Agenda and minutes

No apologies for absence were received.

Members and Officers are requested to give notice of any personal or prejudicial interest and the nature of that interest, relating to any item on the agenda in accordance with the relevant Code of Conduct.

No declarations of interest were received.

Minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday 9 June 2010.

RESOLVED:

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 9 June 2010 be confirmed as a correct record.

Joint report of the Chair of Sefton Understood and the Director, Sefton Equalities Partnership.

(Mr. John L. Curtis, Chair of Sefton Understood to present the report).

The Cabinet Member considered the joint report of the Chair of Sefton Understood and the Director of the Sefton Equalities Partnership on the proposed Strategic Information Sharing Protocol (SISP) for Sefton Council as a key partner in Sefton Borough Partnership (SBP).

The Cabinet Member was asked to review, endorse and ratify the SISP and the accompanying toolkit as indicated in Appendix 1 and sign the Declaration of Acceptance and Participation on behalf of Sefton MBC, as indicated in Appendix 2.

The report indicated that the SISP would commit all partners within the SBP to sharing data and information with other partners at a strategic level,

‘which would in turn facilitate a rich, intelligence led

understanding of our communities’.

Mr. John Curtis, Chair of Sefton Understood, presented the report, indicating that the SISP had been agreed in principle by the SBP Operations Board on 5 July 2010, but that this agreement was subject to formal ratification by the partners.

Arising from the discussion the following issues were raised and Mr. Curtis answered questions thereon:

• Consultation regarding release of information – especially in respect of persons who might be distressed or confused
• Obtaining explicit / implicit consent of individuals for release of personal information
• With whom would information be shared?
• What auditing measures would be in place?

RESOLVED: That

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive

The Cabinet Member considered the report of the Assistant Chief Executive on the progress towards the achievement of the Performance Improvement (Intelligence) and Communications Functions of the Council to achieve a contribution towards the £1M savings target within the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) as indicated in Paragraph 1.1 of the report.

The report indicated that the Cabinet Member had asked to be kept appraised of the implementation of the savings targets identified for 2010/2011 and towards achievement of the savings target within the MTFP within the 2011/2012 financial year, associated with work which fell within the Performance and Governance portfolio.

Consideration was given to an additional briefing paper which had been circulated prior to the meeting to stimulate discussion regarding the future management of Performance Management as outlined in paragraph 2.4 of the report and the development of a media strategy which would be a sub-set of the overall Communications Strategy as outlined in paragraph 2.5 of the report.

RESOLVED: That

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive

The Cabinet Member considered the report of the Assistant Chief Executive (Management) advising of the progress made towards the achievement of Sefton's Local Area Agreement (LAA), Corporate Plan Objectives and National Indicators as at 31 March 2010; and indicating that a decision on this matter was required to facilitate the ongoing analysis and management of the Council's performance as part of the Performance Management Framework.

The report indicated that the performance in the fourth quarter report showed that the Council continued to perform well; that the progress made in delivering key projects was excellent and the performance against indicator targets demonstrated that the Council continued to deliver against its priorities; and that the action plans and other steps to be taken where performance was lower than anticipated should help to drive improvement in performance indicators and project delivery.

RESOLVED: That

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive

The Cabinet Member considered the report of the Chief Executive informing of her Departmental Service Plan for 2010 to 2011 and setting out the Annual Action Plans for this period as indicated in the Service Delivery Plan attached as an Annex to the report.

RESOLVED: That

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive

The Cabinet Member considered the report of the Assistant Chief Executive which provided an update on the progress with Partnership Mapping which was being developed as a requirement of the Annual Governance statement for the implementation of governance procedures for all existing and new partnerships, networks and other bodies with the Council engages.

The report indicated that as part of the initial governance review it had been recognised that ‘other partnerships’ was a key work stream; that the Stage 1 document published in December 2008 had identified a number of key tasks; that the purpose of the exercise was to help the Council work with its partners to identify all of the partners with which it was involved; and have good systems of governance to ensure excellent performance.

The report summarised progress which included

• the development of a web-enabled database, registering all existing and new partnerships and searching for partnerships which might be relevant to interest areas and departments

• a list of significant and non-significant partnerships indicated in Annex 1 of the report;

• training of a number of identified partnership officers to use the database;

• partnership officers would be required to undertake an annual review and risk assessment of the partnership with which they were involved,

• an outline of the initial stage of the process; and

• the involvement of the Council’s Internal Audit Team in developing the governance procedure, particularly risk management and monitoring the identified partnerships via the database.

RESOLVED: 

That the progress on the Development of Partnership Management be commended.