Minutes:
108.1 The Shared Legal Services Manager introduced the report to the Committee outlining that the service worked equally across Babergh and Mid Suffolk and West Suffolk Councils. The Service reported to a steering committee that had representatives from Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils, and also reported to leadership teams across the authorities. The Shared Legal Services Manager also outlined that the case management system instructions were dealt with equally throughout all three of the authorities. Work was prioritised within the Service based, on when it needed to be completed and not by which authority it came from.
108.2 Councillor Paul Ekpenyong queried the fact that more employees were employed by West Suffolk and whether this had had an impact.
108.3 The Shared Legal Services Manager responded that the case management system had been based on the three budgets across the authorities. However, it had now changed to look at the volume of cases coming from each authority to determine how that split would be managed. This would be considered by the steering group.
108.4 Councillor Keith Welham enquired as to whether the employment conditions were identical throughout the service, as the number of employees employed by Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils was fewer than those employed by West Suffolk District Council.
108.5 The Shared Legal Services Manager responded that due to the different rates of pay across the authorities, people doing the same job role were employed by the same authority in order to avoid discrepancies in rates of pay.
108.6 The Monitoring Officer added that whilst the number of direct employees from each authority differed, the costs of all the staff were split proportionately across the whole service.
108.7 Councillor Welham questioned whether there was a record of external cost and time of cases in each level. The Shared Legal Services Manager responded that the time taken per case would be reported by the individual officers working on it, and that whilst there was no cost per-case, if outsourcing was needed for any matter, it would be billed to the Shared Legal Service and sent to the relevant department.
108.8 Councillor Melanie Barrett questioned whether there was any data for the time taken for each case to be resolved and whether this could highlight areas of concern.
108.9 The Shared Legal Services Manager responded that there was a complex scoring method for referrals, in order to determine a predicted timeframe that a case could be completed in.
108.10 Councillor James Caston suggested that Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Council instructions needed to be separated in the future.
108.11 Councillor Welham suggested that external services and quality of instructions should be considered in the future so it could highlight if improvement was needed.
108.12 Councillor Barrett suggested that in the future, performance statistics should be included in the report in order to show the rate of progression.
108.13 Councillor Ekpenyong suggested that the split of work between different departments of each Council and their trends were not clear within the report.
108.14 Councillor Carter congratulated the service in its organisation which ensured the service was secure should it split in the future
108.15 Councillor Ekpenyong proposed the following recommendations:
· That the Legal Services Steering board review the recharging mechanism for the costs of the legal service and consider whether the performance monitoring arrangements were sufficient and that those findings of the Legal Services Steering board be presented back to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee via an information bulletin after its meeting in December.
· That the information bulletin in recommendation one also include historical and current performance monitoring data, which would enable the Committee to observe the trends in performance over time.
· That Recommendation three would be that a further information bulletin be presented to the Committee in six months into the new financial year demonstrating the split of new matters between Babergh and Mid Suffolk.
108.16 Councillor Terence Carter seconded this motion.
By a unanimous vote.
It was RESOLVED: -
1.1 That the Legal Services Steering board review the recharging mechanism for the costs of the legal service and consider whether the performance monitoring arrangements are sufficient and that the findings of the Legal Services Steering board be presented back to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee via an information bulletin after its meeting in December.
1.2 That the information bulletin in recommendation one also include historical and current performance monitoring data, which would enable the Committee to observe the trends in performance over time.
1.3 That a further information bulletin be presented to the Committee in six months into the new financial year demonstrating the split of new legal matters between Babergh and Mid Suffolk.
Supporting documents: