Agenda item

Councillor Paul Skinner introduced a report by the Assistant Director – Corporate providing details on the further progress of the South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership since the last update in November 2021.

The report stated that the business case for the Partnership identified and established four stages for building the partnership, namely:

• Setting the Foundations
• Set Up
• Accelerate; and
• Embed

Progress on the Set Up stage of the Partnership was set out in the body of the report under the headings of:-

• Post Covid Recovery Plan
• One team approach and start of cultural alignment
• Cross Council political working discussions
• Common Governance framework/approach
• Common performance framework and service standards
• Agree Annual Delivery Plans

An outline Performance Framework was agreed in the last update report to Council which created a common suite of performance measures across the Partnership.  This would not replace performance reporting within sovereign authorities but was an addition to it with focus on Partnership performance.

Performance measures had now been added to the outline Framework, which was attached at appendix A of the report. This would enable regular reporting of progress of the Partnership in delivering its agreed priorities and the measures would also be used to help shape the future priorities over time.

The mechanism for delivering the strategic priorities of the Partnership were set out in Table 2 of the report.  It was noted that the partners identified would change from time to time based on the agenda for the priority partnership.

Informal briefings on topics of note/interest would be provided to Members, with formal reporting on the work of the Priority Partnerships being included in the twice yearly performance reports to Council.

None of the Priority Partnerships had decision making powers or specific budgets.  Any actions taken by the Partnership would need to be authorised in line with the sovereign Council’s constitutions and those of partner organisations.

Questions were raised on the list of links to missions in the levelling white paper as set out in the report, and whether they were realistic or achievable, and progress on the status with devolution.

Concerns were expressed regarding the pressure on Officers in the Senior Leadership Team who were now servicing three councils. In response it was stated that Officers were now able to focus one a single role, rather than having multiple roles for one Council, due to the resources made available from the partnership and being empowered to deliver.

In respect of performance measures, comment was made on the length of time telephone calls were waiting in the queue to speak to operators, which could result in a significant cost to those residents who could not afford it.

In summing up Councillor Skinner responded that a number of unforeseen additional Government schemes had impacted on the resources and response times for the Customer Services and Revenue and Benefits Teams.  The targets in the report would be achievable by working together as a partnership and with Officers who had the appropriate skills set to deliver projects.

It was moved by Councillor Paul Skinner, seconded by Councillor Nigel Welton and