Agenda and minutes

To note any changes to the membership.

1.1       It was noted that there were no changes to the membership.

To receive declarations by Members and Officers of the existence and nature of any personal or prejudicial interests in matters on this agenda.

2.1       There were no declarations of interest made.

To approve the minutes of the meetings held on 12 May and 2 June 2016.

3.1     RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meetings held on the 12^th May and 2 June 2016 (public and confidential versions) be signed by the Chairman as correct record of proceedings.

Report of the Chief Procurement Officer

4.1      The Head of Procurement Development, and Della Main, Operations Support Manager, Process and Governance, introduced an Annual Report that reviewed the Council’s contracts as per the requirements of the Committee’s Terms of Reference.

4.2      The committee was informed that 55 contracts over the value of £100,000 and 63 contracts with a value of less than £100,000 commenced in 2015/16 in accordance with the requirements of the Procurement Code. There were 29 extensions and 6 variations of existing contracts. In exceptional circumstances a waiver to the requirements of the Procurement Code may be obtained from the Chief Procurement Officer.  55 waivers were approved during the course of the year. While the committee welcomed the reduction in extensions and waivers from the previous year members considered that the figures were still too high given that many of the Council’s contracts run for a number of years with clear end dates which should provide sufficient time to plan for new procurements.  This was acknowledged and the Committee was advised that the Procurement Team was looking at how it could assist contract managers to better plan for procurements to avoid them having to apply for extensions in future.  Automatic alerts are set up in the system and a forward plan of activity is reviewed so that contract managers are contacted to understand their intentions early enough to develop appropriate sourcing strategies.

4.3      The Committee was informed that the capitalEsourcing contracts register is regarded as the “single source of truth” and forms the basis for reporting on contract information across the Council.

4.4      The committee noted that Compliance regarding completion of mandatory fields had increased overall since 2014/15 from 41% to 94%.  Compliance regarding completion of contract performance data had increased from 30% to 63%.  The Committee referred officers to Table 3 in the report which showed a breakdown of contract performance by Contracting Authority. It expressed concern that only 15% of contracts let by CityWest Homes had been evaluated.  It was clarified that this did not mean that CWH had not monitored the contract performance of 17 out of 20 contracts but that it had not entered the information in capitalEsourcing.  She advised that Procurement Services are working with the Services to ensure that all contracts are evaluated a minimum of once per annum within the platform.

4.5      The committee heard that a Tri-Borough Contracts Management Framework is available, which creates a consistent approach to Contracts Management that will be applied to all external third party relationships.  Members were informed that workshops about the framework had been held in all three boroughs together with six training sessions.  Feedback from attendees had been positive and common issues that had been raised were being followed up.  However, it was suggested that this had not translated to a change in contract manager behaviour.  In response to questions about the governance for each borough the Committee was advised that each borough in the Tri-borough Partnership has their own procurement rules which are vastly different from one another.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Report of the City Treasurer and the Director of Policy, Performance and Communications

5.1     Pete Carpenter, Assistant City Treasurer, informed the committee that the Period 2 Finance Report which had been marked to follow had not been submitted to the committee as originally intended because it had yet to go through the governance process of being reported to the Executive Management Team and the Cabinet.  He expected that this would occur in time for the report to be presented to the committee at its meeting on 14 July.

5.2     Damian Highwood, Strategic Performance Team, introduced the End of Year Performance report that presented detailed performance results for the year April 2015 to March 2016 against the 2015/16 business plans.  The report provided explanations and commentary in respect of outstanding, good and poor performance, including achievement of targets and details of remedial actions being taken where appropriate.

          School Performance for 2015

5.3     The committee welcomed Richard Stanley, Assistant Director (School Standards) Tri-borough Education Service, who had been invited to the meeting to answer questions on a range of key performance indicators relating to school performance.

5.4     Mr Stanley addressed the committee.  He explained that the School Standards Team monitors standards within Westminster Schools.  It also works closely with Westminster headteachers to provide support to schools to help improve standards including training in the areas of leadership and management.  Following the move of many of Westminster’s secondary schools from local authority maintained status to academies the team’s relationship with schools is evolving from one of direct oversight to influencing and challenging.

5.5     Mr Stanley advised the committee that pupil’s performance at Key Stage 2 and GCSE compared favourably in comparison to national and London averages.  While there been a slight decrease in Key Stage 2 results compared to the previous year he indicated that this needed to be viewed against an overall trend of improvement over the last 3 years.  He further advised that other measurements such as the results of Ofsted inspections provide a broader example of school performance.  He highlighted that well over 90% of Westminster schools were considered to be delivering by Ofsted

5.6     The committee noted that the percentage of Westminster’s pupils who achieved at least 5 A*- C grades at GCSE including English and mathematics was 68% against a target of 70%.  Mr Stanley highlighted, as he had for Key Stage 2, that this result compared favourably against the national and London averages.  He explained that the shortfall of the target could, in part,  be attributed to changes to the examination criteria around GCSEs that had been introduced over the last couple of years.  Another explanation was that the target set may have been overambitious.  While the service aims to push schools to continue to improve on performance it had possibly failed to take into consideration the likely impact of changes to the examination criteria.  He explained that due to the different relationship that the Council now has with Westminster schools performance data from schools is often provided late so that the setting of performance targets now has to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Moyra McGarvey, Shared Services Director for Audit, Fraud, Risk and Insurance

6.1       The Committee received a report that provided details about the Internal Audit Charter including changes made to it.

6.2       The Committee was informed that the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards (PSIAS) came into effect from 1 April 2013.  To demonstrate compliance with the standards, the Council has an Internal Audit Charter which was approved in September 2013.  The charter is subject to annual review and revision with minor changes approved by the Shared Services Director for Internal Audit.

6.3       The contents of the Internal Audit Charter had been revised with minor changes to be consistent with the charters maintained for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

6.4       RESOLVED: That the contents of the Internal Audit Charter which had recently been reviewed and revised be noted.

Report of the Head of Committee & Governance Services

7.1     RESOLVED:

1.     That an annual work programme for 2016-17 as set out at appendix 1 to the report be agreed.

2.     That the responses to actions arising from the meetings on 12 May and 2 June, as detailed in appendix 3 to the report, be noted.

7.2     ACTIONS:

Provide a Forward Plan for the meeting on the 6 September of all forthcoming procurements (prior to publication of PQQ or tender documents) over a value of £100 million.  The list to include details of the lead Cabinet Member and officer for each contract.  (Action for: Anthony Oliver, Chief Procurement Officer)