Agenda item

This report briefly sets out the progress made to date on the Council’s commitment to co-production with residents within Finance and Corporate Services.

Nicola Ellis gave an update on co-production in relation to Finance & Corporate Services. Co-production was coordinated by the Corporate Co-Production Team and co-production had helped developed the Council’s services, as the following shows:

• The Digital Accessibility Group (DAG), a diverse group of residents from across the borough, had been very successful and positive. The team was also working on digital signposting with the Voluntary and Community Sector Alliance and had worked on developing and implementing the digital inclusion strategy.
• The Resident Experience and Access Programme (REAP) and the DAG had worked with the team on designing new processes, self-serve options, forms and information available on the website.
• Another area of co-production was the Cost-of-Living Programme, which involved working with residents’ groups and members of the Voluntary and Community Sector Alliance. The Programme set up the H&F Community Compass, which was a product that would enable residents to identify what support was available through the voluntary and community sector, including information on the digital inclusion strategy.
• People and Talent had been delivering a programme in conjunction with Inclusion London on co-production and disability equality. The team had also been supporting various events among staff, for example Wellbeing Wednesday and the EDI Board.
• Regarding procurement, residents were involved in building designs, architect plans and evaluation. The team was also looking at co-producing service models in market engagement. Co-production was embedded in the service and benefits were being seen.

Councillor Helen Rowbottom asked if there had been reflection on the groups of people being reached and whether that mirrored everyone who was being provided for by the Council. The Chair added that there might be people who did not have time to come to meetings and enquired if the Council’s digital channels were used to reach a wider group of people. Nicola Ellis acknowledged that it was challenging for some residents to co-produce with the Council and so the issue would be taken to the team for them to investigate further.

ACTION: Nicola Ellis

Councillor Helen Rowbottom mentioned the difficulty of gathering information of the people they met on canvassing and wondered if a large language model would help with that and make co-production less onerous on residents.

Councillor Rowan Ree pointed out that some people might not wish to spend a lot of time interacting with the Council and REAP would be important in changing how people interacted with the Council, such as creating a one-stop shop for council services.

Councillor Rory Vaughan asked about the learnings from the pre-market engagement activities, particularly with engaging with local businesses. Joanna McCormick said that the team worked with Economic Development colleagues on engaging with small businesses and trying to understand what they knew and did not know about getting a contract with the Council, the contracts available to them, how they might get onto the supply chain, and what they would want to see in the design of specifications. The Council could not always procure at that scale but there were opportunities to look at through supply chains and direct purchasing where appropriate. Having direct conversations with small businesses was very valuable and trainings were also jointly given by the Economic Development and Procurement teams.

Councillor Rory Vaughan followed up by asking if the Council did more business with Small and Medium-sized Businesses as a result. Joanna McCormick said more small businesses were coming onto supply chains, but it was less frequent to buy from very small businesses directly. Nevertheless, the team was aware of the local businesses they could reach out to when an opportunity arose.

Councillor Rory Vaughan was also keen to know more about the feedback garnered from the young inspector programme for semi-independent living. Joanna McCormick said that she would come back with more information from Children’s Services colleagues. Finance & Corporate Services was involved in contract management and the procurement cycle was something that could be replicated in other areas. Councillor Rory Vaughan suggested looking at how the evaluation took place and how the contract could be tweaked mid-stream or when re-procurement took place.

ACTION: Joanna McCormick

The Chair enquired if there were barriers to involving residents in procurement decision-making given the details and confidentiality of many procurement matters. Joanna McCormick replied that the best opportunity for residents to be involved in procuring new services or programmes was to be involved in co-producing the design and specifications, which would feed into the questions asked during tendering. There were limitations to what involvement there could be during the tendering process and the team had worked to ensure that residents were involved in the questions that were most relevant to them. They were cautious about involving residents in evaluation because they would like to avoid opening residents to the complications of legal process should the process be challenged at any point.

Councillor Natalia Perez commended the report and welcomed the commitment to co-production and the work of the DAG. She found the co-production away day she attended very informative with residents and officers coming together and looked forward to hearing updates from other departments.

Councillor Jacolyn Daly asked about the position of data and AI in procurement co-production and what directions these might take. Nicola Ellis responded that there was risk in co-production moving in a different direction from that of technology procurement. Developing knowledge alongside residents and taking residents on the AI adoption journey were important. Co-production could not be seen as a barrier but a tool for understanding residents’ concerns and informing the Council’s communications strategy.

The Chair asked if the H&F Community Compass was live yet. Matthew Sales (Assistant Director, Programmes, Assurance and Analytics) replied that it was set to go live to the sector early in 2025, after which contributions from the sector would be invited for setting out the directory of their services and offers, including digital inclusion. It would be a sign-posting platform for residents and voluntary and community service organisations to search for what services were available against particular needs and interests. It was hoped that residents would have better control over what services they could access, and services could reach people earlier through self-servicing. The platform was co-produced with members from DAG and other residents.

The Chair thanked officers for the report and noted that the Board would like to see updates in the future in time.

ACTION: Nicola Ellis

RESOLVED

1. The Policy and Oversight Board noted and endorsed the report.