Issue - meetings

To consider a joint report of the Corporate Director for Corporate & Support Services.

Policy priorities for 2020/21 were set out within the Council Plan, which was adopted at the Budget Council Meeting in February. This incorporates the shared outcomes from the Borough Plan alongside specific priorities of the Cabinet.

These priorities, re-shaped to take account of One Stockport and Building Back Better (building on Covid19), are articulated within the Portfolio Agreements, which form the basis for regular in-year reporting. Portfolio and Corporate Performance and Resource Reports (PPRRs and CPRRs) will assess progress against key objectives, priorities, outcomes and budgets, enabling Scrutiny Committees to hold the Cabinet to account and for the Cabinet to identify current and future risks to delivery.

This report presents the draft 2020/21 Agreements for the Resources, Commissioing and Governance and Citizen Focus and Engagement Portfolios for consideration and comment by the Committee.

The Scrutiny Committee is recommended to review and comment on the draft Portfolio Agreements.

Officer Contacts: Peter Owston at peter.owston@stockport.gov.uk (474 3274), Alan Lawson, at alan.lawson@stockport.gov.uk  (474 5397) or Kora Yohannan (kora.yohannan@stockport.gov.uk (474 4032)

The Corporate Director, Corporate and Support Services submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) presenting the draft 2020/21 Agreements for the Resources, Commissioning & Governance and Citizen Focus & Engagement Portfolios for consideration and comment by the Committee.

The policy priorities, re-shaped to take account of One Stockport and Building Back Better (building on Covid-19), were articulated within the Portfolio Agreements which formed the basis for regular in-year reporting. Portfolio and Corporate Performance and Resource Reports (PPRRs and CPRRs) would assess progress against key objectives, priorities, outcomes and budgets, enabling Scrutiny Committees to hold the Cabinet to account and for the Cabinet to identify current and future risks to delivery.

The Cabinet Members for Resources, Commissioning and Governance (Councillor Tom McGee) and Citizen Focus and Engagement (Councillor Kate Butler) attended the meeting to respond to questions from the Scrutiny Committee.

The following comments were made/issues raised:-

Resources, Commissioning and Governance Portfolio

·         Officers and Cabinet Members were thanked for their consideration of the targets and measures and the description of the schemes in light of comments previously made by the Scrutiny Committee.

·         Currently the impact remained unclear of the end of transition period, on 31^st December 2020, following the UK’s departure from the European Union in January 2020 as negotiations were ongoing on a trade deal between the UK and the EU and on a range of other port-Brexit arrangements.

·         A Member requested more information on the package of works needed to allow the relocation of services from Ashley House.

·         The review of the webcasting figures at the end of each committee meeting cycle was useful information, but not necessarily as a performance measure.

·         The commissioning of schools places was important and the information needed to be reported on a regular basis.

Citizen Focus and Engagement Portfolio

·         Concern was expressed that the target for Stage 2 complaints was only 73%. It was felt that there needed to be a note which explained that in most cases when the 20 days’ time period was exceeded it was with the agreement of the complainant. A Member felt that there should be a greater emphasis on the expectations of residents.

·         Clarification was sought on performance measure CFE1.8 on the Number and % of Digital Contacts and what the 75% was a percentage of, what the five digital skills were and how they were measured. Members requested that this information be circulated to them via email and that a report be submitted to a future meeting of the Scrutiny Committee.

·         With regard to performance measure CFE2.2 on the Number of community groups to join the DigiKnow network (cumulative), it was suggested that libraries should be omitted from the measure especially as they had been closed during the Covd-19 pandemic. It would be a more useful performance measure to look at the number of individuals trained. Greater publicity of the scheme was supported.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.