Agenda and minutes

Members to declare any personal or prejudicial interests in any business identified to be considered at this meeting.

No Members declared any personal or prejudicial interests in any business identified to be considered at the meeting.

Notice of items which, in the opinion of the Chair, should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency pursuant to Section 100B(4) of the Local Government Act 1972.

Councillor Huw Williams raised an issue regarding an article in The Times newspaper which published a list of the top Universities within the UK.  He raised the issue as “Review of Higher Education in North East Wales” had been an item at a previous meeting.  At the meeting the Vice Chancellor of Glyndwr University, Professor Mike Scott had attended and had given a presentation.  The figures listed within The Times positioned Glyndwr University 108^th on the list.

The Corporate Director: Customers (CD:C) confirmed he would analyse the figures and would then write to Professor Mike Scott regarding the article.  Upon receipt of a response, CD:C confirmed he would report back to the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee.

To consider a report by the Project Manager (copy attached) that updates members on progress and outlines recommendations on the future direction of the collaboration.

The Corporate Director: Customers (CD:C) presented a report (previously circulated) for consideration of the recommendations of the Conwy and Denbighshire Highways and Infrastructure Collaboration Programme Board following the consideration of the  “Conwy CBC and Denbighshire CC Joint Highways and Infrastructure Fully Integrated Service: Report on the Draft Service Design (September 2012)’  on the 12^th September, 2012.

CD:C introduced the Regional Project Manager (RPM), Danielle Edwards, from Conwy County Borough Council who had produced the report attached to the papers Appendix 1.

The Conwy and Denbighshire Highways collaboration had been in existence for 3 years.  Conwy and Denbighshire established a Collaboration Board and it had been their decision to evaluate the plan ahead.  The Collaboration Board had met with Lead Members, Officers and the Chief Executive to look at the future of the project and evaluate whether there was merit for fully integrating services.  The conclusion was that full integration would not be the way forward, but that did not mean collaboration should not take place. 

The Collaboration Board made the decision that a report would be sent to Conwy and Denbighshire Cabinet on 23^rd October respectively and to bring the report to the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting today and to Conwy Scrutiny on the 16 October.  The report was also to be brought back to Partnerships Scrutiny Committee following the above meetings.

The RPM summarised the main priorities.  The Collaboration Board felt the Full Business Case (FBC) was not a viable case.  How services would be staffed had been assessed, and whether more or fewer staff would be required.  That had been one aspect of the project.  Once it was clear how services would be delivered, the next question would be where were the services to be located?  The three options were:-

Ø      Option 1 – Relocation of Heath based staff to the Caledfryn site

Ø      Option 2 – Retain Caledfryn and the Heath sites, re-organising the staff according to service/ sub-service areas where appropriate

Ø      Option 3 – Staff from the Heath and Caledfryn to be located in a building formerly used as office space in  St. Asaph Business Park.

Transferring staff to the Heath site in Llanfairfechan would not be a viable option as the Heath site was not suitable.

There would be ICT implications moving staff and location.

Section 10 of the report referred to the financial model, which showed prospective costs for the 3 options.

Following discussion by the Committee, various queries were put forward and responded to as follows:-

Ø      The RPM confirmed disturbance costs had not yet been calculated as this would involve a significant piece of work

Ø      The RPM clarified that within the report it should state “removing posts” rather than “removing staff”.  With regards to the impact on staff, the Conwy and Denbighshire staff had been profiled.  To enable savings to be made, there would need to be redundancies.  There were to be 9 new posts created.  These new posts had been matched to current positions so reducing redundancies to 8.59 FTE (full time employment).  Throughout the process, consultation with the Unions had taken place.

Ø      Regarding accommodation, it was not conclusive any of the accommodation options would meet the criteria set.

Ø      Confirmation that the Risk Register was updated bi-monthly and was to be updated following the meeting.

CD:C explained again to the Members to make it clear that full integration within the two Local Authorities was not financially viable but that collaboration could still take place.  Full integration would not benefit residents with value for money.  Internal collaboration was being assessed e.g. highways  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.