Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

Councillor Arculus declared a personal interest in that the law firm he worked for was listed in Appendix 2 of the report.

Following the last meeting of the Committee held on 16 March 2011, the Chairman agreed to consider the deferred minutes of the Joint Scrutiny Meeting which had been held on 6 January 2011 as an urgent item.

The minutes of the Joint Scrutiny Meeting held on 6 January 2011 were approved as a correct record.

The report presented the final report from the Review of the Use of Consultants which had been prepared by Councillors North, Lane and Sandford.

At a meeting of the Environment Capital Scrutiny Committee on 14 January 2010, where the proposed council budget had been discussed, the subject of the use of consultants arose.  It was agreed that the Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee be recommended to undertake an in-depth scrutiny review into the cost and effectiveness of the council’s use of consultants and to make recommendations on the future use of consultants to inform the development of budgets in future years. At its meeting on the 18 January 2010, the Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee produced a list of questions which it asked to be answered.

On the 15 March 2010, the Cabinet Member for Resources delivered a report on the use of consultants to the Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee.  Following this report and subsequent discussion, the Committee established a task and finish group to review the council’s use of consultants and report back on its findings and recommendations.  An interim report on progress with the review was considered by the Committee at its meeting on 9 November 2010.

Councillors Lane, North and Sandford presented their report.  A lot of work had been undertaken to produce the report and it was acknowledged that each of the review group started out with their own different personal views.  It was hoped that all members of the Committee had read the report and the Group were happy to take any questions and answer any queries.

Questions and observations were made around the following areas:

• The report made reference to Verto and Qlikview, what were those systems?   Verto was the council’s project management system which provided information on projects and how they were proceeding.  Qlikview was a data management system.
• Why did the council not already look to fill senior management posts with a permanent employee where it was beneficial?  This recommendation was about ensuring that before a consultant was engaged the skills of the existing staff were reviewed to see if there was anybody suitable to undertake the work.  During the review it had become clear that there had been very little succession planning in the past but this was now improving.  Where some vacancies were only short term it may still be better value to engage a consultant.
• Councillor Seaton advised that he agreed with what had been said about the skill sets but it was difficult to pull across the skills of 2500 employees.  When he considered a request to engage a consultant he always looked at the business case and took advice from Directors about any in-house skills which could be made available.  Since the last review in 2006 the way the council worked had changed considerably, for example one Head of Service was now undertaking the roles of five people by taking on considerably more responsibility.
• It was believed that the Panel had not been convinced by the argument  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.