Agenda and draft minutes

Consideration was given to the minutes of the previous meeting held on 2^nd December, 2014.

Reference was made to Minute No. D23 (Webcasting RMBC Meetings) and an update provide on progress.  It was highly unlikely that the webcasting equipment installation would be completed for the Council Meeting on the 28^th January, 2015 as planned, but the temporary solution currently in operation would continue.

A full day’s training would take place for relevant officers and this would then be rolled out to Elected Members.

The Director of Legal and Democratic Services pointed out the need for the Council to be aware of the re-publication of any defamatory or criminal information that would need to be removed before publication on the website.

Resolved:-  That the minutes of the previous meeting be approved as a correct record for signature by the Chairman.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Stuart Booth, Strategic Director of Resources and Transformation, which outlined how to enable the Council to ensure ongoing use and reliability of the Civica Electronic Document Management and Workflow System functionality from 1^st April, 2015 to 31^st March, 2016, there was a need to have a Support and Maintenance agreement with the software supplier.

Maintaining the reliability of Civica was essential in maintaining an excellent customer service in the administration of benefits, ensuring efficient billing of Council Tax and Non Domestic Rates and ensuring that income collection was maximised.

Exemption from Standing Orders for procuring this software support and maintenance was sought as the provision of the document management and workflow software support could only be supplied by Civica.

Resolved:-  That the contract for the purchase of annual Support and Maintenance for the Civica System be approved and be exempt from the provisions of Standing Order 47.6.3 (requirement to invite at least three written quotations for contracts with a value of £20k but less than £50k) and that the purchase be made from Civica.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Stuart Booth, Strategic Director of Resources and Transformation, which provided details of progress on the delivery of the 2014/15 Revenue Budget for the Deputy Leader portfolio based on performance for the first eight months of this financial year. It was currently forecast that the portfolio would underspend against its Budget by £243k.

The report set out in detail the forecasted spend and where services were forecasting an underspend or overspend the key reasons were shown as:-

·               HR and Payroll - Additional income generation principally from schools and academies and reduced staff costs through vacancies.

·               Legal and Democratic Services - Staff cost pressures (£97k), income pressures relating to printing (£50k) partially offset by savings on Members Allowances (-£48k), savings with Election Services from the combined election (-£46k) and savings arising from the moratorium on non-essential spend (-£13k)

·               Financial Services - Reduced staff costs through vacancies.

·               Performance and Quality - Reduced staff costs through vacancies.

·               Commissioning - Reduced staff costs through vacancies.

·               Procurement - Staff costs in excess of budget due to staff turnover being less than budgeted.

·               Internal Audit and Risk Management - Staff costs in excess of budget due to staff turnover being less than budgeted.

The moratorium on non-essential spend implemented on 2nd September, 2014 would continue until the end of March. This would assist with maintaining the portfolio forecast underspend.  

It was noted that HR and Payroll had been included in the body of the report by mistake as this was not in the portfolio held by the Deputy Leader.

Questions were raised and clarification sought on the pressures relating to printing in Legal and Democratic Services and the high income target which had been set against the budget which had not materialised.

It was noted that the Central Print Unit and its state of the art equipment were under-utilised and various options were being considered to make full use of the provision available to ensure its viability and sustainability.  Some software adjustment had been made within the Print Unit to realise savings in Revenues and Benefits, which the Elections Office had also benefitted from.

The Chairman also asked about ICT and whether the proposed virement had assisted with the forecasted balancing of this budget and was informed that the virement had been implemented following a rigorous cost analysis and income generation process.

The Corporate ICT Manager reported on the decrease in business from schools once they converted to an academy and the move to more independent dedicated schools packages.

Resolved:-  That the current forecast outturn for the Deputy Leader portfolio be noted.

Further to Minute No. 22 of the meeting of the Deputy Leader held on 2nd December, 2014, consideration was given to a further report presented by Richard Copley, Corporate ICT Manager, which detailed how, having so far being unable to identify a suitable partner it was now proposed that the Council ceased the practice of donating/selling its old computers.

Instead, the Council would either re-use old equipment internally or dispose of it in accordance with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive).

Resolved:-  (1)  That the proposal to cease the practice of selling or donating surplus RMBC computers be approved.

(2)  That the situation be kept under review with a view to potentially re-commencing donations in the future should a suitable partner be found.

Mags Evers, Chief Electoral and Registration Officer, provided an update following a review of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner By-Election, which had been called at short notice due to the resignation of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner on 16th September, 2014.

The timescales were extremely challenging, with exactly the same twenty-five day timetable being applicable to this whole area by-election as would apply to a single ward involving around 10,000 electors and 2,000 postal votes. The whole area involves 198,000 electors, approximately 50,000 postal voters and requires the use of 166 polling stations and hundreds of staff for polling duties, postal votes and for the count.

A particular issue for some voters was the voting system - Police and Crime Commissioner elections were conducted using the supplementary votesystem where voters were asked to mark a first and second choice. The first and only other time that the supplementary voting system was used in Rotherham was for the first set of Police and Crime Commissioner elections in 2012. For those elections, however, the Electoral Commission produced a booklet which it sent to every household to explain about the elections and about the voting system. 

This was not available for the by-election in 2014 and the wording on poll cards and postal vote packs which were issued by the Returning Officer was prescribed in law. The prescribed wording did not allow for any detailed explanations except to say the voter should vote for their first choice candidate in the first column and for their second choice in the second column. It did not allow for an explanation that the first choice would still be counted if the voter only marked a first preference or that the vote would only be counted once if the voter marked both first and second preference for  the same candidate.

Some concerns were expressed about high numbers of rejected votes at the election. There were 481 rejected votes which represented 1.35% of the total 35,696 votes cast at the by-election and was a similar rate to the other voting areas involved in the election.

It was important that any additional guidance offered to voters on the voting system should come from a source which was required in law to be impartial such as in prescribed wording on poll cards and postal vote packs issued by the Returning Officer or in guidance issued by the independent Electoral Commission.

The issue has been raised with the Electoral Commission with a suggestion that the prescribed wording on poll cards and postal vote packs should be amended before to allow for more explanation of the voting system.

Turnout was low at 18.01% although slightly higher in the Rotherham voting area than in Barnsley, Doncaster or Sheffield. 

Votes for each area were counted by the Local Returning Officer and the figures from each count centre were reported to the Police Area Returning Officer in Barnsley for collation.

It was the responsibility of the Police Area Returning Officer  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Mags Evers, Chief Electoral and Registration Officer, which provided an update on progress in the implementation of Individual Electoral Registration which became effective for all new applications on 10th June, 2014.

Under Individual Electoral Registration each person wishing to be entered on the Electoral Register was required to register individually, rather than by household. Applicants were asked to provide identifying information (date of birth and national insurance number) which enabled their identity to be verified with records held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) before they were added to the register.  People who could not provide this information may prove their identity using an alternative form of evidence.

The new system allowed for telephone and online applications. The Council’s website had a link to the online registration service and funding from the Cabinet Office was used to purchase software to allow the Council’s contact centre to take applications by telephone on a “golden” number. The telephone registration service went live on 1st July, 2014 and contact centre staff now proactively offer the service to callers contacting the Council about a change of address

The transitional canvass to obtain responses was conducted during August – November, 2014 and although this was interrupted by the Police and Crime Commissioner by-election, which was called at short notice and affected the whole area, a revised register of electors was published on 15th December, 2014.

The electorate figure at the commencement of Individual Electoral Registration was 198,020 and on publication of the revised register on 15th December, 2014 the electorate figure was 197,925.  The total number of postal voters was 49,374.

It was noted that when all Local Authorities, electoral registers were matched against DWP records, Rotherham was one of the 13 (out of 346) to achieve the highest match rate of 86%.

Further information was provided on action to be taken on those electors who did not transfer automatically, some of whom may have moved house. There was much work still to be done to ensure an accurate and up-to-date register going into the May 2015 elections.

The effect of the by-election and the already heavy workload associated with the combined Parliamentary, Borough and Parish elections in May this year presented challenges in keeping up Rotherham’s pro-active approach to registration.  It was clearly essential for successful delivery of these important elections that accurate and up to date registers were maintained.

The report also set out in detail and further information was provided on what would be expected from July, 2015 and each year thereafter in terms of the annual canvas and continuous registration.

In terms of the legal individual registration requirement, the Chairman asked about other methods of access for young people such as email or text, and was informed that by law a form had to be posted out to a home address along with a pre-paid return envelope but does provide information and encouragement to register online or by telephone. Where  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

Resolved:-  That the next meeting of the Deputy Leader and Advisers take place on Tuesday, 3^rd February, 2015 at the slightly later time of 6.00 p.m. with a briefing at 5.30 p.m.