PAPER C
RESOURCES SELECT COMMITTEE – 1 NOVEMBER 2004
MEMBERS
ICT
JOINT REPORT OF THE HEAD OF LEGAL AND DEMOCRATIC SERVICES AND THE HEAD OF ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
REASON FOR SELECT COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION
At its meeting on 6 September when considered the Quarterly Performance
Management Report issues were raised by Members with regard to the reliability
of the current ICT equipment supplied to Members and the Select Committee
commissioned the Head of Organisational Development to report on the “type,
level and frequency of ICT support to Members and review its effectiveness”.
This report seeks to scope this particular piece of work and takes the
opportunity to extend the issue of ICT provision to Members substantially further.
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ACTION
REQUIRED BY THE SELECT COMMITTEE To agree the attached terms of reference for a detailed report back in early January 2005. |
BACKGROUND
Members will be aware that for the last three years we have been able to provide Members with a laptop, printer and the ability for them to access their Outlook messages and diary from home. Whilst the take up has been good there are some Members who have elected not to have these facilities. Arrangements are in hand so that we can support Members who range in scale from those who do not find ICT helpful to those who would find it difficult to cope without it. This broad range of involvement is mirrored at virtually every level within any grouping across the country.
At the moment there are 44 laptops and printers issued to Members.
As we start to plan for the 2005 Elections officers had identified the need to undertake some work on the provision of ICT equipment to the incoming Members. Our expectation is that there will be an increase in the number of Members wanting ICT equipment to enable them to carry out their task and we need to plan on being able to provide all 48 Members with this equipment.
Of course it is not only the provision of the equipment but also the training and support and hence the link back to the original request from this Committee.
However we also need to take the opportunity to rather than simply issue the equipment discover from the incoming Members exactly what their aspirations for ICT is. For example it maybe that some Members already make extensive use of their own computers at home and would rather the ability to log into the Council’s Outlook system with their own computer rather than have an additional laptop. We then need to try and match expectations so as to make the most efficient use of the resources and skills available.
In parallel to this is of course the Gags project and we should build on this and Members ICT provision to meet some of the objectives of Gags. For example a member of the public choosing to raise an issue with an elected Member direct should have the issue treated in the same way as if they had contacted the Call Centre. This would ensure that all issues are logged and a full picture of any patterns emerge – rather than the possibility of those being raised with Members direct “bypassing” in some way those issues raised by contact with Officers. The tools being put place to assist the Gags agenda (particularly the CRM software that records all issues) could be used by Members to understand and track all issues that have been raised in their Electoral Division regardless of how they have been raised. Thus using ICT to assist Members in keeping fully informed of all the complaints/issues raised by members of the public in their patch.
We appreciate that this is a considerably wider spectrum of work than that originally envisaged but its objectives is to harness the aspirations and objectives of the incoming members with the GAGs agenda and the resources available. This project will extend to beyond the 5 May elections and will need reviewing to see what lessons can be learned and to examine the successes sometime in the early autumn of next year.
Initially some work needs to be undertaken to identify the issues, the objectives and the solutions and detailed below are a suggested Terms of Reference for this are attached at Appendix A.
RELEVANT PLANS, POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
GAGS
four objectives
CONSULTATION PROCESS
No
consultation as such in the preparation of this report – consultation with
officers and members for the next stage.
FINANCIAL, LEGAL, CRIME AND DISORDER IMPLICATIONS
The proposed detailed report will deal explicitly with the resources and legal issues that arise. At this stage (in terms of commissioning the report) there are no implications as this work was substantially included with the work programme of the officers concerned anyway.
APPENDICES ATTACHED
Appendix
A – proposed Terms of Reference of the 1st stage of the project.
BACKGROUND PAPERS USED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS REPORT
None used in the preparation of this report.
Contact Point : Chris Mathews, Democratic Services Manager, ' 823280
email: [email protected]
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JOHN LAWSON Head of Legal and Democratic Services |
DAVID PRICE Head of Organisational Development |
APPENDIX A
MEMBERS ICT TERMS
OF REFERENCE
Objective:
To produce a report
by the end of 2004 which in the context of the four key objectives of Great
Access to Great Services, identifies:
Consultees: