(i)         The report of Councillor Victoria Holloway, Cabinet Member for Central Services, is enclosed.

(ii)        The report of Councillor Lynn Worrall, Cabinet Member for Housing, is enclosed.

Councillor Holloway, Cabinet Member for Central Services, introduced the report and, in doing so, highlighted some of the key achievements of the Portfolio, which included:

·         The continual improvements to the website which enabled residents to transact more business online.

·         The planned roll out for Universal Credit.

·         The success of the counter fraud investigation service.

·         The success of the shared legal service which was highly commended as a finalist in the Municipal Journal Achievement Awards for 2014.

·         That over 1000 staff had been enabled to work flexibly and over 3000 training days had been provided.

Members questioned the Cabinet Member and received responses as follows:

·         Councillor Gledhill commended the work of the counter fraud investigation service and questioned how much this service had saved the public purse.

The Cabinet Member appreciated the recognition of the service but advised that she would need to investigate the figures and report back outside of the meeting.

·         Councillor Halden commended the fact that Thurrock paid 94.6% of invoices within 30 days and asked whether the Portfolio Holder had any information on which services were delivered locally in the Borough so that they could be included in tender exercises.

The Cabinet Member advised that she did not have a specific figure of how many invoices were paid to local businesses, but assured Members that all small and medium sized local businesses were encouraged to tender for work that the local authority needed.

·         Councillor Hebb acknowledged the good work that had been undertaken to improve the Council’s website and questioned what was being done to monitor and act upon feedback from local residents about the performance of the Council.

The Cabinet Member advised that feedback was obtained through a variety of forms, which included online, face to face and telephone transactions and that this was used as a measure against Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) which facilitated change.

·         Councillor Ojetola recognised that compliments often went unreported and commended the successes of the service, but raised a concern that the introduction of assessing and categorising ‘concerns’ in addition to ‘complaints’ diluted the reporting procedure.

The Cabinet Member felt that it was right to introduce a pre-stage reporting procedure of ‘concerns’ but assured Members that these were given the same weight as a stage 1 complaint. She felt it was more important that enquiries were categorised better so that appropriate action could be taken more promptly.

·         Councillor B. Little supported the Council’s move to conduct business online but questioned what was being done to assist residents who may not have access to computers or who struggle with IT.

The Cabinet Member observed that sometimes residents were underestimated in their abilities to use technology and often people of all ages and abilities were happy to transact business online, however for those residents that preferred to contact the Council by phone or post this was still an option.

·         Councillor S. Little was concerned that the hot desking arrangements in place were not appropriate for some teams which could negatively affect their performance.

The Cabinet Member advised that the principle of hot desking was working well but recognised that it took time for some staff to adapt.