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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, County Hall, The Rhadyr USK. View directions

Items
No. Item

1.

Election of Chair

Minutes:

County Councillor D. Batrouni was elected as Chair.

2.

Appointment of Vice-Chair

Minutes:

County Councillor M. Feakins was appointed Vice-Chair.

3.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

County Councillors T. Thomas, J. Becker, K. Williams, J. Watkins, M. Groucutt, R. Roden, M. Powell, Mr Mike Fowler (Coop tee) and Andrew Haigh (NUT).

4.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

County Councillor A. Easson declared a non-prejudicial interest in respect of the whole agenda as the Monmouthshire County Council Member representative on the Gwent Pensions Fund.

5.

Union Consultation

Minutes:

Prior to the commencement of the meeting P. Short from UNISON distributed the following statement;

 

Outsourcing from the Public Sector, of any sort, has always been resisted by the Trade Union Movement.

 

Concerns have centred around set up and transactional costs, subsequent reduction in jobs and services, general employment insecurity and deterioration in pay and terms. The establishment of such ‘arm’s length’ arrangements often help facilitate the ‘outsourcing’ of the impacts of Austerity

 

However, if an Alternative Delivery Model (ADM) is to be established, the Council should promote stability and a smooth transition by ensuring that:

 

·         The Annual Management Fee (5.5 pg. 67) is inflation proofed and assured for a significant period, without taper. Experience from elsewhere suggests that significant income generation can be difficult to achieve in a timely fashion, and of course impossible in 'non-commercial' areas such as Countryside and the Youth Service.

 

·         The Asset base (4.5.2.pg 53) is retained, maintained and invested in.

 

·         A ‘Teckal’ Company is established to avoid subsequent Competitive Tendering for services (4.3.2.5 pg. 48)

 

·         A long term Support Services Agreement (4.5.2 pg. 52) is entered into to achieve stability for Council Central Services

 

·         A Staffing Agreement is drawn up with the ADM to protect the interests of employees.

 

 

STAFFING MATTERS

 

TUPE and the pension arrangements for transferring staff would have to apply (4.6 pgs. 55 -57)

 

In addition, the Trade Unions seek a Staffing Agreement, which would cover:

 

·         Admission to the Local Government Pension Scheme to be on an open basis, allowing new employees to join. The Council should consider assisting the ADM by meeting ‘historic’ pension liabilities

 

·         Trade Union Recognition for all staff with supporting procedural agreements

 

·         Commitment to National and Local Agreements on an enduring, dynamic basis

 

·         Embedding of the Living Wage without supplement

 

·         Application to be added to the Redundancy Modification Order

 

·         A Disputes Resolution procedure

 

·         All the above to apply to any sub contract or subsidiary

 

·         The Code of Practice on Workforce Matters in Public Sector Service Contracts (the so called 2 Tier Code), would have to apply in any event.

 

 UNISON/GMB

 

 

 

6.

Future Monmouthshire: Proposed new delivery model for tourism, leisure, culture and youth services pdf icon PDF 260 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Context:

 

The Outline Business Case (OBC) has been developed to inform and enable a decision by Monmouthshire County Council (MCC), on the future delivery of Tourism, Leisure, Cultural and Youth Services (TLCY).

 

The main purpose of the OBC is to revisit the case for change and the preferred way forward identified in the Strategic Outline Case (SOC); establish the option which optimises the most appropriate fit for MCC and a model that demonstrates sustainable delivery of the broad range of services in scope, value for money and affordability.

 

The OBC explains the background to the proposal and sets out the Strategic, Financial, Economic, Commercial and Management case in support of the proposal. The proposed legal structure and financial case has also been subject to independent professional assurance.

 

Key Issues:

 

In 2014, Cabinet approved an initial investment of £30,000 to commission Amion Consulting to undertake a comprehensive review of the future options for our Cultural services. The purpose of the review was to identify future delivery options with an overall objective of improving, sustaining and developing local services to enable them to become more self-reliant and resilient. During the review it became apparent that cultural services overlapped many of the wider tourism, leisure and culture services so rather than view cultural services independently, it made sense to view the inter-dependencies at a service wide and local level. In addition, analysis of experiences of other local authorities with new operating models, has demonstrated that critical mass in achieving economies of scale, cross subsidisation and mutual support are critical success factors as well as an opportunity to rationalise service delivery.

 

In October 2015 Cabinet approved the release of £60,000 from the Invest to Redesign fund to finance the supplementary work needed to mobilise TLCY services. In addition, in May 2016 Cabinet approved the ‘Future Monmouthshire’ a strategic programme of ‘whole-authority’ work ‘to create the capacity and foresight to develop solutions to some of the county’s biggest challenges, this proposal forms part of this strategic programme.

 

In October 2016 Cabinet approved the continuation of supplementary work from initial phase of a Strategic Outline Case to draft OBC for consideration early 2017.

 

At Full Council March 2017 upon being put to the vote Council resolved to agree the recommendations:

 

  • That Council reset the recommendations as agreed in October 2016 to delay the full business case to enable consideration of an Outline Business Case in March 2017.

 

  • That Council agree to progress options 2, transform in house and option 3, new delivery model for reasons identified in the Outline Business Case and not take forward option1, stay the same and option 4, outsourcing.

 

  • That Council agree OBC is advanced to produce the final Full Business Case for consideration as soon as politically possible.

 

 

Member Scrutiny:

 

A Member questioned if the Trade Union suggestions were deliverable and we were told that the current business case was based on the assumption that the existing terms and conditions will continue, with the pay award linked to the local  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.