Agenda item

a)    Sensory Impairment Service (SIS) Change Request

b)    Section 106 Disaggregation Variation Notice

At the Chair’s invitation, the Executive Director Children’s Services presented the report and summarised the recommendations at section 3 of the report. The Executive Director explained that the department had reviewed an alternative delivery model opposed to straight disaggregation. The rationale for the alternative delivery model was due to the highly specialised officers required to undertake the work and the Councils’ duty to deliver the service and potential risk to the equality’s duty with disaggregation, which would leave them open to challenge. She explained that the Sensory Impairment Service was highly regarded with high national standards and a report would be brought back to the Shared Services Joint Committee for consideration at a future meeting to consider what the future business model would look like. The proposal was for North Northamptonshire Council to continue to lead with his service with cooperation from West Northamptonshire Council.

Members discussed the report and expressed that this was a sensible way forward. Members questioned why this hadn’t been realised earlier and the size of the team proposed in the report. The Executive Director Children’s Services responded that the original recommendations for the service area were determined pre-vesting day and in practice disaggregation was too risky. The team of 59 would be sizable due to the different elements and specific roles required for example there are teachers of deaf persons, teachers of blind persons, someone who would translate the curriculum into braille, and this was another reason why disaggregation was not favoured as these individual roles could not be disaggregated and retain the current level of resilience.

At the Chair’s invitation, the Executive Director of Place and Economy presented the report and highlighted the recommendations at section 3 of the report. He explained that the department would disaggregate the former county council element of the section 106 service and gave the committee background information to the report. He summarised that there were two posts in the team which was currently based in North Northamptonshire managing the former Northamptonshire County Council section 106 element with larger sums of money relating to schools, fire and rescue, broadband, monitoring responsibilities, highways and public transport provided to WNC from NNC as detailed in the inter-authority agreement. The Executive Director of Place and Economy confirmed that they were on track to disaggregate the service by 30 September as agreed in the blueprint. He explained the key elements of the disaggregation would include all live data - over 300 individual cases, the information on both websites, email data and more. However, there were two elements which needed further consideration and would take longer with a collaborative working agreement, and this related to the historical data held going back over 10 years which will need disaggregation of the former NCC. The Executive Director highlighted the options contained at section 5 of the report and explained that option 1 was recommended by the officers to split staff through TUPE arrangements with the risks flagged and for a collaborative agreement to be in place relating to resourcing, as the team would not have enough time to do disaggregate, recruit staff, and complete the remaining work by 30 September, but as far as the public were concerned there would be a visible split.

RESOLVED: That the Shared Services Joint Committee:

a) Agreed that the disaggregation of the Children's Sensory Impairment Service is reprofiled to enable a more detailed Business Case with recommendations for a potential alternative model to be developed.

b) Agreed that the Children’s Sensory Impairment Service remains within the current IAA until a further decision is made regarding the future model ofdelivery.

c) Noted that a Business Case will be presented to both the West

Northamptonshire Council’s Cabinet and North Northamptonshire Council’s Executive by December 2022 to consider alternative service deliverymodels.

d) Granted delegated authority to the Monitoring Officers for North and West Northamptonshire Councils to amend or terminate the relevant provisions within the IAA if an alternative delivery model has been approved and commenced, subject to an agreed Exit Plan.

e) Approved the disaggregation of the former NCC Economic Growth and Regeneration Development Services, Section 106 function by 30^th September 2022, with staff transfer to follow as soon as practicable thereafter.

f) Approved the proposed arrangements for disaggregation, budget, staffing, contract, and cost implications, as set out in section 5 and section 7.

g) Granted delegated authority to the Monitoring Officers for North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council to complete the decisions and actions necessary to give effect to the recommendations and conclude the requirements for the exit plan, collaborative working arrangements and associated officer delegations, as well as any required variation to the IAA.