Councillor Phil Davies introduced a report by the Head of Neighbourhoods and Engagement which updated the Cabinet on the Public Service Transformation (PST) initiative that the Council was involved in.  Together with its partners, the Council was committed to new ways of working, to deliver public service transformation across the Borough based on the clear principle of finding local solutions to local problems. 

The report informed that one strand of activity within this project was Wirral’s role in the PST Network. PST aimed to build on the opportunities created by Community Budgets around the country, leading to more joint working and shared services and a new way for local public service providers to work together to meet local needs.  The Community Budgets Pilots, initially launched in 2011, aimed to encourage public service partners to share budgets, improving outcomes for local people and reducing duplication and waste in order to:

·  make better use of their resources by establishing joint budgets and sharing local knowledge, community assets and voluntary effort;

·  flex central rules and regulations so local partners can provide better services that suit their area;

·  give people greater control over their local public services; and

·  establish local partnership and governance arrangements to create a unified approach

The Cabinet was informed that during 2012, four areas in England (Cheshire West and Chester, Essex, Greater Manchester, and in London the Tri-borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster) had begun piloting Community Budgets as a mechanism for tackling some of their biggest local challenges, from domestic violence to skills and employment. In each of those four localities, public services, business and the voluntary sector had been working together to develop new joint responses to those challenges.

Members noted that there were two tranches of Community Budget Pilots and Wirral was one of nine areas in the second one announced in July 2013 (Bath and North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset, Hampshire, Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark, Sheffield, Surrey, Swindon, the West London Alliance (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow) and Wirral.). The Chief Executive reported that Wirral being chosen as one of the nine was a tribute to the Council and a recognition the credit it was now receiving, as a considerable number of councils had applied to be in the Pilots and been unsuccessful.

Following on from the initial announcement, it was noted that Wirral’s broad approach to the PST initiative was set out within the Joint Statement of Intent (JSI), in October 2013.  Wirral’s Public Service Board (PSB) was providing the overarching direction for Public Sector Transformation activity, and partners had now developed a number of work streams as part of this.

Wirral’s JSI highlighted a number of priority themes, each with a specific work stream focus which was set out in the report. Each work stream had a project lead and a detailed project plan, currently being developed, which set out the specific activity that would take place in the coming months. 

The detailed focus for how Wirral’s PST initiative would be delivered was set out in an outline Business Plan attached to the report as Appendix 1.  Appendix 2 to the report set out further details about the Health Related Worklessness project.

Members were asked for their comments on the latest developments and to agree a number of proposed actions as the project moved towards implementation from April 2014.

The Chief Executive informed that the Council was now delivering services in an improved way.  He had recently attended a meeting in London with Brandon Lewis MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the
Department for Communities and Local Government who had paid tribute to the work the Council was doing.  Additional resources were flowing into the Council as a result.

The Cabinet noted that in March 2014, Ministers had approved catalytic funding to support local authorities participating in the PST Network with on-going co-design work. Wirral was set to receive £75,000 of this total amount which would help to develop and implement business cases in 2014/15, and scale up transformation projects that had been successfully piloted.

In addition, on 1 April, the Network had informed partners of a one-off additional resource for Local Authorities to invest in their local service integration and transformation.Councillor Phil Davies informed that to the Council’s great credit its allocation was £563,984.  He referred to Appendix 1 and in particular to the Health Related Worklessness Target: A 10% reduction in the number of ESA/IB claimants in Birkenhead by April 2017.  Partners had acknowledged that this target was highly ambitious. Not accounting for any on-flows this would require a target reduction of 770 ESA/IB recipients over a three year period; this required the same level of reduction that the area had achieved over the past 13 years. This reduction would provide an estimated fiscal benefit of £6,646,640. Councillor Phil Davies told the Cabinet that if the cohort could be got back into work it would save the Treasury a lot of money and the Council wanted to retain a large portion of these savings and use it for the benefit of Wirral residents.  If this was accomplished it would signal a large step forward as the Government would have recognised the case.

RESOLVED: That

(1)  the proposed direction and focus of the Public Service Transformation initiative be noted;

(2)  the Chief Executive be authorised to enter into discussions with the Government to request that any public sector financial savings delivered by the PST projects be retained in Wirral; and

(3)  the Chief Executive and his Team be thanked for the work that they have undertaken on this initiative.

Councillor Phil Davies left the meeting.

Councillor Ann McLachlan in the Chair.