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Bath & North East Somerset Council | ||||
DECISION MAKER: |
Cllr Malcolm Hanney, Cabinet Member for Support Services | |||
DECISION DATE: |
On or after 18th October 2008 |
PAPER NUMBER |
1 | |
TITLE: |
West of England Partnership - Revenue & Benefit Shared Services |
EXECUTIVE FORWARD PLAN REFERENCE: | ||
E |
1890 | |||
WARD: |
All | |||
AN OPEN PUBLIC ITEM | ||||
List of attachments to this report: | ||||
1 THE ISSUE
1.1 Revenue & Benefit managers from Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucester and Bath & North East Somerset were charged by their respective Directors to carry out a feasibility study into the potential for joint working.
1.2 Working with consultants Meritec with Deloitte, this work has progressed to completion of feasibility stage and three recommended actions are proposed for approval in this report.
2 RECOMMENDATION
The Cabinet member is asked to agree that:
2.1 Bath & North East Somerset Council continues to consider with Bristol City Council the potential for joint provision of National Non Domestic Rates, determines appropriate options for joint working, consults the cabinet member and then proceed to design stage
2.2 Bath & North East Somerset Council works with South Gloucestershire Council to progress to design stage joint delivery of Fraud Investigation services
2.3 Bath & North East Somerset Council works with the other three West of England partners to develop a joint bailiff procurement contract.
2.4 All proposals when completed to design stage are reported back for a further single member decision based on detailed business plans as soon as possible and prior to April 09.
3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
3.1 The outline (feasibility stage) business cases for all options indicate some significant savings in ongoing operational (direct) costs, together with further wider benefits.
3.2 The costs savings relate to the whole West of England and rely on agreement between all four Councils to proceed. The basis for apportioning costs and savings between the affected Councils has not been assessed. Bath & North East Somerset has relatively low costs and therefore potentially has less to gain.
3.3 Benchmarking data for the overall service is difficult to compare due to recharging models and variable structures. However, the detailed work did show that Bath & North East Somerset do deliver good value for money, with the highest collection rates for Council tax, above average processing times for benefits at average cost according to CIPFA benchmarking data.
3.4 The savings do not take account of opportunities for reductions in support services costs and recharges nor additional income from trading undertakings. However, such reductions are always challenging as support costs tend not to fall in line with direct service reduction and can leave the remaining organisation with relatively higher overheads.
3.5 The content of the individual business cases in terms of benefits, estimated (net) savings and the level of implementation/operational risks (High, Medium, Low) are summarised as follows:
Service |
Key Benefits |
Estd. Savings |
Risks |
Fraud |
|
£0.96m (7-year term) |
L |
|
NNDR |
|
£0.08m (7-year term) |
M |
Bailiff |
|
£1.26m (7-year term) |
M |
Whole Service |
|
£8.62m (10-year term) |
H |
3.6 It should be noted that the feasibility study was based on all four authorities participating in each of these projects.
3.7 The most radical option, the combining of the whole service into one combined West of England services does not have agreement from the other 3 partners and therefore the projected savings are not available. In addition it is important to note that:
(1) Savings projected are largely theoretical and partnerships such as SW1 in Somerset are just beginning to explore the real implications in terms of costs, savings and service to customers
(2) The annual savings attributable to Bath & North East Somerset for an whole service option are only about £147,000 based on this Council's share of the population of the West of England
(3) The estimated overall investment to achieve these savings in is in the order of £3.6miilion over the first two years, including ICT, project managements and other costs.
(4) There are substantial risks in terms of service quality, responsiveness to customers as services will be more remote from customers, especially as the service quality here is already rated very highly with 82% customer satisfaction, a good CPA rating and quality accreditation through Charter mark status.
3.8 The recommendations in this report, if agreed, will mean that these feasibility cost savings for the less radical options, i.e. fraud investigations, bailiffs and business rates (otherwise known as national non domestic rates - NNDR) will need to be reviewed as part of the design stage. It should be noted that these services:
(1) Are more specialist and suffer from sustainability issues as a result of the small numbers of specialist staff involved
(2) Are relatively uniform and do not depend so heavily on local customer access to Council officers with local knowledge and local offices
3.9 The Council's medium term service and resource plan is presently being updated and will refer to the opportunities arising from greater integration with partners including the PCT (primary care trust) and the police:
(1) This means that the focus and opportunities for economies and more effective collaboration to deliver joined up and easy to access public services will primarily be between providers of public services that are members of the Local Strategic Partnership for Bath & North East Somerset
(2) The West of England partnership will continue to focus on strategic issues that need to be considered and implemented across a wider area such as strategic land use planning, waste, housing and transport. These are the matters that will need to feature in our Multi Area Agreement with the Government Office.
4 CORPORATE PRIORITIES
4.1 The integration of revenues and benefits across the West of England would not fit well with the new Corporate Plan and that is one of the reasons why it is not recommended.
4.2 However by exploring the lower risk options it may be possible to create a more sustainable and resilient set of revenues and benefits services and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. This helps provide better value.
4.3 The avoidance of the integration of all the revenues and benefits services at this stage supports the ambition for increased customer focus.
4.4 With time it will be apparent if wider partnerships elsewhere have managed to achieve good focus and economies whilst creating larger and potentially less accessible public service centres.
5 THE REPORT
5.1 The four authorities in the West of England Partnership (WEP) have been working together to determine how shared working in Revenues and Benefits Processing Services could potentially deliver improved performance and efficiency gains. To this end, they commissioned a 2-stage Feasibility Study with the following key elements:
- Stage 1 - An analysis of Shared Service options available; criteria for evaluating such options; potential forward scenarios; and indicative Business Cases for a number of preferred options
- Stage 2 - For the preferred options, an analysis of current costs; key performance indicators; potential scope and governance arrangements; and outline Business Cases.
5.2 The key conclusion from Stage 1 was that there were beneficial sharing opportunities in the delivery of Fraud, NNDR and Bailiff Services, and that there was the potential for more significant returns and risks from shared working at a Whole Service level. Stage 2 worked up these individual services into more robust business cases
5.3 The feasibility process has produced outline business cases and helped clarify thought processes on a shortlist of shared service opportunities. It has also enabled effective personal relationships and a partnering culture to be developed that will benefit the service going forward - whatever developments are agreed.
5.4 The West of England Resources Directors was asked to express the views of their Councils having consulted with relevant Cabinet members. Their main recommendations were:
(1) Move to a design stage between SGC (South Gloucestershire Council) and Bath & North East Somerset for partnership working in the area of Fraud.
(2) To hold further talks between Bristol City Council (BCC) and Bath & North East Somerset about the potential joint delivery of business rates services.
(3) Work to develop a joint procurement of bailiff services for the 4 Councils.
(4) No single strategic Shared Service approach to be developed at this stage.
6 RISK MANAGEMENT
6.1 The report author and Cabinet member have fully reviewed the risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.
6.2 The risks are largely set out alongside the financial implications earlier in this report.
6.3 It should also be noted that the design stage will also take into account this Council's capacity to manage three joint relationships with appropriate accountability and delivery of projects, delivery of savings and / or improved resilience / quality of service and no decision to progress will be taken without clarity around these issues.
7 EQUALITIES
7.1 An equalities impact assessment will be carried out as part of the more detailed business planning for the three options recommended for consideration.
8 RATIONALE
8.1 The preferred options take into account:
(1) The balance between potential risks and returns.
(2) The priorities contained in the new Corporate Plan for Bath & North East Somerset
(3) The aspirations of the other councils across the West of England and the scope for partnership working.
8.2 Joint workings on Fraud and National Non Domestic rates are both specialist activities that would potentially benefit from greater resilience. The option for joint bailiff procurement is low risk and offers the potential for cost savings and efficiency improvements.
8.3 The whole service option at this stage is discounted on the basis that it is high risk, the potential for joint working is untested, and the share of the return on investment is unclear.
9 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED
9.1 The options have been set out in the report. A further option is no change and this remains possible if the detailed business and implementation plans do not meet with expectations.
10 CONSULTATION
10.1 Consultation has taken place with the Section 151 Finance Officer; Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer. Other relevant consultation relates to the Corporate Plan and the principle established by that plan.
11 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION
11.1 See section 8
12 ADVICE SOUGHT
12.1 The Council's Monitoring Officer (Council Solicitor) and Section 151 Officer (Strategic Director - Support Services) have had the opportunity to input to this report and have cleared it for publication.
Contact person |
Ian Savigar, Head of Council Connect, Revenue & Benefit services, 01225 477327 |
Background papers |
West of England Partnership Feasibility study |
Please contact the report author if you need to access this report in an alternative format | |