Venue: Conference Room 1, The Abbey House, Abingdon
Contact: Steve Culliford, Democratic Services Officer, Tel. 01235 540307 E-mail: steve.culliford@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
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Apologies for Absence To receive apologies for absence. Minutes: None |
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To adopt and sign as a correct record the minutes of the Ridgeway Shared Services Partnership Strategic Board meeting held on 1 March 2010. Minutes: The minutes of the Strategic Board’s meeting held on 1 March 2010 were adopted as a correct record. |
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Declarations of Interest To receive any declarations of interest. Minutes: Councillors Ann Ducker and Jerry Patterson both declared personal interests in that they had attended the Local Government Chronicle’s annual awards evening that had been sponsored by Capita. |
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Urgent Business To receive notification of any matters which the Chair(man) determines should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances which have made the matters urgent. Minutes: None |
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Minutes of the Operations Board To receive and note the outcome of any issues arising at the Ridgeway Shared Services Partnership Operations Board. Minutes: The minutes of the Operations Board meeting held on 19 April 2010 and the minutes of a briefing meeting held on 29 March 2010 were noted.
The officers updated on progress as follows:
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Performance Monitoring PDF 42 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: Sue King and Darren Keen from Capita joined the meeting.
The Strategic Board noted the successful performance of Capita in providing many services under the contract but did not discuss these in detail. However, the Board members asked the Capita representatives to report on progress in improving its performance of processing benefits claims accurately.
Firstly, Capita reported that it disputed the conclusions made by the Audit Commission and would challenge these. Capita believed that performance had been above the lower threshold but had not exceeded the upper threshold, which if true would significantly reduce the financial penalty to below £100K. It would be providing mitigating evidence by the end of May to challenge the Audit Commission’s assumptions.
The Board members had seen no evidence of any improvement from Capita in the weekly statistics they had received. They asked why performance was so much lower for South Oxfordshire and the Vale compared to that of Havant, whose benefits claims were administered by the same office. Capita believed that improvements would soon be evident. Capita also believed that there was no single reason for the low level of performance. It was managing the benefits team performance and was identifying areas for closer monitoring or further training. The Department for Work and Pensions’ Performance Development Team had also started assessing Capita’s processes which should identify further improvements; this work was ongoing and could take several months.
The Strategic Board was dissatisfied with the explanations given by Capita and urged it to improve its benefits accuracy performance. Capita reported that it hoped that the new controls it was introducing, together with the action plan and the advice of the Performance Development Team would make the improvements the councils required.
Turning to other areas of benefits performance, the Board noted that the level of benefits overpayment debts should reduce next month and Capita was confident it would meet its target to process changes in claimants’ circumstances, known as changed events. The Board also noted progress against the action plan. |
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Dates of Forthcoming Meetings To note that next meeting of the Strategic Board will be held on Monday 2 August 2010 at 8.30am. This will be the first meeting at which the chairmanship and administration of the board transfers to South Oxfordshire District Council. Therefore, the meeting will be at that council’s offices in Crowmarsh. Minutes: Members noted that the next formal meeting of the Strategic Board would be held on Monday 2 August 2010 at 8.30am. From that meeting, the chairmanship and administration would pass to South Oxfordshire District Council for a two-year period. The meetings would also be held at South Oxfordshire’s offices. |
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Vale of White Horse District Council
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OX14 3JE