off contracts for a period of up to 6 years extendable by a further period of up to a further 2 years.

2.      That a call-off contract for 6 years extendable by up to 2  further years be awarded by H&F to the new provider.

3.      That officers arrange contract mobilisation meetings with the successful tenderer to ensure a smooth implementation.

1.      That the attached final LIP2 document be adopted and published.

2.      That authority be delegated to the Cabinet Member for Environment, in conjunction with the Director of Environment, to submit annual spending plans and monitoring report to TfL to ensure progress towards the borough’s transport objectives and targets.

1        That approval be given for urgent deck panel repairs to be carried out in August 2011 on Hammersmith Bridge from £250,000 allocated for this work (£220,000 from TFL’s LIP programme for Bridge Strengthening works and the remaining £30,000 from the bridge maintenance revenue budget).

2        That Halcrow Ltd has been commissioned through the RBK&C’s Consultancy Framework contract to provide support services for managing and programming the works, be noted

3        That a specialist contractor, Concrete Repairs Ltd, has been nominated as a sub-contractor to Colas Ltd, the Council’s term surfacing contractor, to undertake the works, and that in accordance with the Council’s standing orders, authority for this commission has been obtained through Chief Officer’s approval be noted.  

4    That due to the condition of the surfacing, the works need to be carried out as soon as possible and are currently programmed to commence in August 2011 be noted.

That approval is given to the allocation of Section 106 finance for a series of environmental improvements at St Paul’s Church of England Primary School at a total cost of £250,000 as set out in paragraphs 1 to 5 of the report.

The Forward Plan was noted.

The summary was noted.

The summary was noted.

The Cabinet is invited to resolve, under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they contain the likely disclosure of exempt information, as defined in paragraph 3of Schedule 12A of the said Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

That under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the remaining items of business on the grounds that they contain information relating to the financial or business affairs of a person [including the authority] as defined in paragraph3 of Schedule 12A of the Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

[The following is a public summary of the exempt information under S.100C (2) of the Local Government Act 1972.  Exempt minutes exist as a separate document.]

That the report be noted.

The summary was noted.

The summary was noted.