Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - County Hall. View directions

Contact: Elizabeth Patterson  01597 826980 Email: elizabeth.patterson@powys.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies

To receive apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillors L George, G Jones, J Pugh and P Davies (Portfolio Holder for Highways, Recycling and Assets)

 

In attendance

Item 5

P Oades (HoWPS Board Chair), R Hensey (Head pf Service HoWPs), J Thomas (Powys County Council representative on HoWPS Board)

Item 6

County Councillor M Alexander (Portfolio Holder for Learning and Welsh Language)

I Budd (Director of Education), A Clark (Head of Learning), E Towns (Senior Challenge Advisor), E Patterson (Scrutiny Officer)

 

2.

Declarations of interest

To receive declarations of interest from Members.

Minutes:

No declarations of interest were received.

3.

Declarations of Party Whips

To receive disclosures of prohibited party whips which a Member has been given in relation to the meeting in accordance with Section 78(3) of the Local Government Measure 2011.

 

(NB: Members are reminded that under Section 78 Members having been given a prohibited party whip cannot vote on a matter before the Committee.)

Minutes:

No declarations of party whips were received.

4.

Minutes

To agree the minutes of previous meetings of Learning, Skills and Economy Scrutiny Committee.

Minutes:

This item was deferred.

5.

Heart of Wales Property Services Ltd Annual Report 2017-18 pdf icon PDF 118 KB

To receive the Annual Report of the Heart of Wales Property Services Limited Joint Venture between Keir and Powys County Council 2017-18.

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Documents:

·         Annual Report Heart of Wales Property Services Limited Joint Venture 2017-18 (Year 1)

·         Appendix 1 Key Performance Indicators Year 1

·         Appendix 2 Year 1 Business Plan

Documents:

·         Annual Report Heart of Wales Property Services Limited Joint Venture 2017-18 (Year 1)

·         Appendix 1 Key Performance Indicators Year 1

·         Appendix 2 Year 1 Business Plan

 

Introduction

 

The HoWPS Chair gave the following overview.

The HoWPS was set up on 3rd July 2017.  It is a 50:50 joint venture between Kier and Powys County Council.  The Board consists of 8 Directors, 4 from each organisation.  The aim was to create a long term sustainable partnership to deliver services in the area of housing, corporate and consultancy by developing a trusted brand.  Also to keep the Powys pound local, to grow the business to support local employment and to return a dividend to Powys.  The new Joint Venture had a difficult start but 109 staff were transferred.  A new IT system had to be introduced and there have been a number of changes at Board and senior staff level.  There were also problems with paying suppliers. 

 

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) show an improving picture with customer satisfaction at 92% on housing service work and 96% on corporate reactive work.  There have been no accidents during the 18,000 hours of work.  One of the biggest challenges is the time taken to return voids for occupancy.  The consultancy service are working well with 5 new primary schools recently completed.

 

The company have been engaging well with local suppliers with 44% of sub-contractor spend within Powys and an additional 36% in Wales.  73% of supplies are purchased within Powys and an additional 10% in Wales.  The aim is to increase the percentage of spend within Powys.

 

The culture of partnership working is improving but communication with groups including schools and farm tenants needs to improve.  Both Kier and Powys County Council will need to work together to grow the business.

 

The Year 2 Business Plan has been signed off.  The company will be taking on 7 new apprentices and working with Syrian refugees and aims to support the Powys Vision 2025.

 

Discussion

 

The call answering and call abandoned KPIs seems to be getting worse.  How are customers meant to interact with HoWPS?

It is recognised and accepted the speed of calls answered and numbers of abandoned calls is not where HoWPS would like to be and is below the industry norm.  It has been a challenge running one contact centre with three hubs.

Since the HoWPS Head of Service took up his role in May 2018 he had spent time understanding the issue.  Greater prominence was given to the call centre which had been enlarged and was again fully staffed (after secondments which hadn’t been backfilled).  There are now 7 staff in post and a Customer Services and Quality Officer has been recruited locally and a Performance Analyst has been appointed for real time analysis of performance which had previously been monitored monthly or  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

Review of Pre-School Provision pdf icon PDF 185 KB

To receive the review of pre-school provision and a scrutiny briefing note on the change of age of admission.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Documents considered:

·         Briefing on the review of pre-school provision

 

Introduction

 

The Director of Education outlined that Powys was one of a few Welsh Authorities to raise the age of admission to school to statutory age.  There are lessons to be learnt about how this was implemented and this will be used to shape how this is progressed.  The change in age of admission resulted in a number of changes to both schools, the provision of high quality early years’ education and childcare sufficiency.

 

Welsh Government have committed to providing access to sufficient childcare for all families by the end of the current term.  The rollout plan has recently been communicated from Welsh Government and for Powys means that 30 hours childcare should be available across the county by April 2019 (having previously indicated it would be piloted in two areas from January 2019).

 

It is recognised that additional work needs to be undertaken regarding the governance of settings.  There are sufficient settings but a number of these have surplus capacity.  It is not sustainable to spend public money on unsustainable settings.  It is positive to record that the 10 regulatory reports received on settings this year record ‘Good’ for standards.

 

The Senior Challenge Advisor noted he had taken Early Years on in June 2018 which was towards the end of the first year of operation.  At present Welsh Government fund 10 hours of pre-school provision.  Powys currently provide 12.5 hours a week. 

 

The service have undertaken a review of the changes regarding pre-school provision.  Setting Leaders reported they had received support from Early Years and Education to extend their age range to 4 year olds.  Schools are working with settings and are meeting the pupils that will be coming into school.  There have been issues regarding governance which need to be clarified.  At present there are three types of governance:

·         Independent (non-maintained)

·         In schools prior to change (Responsible Individual and Management Committee)

·         In schools – new settings (Responsible Individual and Powys County Council governance)

Advice often differs depending on the governance arrangements and reducing the governance types will help simplify this.

 

When the change of age of admission was made savings of £1.5million were expected.  Of these £873k have been achieved in 2017/18.  In 2018/19 £623k were expected of which £397k have been achieved.  Additional costs not originally budgeted for include extra staffing costs when establishing settings, building works to meet Care Inspectorate Wales standards and employment rights which had not been budgeted for.  In addition, the service needs to find £221k of efficiencies during 2018/19.  Welsh Government support for 3 year old funding is provided for 10 hours a week.  At present the schools service is picking up the additional employment support costs but this will need to be included during the review of funding for 3 year old provision.

 

When the arrangements were changed each setting was funded for two staff (up to 16 children).  A number of settings have fewer than 16 children and two settings have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

Chair's Briefing

To receive a verbal update from the Chair of Learning, Skills and Economy Scrutiny Committee.

Minutes:

The Chair advised he had attended the Schools Forum as an observer and this had echoed what the scrutiny meetings had heard.

 

The Chair advised that the potential call-in of a decision by the Portfolio Holder for Economy had, on further discussion, found not to be necessary but that the discussions had revealed that some reports were not as detailed as they might be and that a review of the structure of decision papers would take place.

8.

Work Programme

2nd November 2018 -           Highways Asset Management Plan

 

21st November 2018 -         Funding Formula Review

 

13th December 2018 -         ALN Review

 

Minutes:

2nd November 2018 – Highways Asset Management Plan

 

21st November 2018 – Funding Formula Review

 

13th December 2018 – ALN review