Contact your Parish Council

Maidstone Borough Council

Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Tuesday 2 September 2008

The Council�s Service Partnerships

Report of: Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer

1.�� Background

1.1�� At the meeting of the Committee on 1 July 2008, Members considered their work programme for the Municipal Year 2008-09 and agreed that �a review of partnership working be on-going throughout the year�.

1.2�� Further to this, the Committee discussed its future work programme at its meeting on 5 August 2008 and agreed it would be constructive to interview managers of the Council�s service partnerships and to receive an update on the Overview and Scrutiny Partnerships Report.

2.�� Introduction

2.1�� As part of its ongoing drive to improve services and deliver efficiency savings, the Council has been pursuing partnership working arrangements with other district authorities.� The Strategic Plan 2008-11 highlights that �recent partnership working arrangements include the Internal Audit partnership with Ashford Borough Council and the Overview and Scrutiny Partnership with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.� In 2007 the Council agreed partnership arrangements with Tunbridge Wells for the provision of training and with Ashford in relation to payroll. Key partnerships for delivering joint business transformation work will seek greater efficiency in key services�.

2.2�� In addition, an extraordinary meeting of Maidstone Borough Council was held on 28 July 2008 to consider the establishment of a Mid Kent Improvement Partnership involving Ashford Borough Council, Maidstone Borough Council, Swale Borough Council and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.

2.3�� The establishment of the Mid Kent Improvement Partnership was agreed at this meeting to deliver the following objectives:

� To improve the quality of service to communities;

� To improve the resilience of service delivery;

� To deliver efficiency saving in the procurement, management and delivery of services;

� To explore opportunities for trading in the medium to long-term; and

� To share best practice.

2.4�� The Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee is responsible for performing the overview and scrutiny function in relation to the management of the Council�s resources and the provision of corporate services and staffing matters, which includes monitoring partnership working arrangements.

3.�� Recommendation

3.1�� The Committee is recommended to interview the officers with regard to the service partnerships that they manage.� Issues for consideration could include, but are not limited to:

� Partnership agreements

� Impact on service delivery

� Risk management

� Issues for management

� Issues for staff

� Problem solving

� Exit strategies

� Lessons learnt for future partnerships.

4.�� Internal Audit

4.1�� The Council�s partnerships database provides the following information on the Internal Audit Partnership:

��

Statutory/Discretionary	Discretionary
Lifetime	3 years but extendable
Partners/Structure/ Constitution	Maidstone and Ashford Borough Councils. Structure of partnership defined in a formal agreement between the parties
Purpose	To provide quality internal audit services to both authorities
Council priorities	Core Values � work in partnership with others to maximise effectiveness. Be prudent with public money and provide value for money services. Strive for excellence and continuing improvements.
Budget Cost	New income of �33,540 pa. partially offset by additional costs circa �20,000
Time Cost	Requires that the Head of Audit (Maidstone) spends 42.5% of his time managing the internal audit function at Ashford.
Benefits	A net income to Maidstone. Greater resilience in providing statutory internal audit service. Opportunity to coordinate work and to use specific audit skills (staff) on both sites and to facilitate skills transfer.
Lead Cabinet Member	Cabinet Member for Corporate Services.
Lead Officer	Head of Internal Audit and Risk Strategy, Brian Parsons
Principal Contact	Brian Parsons

4.2�� On 19 May 2008, the Audit Committee approved an extension to the existing partnership agreement between the Council and Ashford Borough Council.� The report considered by the Audit Committee is attached at pages 19-28 for Members� information.

5.�� Benefit Fraud Partnership

5.1�� The Council�s partnerships database provides the following information on the Benefit Fraud Partnership:

Statutory/Discretionary	Discretionary
Lifetime	5 years but extendable
Partners/Structure/ Constitution	Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Borough Councils. Structure of partnership defined in a formal agreement between the parties
Purpose	To provide quality counter fraud and visiting services for the administration of housing and council tax benefit for both authorities
Council Priorities	Core Values � work in partnership with others to maximise effectiveness. Be prudent with public money and provide value for money services. Strive for excellence and continuing improvements.
Budget Cost	The budgeted cost of the service is �482,000. The cost of the service is recharged between the two authorities based on their live benefit caseload with Maidstone Borough Council liable for 60% in holding the larger benefit caseload. The apportioned cost is �282,000.
Time Cost	11 days for the Head of Revenues and Benefits in maintaining the partnership and overseeing service delivery through the partnership. 1 day for the Assistant Director of Customer Services in attending the Partnership Board Meeting.
Benefits	A year on year saving for Maidstone BC. Greater resilience in providing the counter fraud function, opportunity to coordinate work and to use specific skills (staff) on both sites, facilitate skills transfer, minimise duplication of effort and investment in service development.
Lead Cabinet Member	Cabinet Member for Corporate Services.
Lead Officer	Head of Revenues and Benefits, Stephen McGinnes
Principal Contact	Stephen McGinnes

5.2�� The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services took the decision to enter into partnership working for revenues and benefits on 14 March 2008.� The Report for Decision on this is attached to this agenda at pages 29-47 and includes the business case for the partnership.

6.�� Business Transformation

6.1�� The Council�s partnerships database provides the following information on the Business Transformation Partnership:

��

Statutory/Discretionary	Discretionary
Lifetime	2 years to Dec 2009.
Partners/Structure/ Constitution	Ashford BC, Maidstone BC, Tunbridge Wells BC. The shared programme board comprises a director from each authority and a memorandum of understanding governs the arrangements
Purpose	To achieve customer service improvements and reduced costs. Target is for 10% increase in customer satisfaction and 10% savings in costs for each service reviewed, giving a total of �150k savings in the year.
Council Priorities	All but most especially the value around customer service and value for money
Budget Cost	Approx �200k depended on scale and number of reviews and implementation costs. All implementations must have a pay back period of 18 months and are funded by invest to save. Set up costs and initial reviews are funded by external investment from Improvement and Efficiency South East and Kent Improvement Partnership of some �125k.
Time Cost	projection is 1500-1750 days/ year
Benefits	See purpose
Lead Cabinet Member	Cabinet Member for Corporate Services
Lead Officer	Alasdair Robertson
Principal Contact	Alasdair Robertson

6.2�� The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services took the decision to enter into the business transformation partnership on 29 October 2007.� The Report for Decision, which includes the business case for the partnership, is attached at pages 49-82.