Meeting documents

The appointment of the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Committee at each meeting shall follow the principles of the rotation of chairing of meetings agreed as part of the Pathfinder arrangements.

RESOLVED

That Mr D Rowlands be elected Chairman of the Bucks Shared Support Services Joint Committee until the next meeting.

Mr A Busby was elected Vice-Chairman, in order to chair the next meeting.

Apologies were received from Mr J Cartwright and Ann Davies (People and Communications Lead – Shared Support Services).

Anne Davies referred to the statement made at the last meeting regarding Chris Williams’s partner taking up an appointment as Partnership Director for one of the bidders. She informed Members that the company was Mouchel.

Mr C Furness, Chief Executive, South Bucks District Council was the Programme Sponsor and Mr N Cave, Pathfinder Director would chair the Programme Board.

There were no declarations of interest.

To agree the minutes of the Joint Committee held on 10 September 2009.

The Minutes of the Meeting of the Joint Committee on 10 September were agreed as a correct record, including the confidential minutes, subject to the following amendment:-

Item 8 – Representations from Trade Union and Staff Representatives – 4^th sentence

‘One trade union was unable to attend an out of hours meeting …..’

Members had received written comments received so far from Trade Unions and staff representatives on the Evaluation Matrix and Methodology (Appendix 1) and Workforce Questions (Appendix 2) within the Invitation to Submit Outline Proposals (ISOP).

Roger Newall (AVDC) and Richard White (WDC) attended on behalf of Unison and Alan Taberer attended as a staff representative from Bucks County Council.

Unison referred to their written comments in Appendix 3 of the report. They particularly highlighted the following concerns:-

v     ‘Thresholds’ (4.9) - One of the aims of this Programme is to provide a significantly improved quality public service and therefore Unison were surprised that a proposal would be regarded as acceptable if it scores 3 for each sub criteria (30%).

v     Location of jobs.

v     A letter which had been sent regarding process issues

v     Assurance that they are consulted on meeting timetables well in advance.

The staff representative echoed those points above and made an additional comment regarding the weighting of services. He commented that the scoring was heavier on the IT/finance side and was concerned about this in relation to the delivery of Human Resources.

The Joint Committee agreed to provide a response to the comments they had submitted within two weeks. There was some debate about the time taken for consultation and response on both sides. Both sides expressed a desire to resolve outstanding issues so that the proposed joint forum could be implemented thus streamlining the process and channels for future communications.

To resolve to exclude the press and public as the following item is exempt by virtue of Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12a of the Local Government Act 1972 because it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

RESOLVED

That the press and public be excluded for the following item which is exempt by virtue of Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12a of the Local Government Act 1972 because it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

The Joint Committee will consider and agree the evaluation criteria.

Members discussed the evaluation criteria and took into account points made by both Trade Unions and Staff Representatives and the following points were noted:-

v     A change was made to the sub-criteria for Legal and Commercials

v     An adjustment was made to the balance of weighting between workforce matters and the change and implementation strategy. This was in response to comments made by Unison.

v     District Councils continued to express concern regarding jobs leaving Buckinghamshire, particularly with the housing growth agenda.

v     Two minor amendments were made to the proposed workforce questions in Invitation to Submit Outline Proposals

RESOLVED

That, subject to the changes above, the Joint Committee agreed the high level criteria for tender evaluation.

To be advised.

The proposed date for the next meeting is Wednesday 21 January 2010.