Agenda and minutes

To consider and approve the notes of the last meeting of the Panel held on 14 August 2006 (attached).

The notes of the meeting held on 21 November 2005 were agreed.

(Head of Research and Democratic Services)  To report the appointment of any substitute members for the meeting.

No substitutes had been appointed.

(Head of Research and Democratic Services). To declare interests in any items on the agenda.

In considering whether to declare a personal or a prejudicial interest under the Code of Conduct, Overview & Scrutiny members are asked pay particular attention to paragraph 11 of the Code in addition to the more familiar requirements.

This requires the declaration of a personal and prejudicial interest in any matter before an OS Committee which relates to a decision of or action by another Committee or Sub Committee of the Council, a Joint Committee or Joint Sub Committee in which the Council is involved and of which the Councillor is also a member.

Paragraph 11 does not refer to Cabinet decisions or attendance at an OS meeting purely for the purpose of answering questions or providing information on such a matter.

No declarations of interest were made.

(Chairman/Lead Officer) At the last meeting it was agreed that the Terms of Reference would be revised. This is attached.

The Panel considered their new terms of reference.

In relation to item (1) it was noted the Portfolio Holder had agreed to temporality suspend the Customer Services and Transformation Programme (CSTP) in order for the Council to give the necessary resource priority to the waste management project. As an interim measure the Panel would consider feedback from the Customer Services Working Group on current customer service activities across the Council.

The Panel asked if the recent discussions on the Single Non - Emergency Number Programme would affect the CSTP? The Head of ICT clarified that despite the decision to abandon the project due to the financial costs of the Essex wide bid, the Council still intended to go ahead with its plans for a local scheme.

The new Terms of Reference was endorsed and referred to the next meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny on 9 November 2006 for consideration.

(Head of Research and Democratic Services) To consider the initial report on the pilot.

The Senior Democratic Services Officer presented a progress report on the web – casting project. The report asked the Panel to consider the proposal  to extend the existing pilot   contract period until 31 March 2008 and subject to this receive a full evaluation of the pilot in the new municipal year. The Panel were also asked to consider whether the Portfolio Holder should be asked to seek the inclusion of a bid for the Chamber Speech Reinforcement system in the final capital programme and express views on potential new uses of the system.

It was reported that on 4 September 2006, the Council had commenced a one year webcasting pilot with an end date of 3 August 2007 with funding provision from the Government IEG Budgets. The contract had been due to commence in July 2006 but this had been put back to August 2006 due to negotiations about its content particularly the end date and action to ensure installation of equipment in the Council Chamber was of the highest quality during installation.

It was reported that the introduction of the system had gone very smoothly with public and member acceptance. No problems had been experienced with the technical elements of the webcasting except with Members forgetting to switch their microphones on before speaking.  A bid for a replacement microphone system had been included in the draft Civic Office planned maintenance budget for 2007/08 which would very much determine the success of continued webacating. The Panel requested the inclusion of the bid in the final Cabinet Programme for next year.

The system was leased from a company called Public – i which ‘hosted’ the system minimizing the impact the system had on the Council’s IT system.  At each meeting monitoring was undertaken by the staff at the company which ensured that the continued streaming of the webcast.

Officers currently had been able to webcast at least one meeting a week and envisaged continuing this until contract expiry. Operational duties had been split between Committee Officers and Public Relations who were enthusiastic about the project and currently engaged in operational training. The intention was to train as many officers as possible.

The Panel noted an analysis of visits to live and archived meetings showing that the levels of web - cast viewing was equal to that of a number of London Boroughs, and greater than neighbouring Districts using webcasting.  To date 1500 visits had been received averaging about 500 a month. Only 7% of this was from internal officer viewing. The Senior Democratic Services Officer gave a short presentation showing the main pages on the site including the section for feedback.

The scheme had been publicised by press releases, the Forester and through a page on the website. Local coverage in the press had been broadly positive. Extracts of which were before Members.

In terms of future projects it was noted that there was a number of types of webcasts that  officers wished to trial including:

            (a)            Using the webcast equipment  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

Councillor Metcalfe reported on progress with the Customer Contact Centre which was a key element of the Customer Services Transformation Programme. At present the programme had been put on hold until the uncertainties about the Councils overall budget position had been addressed. Despite this, steps were still being undertaken to take forward the customer service elements of the programme through proposals to establish a Customer Service Working Group. These proposals were still at an early stage but the discussions would focus on the involvement of all services  in improving customer service.

It was clarified that one of the main aims of the working group was to ensure that there was EFDC representation on the Pan Essex Regional Group on customer service issues. The group would be funded through existing resources and would report progress to this Panel.

It was reported that the next meeting of the Regional Group to be held this week was to consider the future of cash halls. It was important that the District views were fed into this discussion given Members had opposed the move to close local cash hall which the group supported.

To consider which reports are ready to be submitted to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee at its next meeting.

(i)         E-Government returns – Progress; and

(ii)            Customer Contact Centre – Progress.

The next scheduled meeting of the Panel is on 7 February 2007 at 7.30 p.m. in Committee Room 1.

Noted that the next scheduled meeting was on 7 February 2007.