5Cs Joint Committee
Report of the Client Relationship Director Author:  Matt Goodwin Telephone: 07771 378362 E-mail: matt.goodwin@havant.gov.uk To: To Members of the 5Cs Joint Committee DATE: 30 March 2022

Annual Plans 2022/23

Recommendation(s)

a) To note and endorse the tabled plans, or suggest actions needed as a prerequisite to approval.

Purpose of Report

1. This report introduces the proposed annual service plans for 2022/23, relating to Capita services provided under the April 2016 Agreement.  Provisions for this are laid out in Schedule 8.1 of the contract.  As this specifies, Joint Tactical Board (JTB) are required to develop annual service plans, outlining areas for continuous improvement including consideration of other services which may be included within the Corporate Services Project. Joint Committee are asked to consider and endorse these plans.

Discussion

Plan Documents

2. Accompanying this report (Attachment 1: “Annual Service Plans 2022/23, Draft v4, March 2022”) are the latest versions of the annual service plans, tabled for consideration by Committee.  These have been subject to consideration via both the Strategic Management Board (10 March 2022) and Joint Tactical Board (17 February 2022 and 17 March 2022).

3.  It should be noted that these are “live” documents, which evolve over time. As such, several of the plans will carry forward and continue the narrative on activities which commenced in the last planning year.

4. The plan document remains fundamentally unchanged in structure since initially rolled out in 2019. It has a tab which acts as a cover for the document, and details version and configuration control. There is then one tab for each of the current Capita services.  Within each tab, key sections are as follows:

· A unique reference.

· A general description of the plan item.

· Key delivery milestones, with due dates and lead parties.

· The driver for the item (which might be delivery of transitional elements, a requirement of the Schedule 4.1 Service Delivery Plan, a new improvement initiative or a legal necessity).

· Councils affected (if not universal).

5. The plan also includes review elements for monitoring, which are populated ahead of regular reviews at Service Improvement Groups and JTB:

· The delivery status (started, in progress, completed).

· A “Red, Amber, Green” or “RAG” status to provide a general indication of whether on track or behind.

6. The plan documents do not include all detail of these initiatives, as much information will be held in specific project or programme documentation, which it is not necessary to replicate. The plans are, by necessity, light touch in terms of administrative overhead. Appendix A provides some context on selected initiatives, as needed.

Review

7. Once endorsed by Joint Committee, these plans are then made “live”. Formal review is via the quarterly Service Improvement Group structures, with escalation or updates to higher boards as and where appropriate. 

Strategic Plans and Innovation

8. Further to discussion at Strategic Management Board, the intention is to develop a strategic perspective on services, and how they will develop between now and September 2025. This will include a position statement on achievement of the strategic outcomes relating to retained services, and an overview on plans and innovations in the coming years. An update on this will be tabled at Committee in June 2022.

Climate and ecological impact implications

9. No specific impacts.

Financial Implications

10. Most of the stated Revenues and Benefits and Customer Services plans will not incur additional costs. These are considered to be part of the continuous improvement required under the contract. The clear exceptions to this are Covid-19 responses, which, where relevant, are managed under the contract change process, and associated governance. Charges here are typically levied on an agreed “Time and Materials” basis, at contract rates.

11. The transfer to HM Land Registry for Land Charges has been initiated and is being scoped. Government funding is available for this. This work will be managed as a formal contract change, through a joint project.

12. The picture for IT varies. Any changes triggered by Authorities will be managed and costed under the Change Control process. These means costs will be subject to Joint Tactical Board and Section 151 review.

Legal Implications

13. There are no direct legal implications arising from this report.

Risks

14. No material risks noted. Risks relating to the Capita contract are managed via a joint 5Cs Risk Register which is subject to formal review each month at both the Operational Management and Joint Tactical Boards.

Other Implications

15. Human Resources Implications: The transfer of services to HM Land Registry may affect personnel within the Capita Land Charges Service. In regard to all other listed initiatives, there are no material HR impacts.

16. Information Governance Implications: Any planned initiative which has impacts in this space will be subject to a Data Processing Impact Assessment. This will be subject to Data Protection Officer, SIRO and JTB Rep review and approval.

Conclusion

17. The following recommendations are tabled to the Committee:

· To note and endorse the tabled plans, or suggest actions needed as a prerequisite to approval.

Background Papers

· Annual Service Plans 2022/23, Draft v4, March 2022
Appendix A (1) initiatives Overview (Non-IT)

Key initiatives include:

For Customer Services:

Netcall: This is the automated customer switchboard, which was originally due to be delivered, under Customer Service Milestone 5.

Customer Journey Improvements and Contact Reduction Initiatives: the contract with Capita is predicated on reducing customer contacts, and continuously improving the offer. In support of that, Capita have completed extensive analysis of customer journeys for non-Revenues and Benefits customer service lines and are working with Authorities to deploy a series of small-scale improvements in this area.

For Revenues and Benefits:

Telsolutions:  This is a long-standing initiative based around use pro-active e-mail and SMS messaging to customers, in areas such as chasing outstanding Council Tax payments, or promoting use of Direct Debits or e-billing.

£150 Energy Rebate Scheme: this is the £150 payment to households in Council Tax Bands A – D, as announced by the Chancellor, earlier this year.

Deployment of COVID-19 Additional Relief Fund (CARF): A discretionary relief fund, to support those businesses affected by the pandemic but that are ineligible for existing support linked to business rates. Schemes to be designed by Authorities and administered jointly, via Capita.

Administration of closing Omicron Grant payments & final reporting elements: This is a scheme to provide support to hospitality, leisure, and accommodation businesses, in recognition that the rise of the Omicron variant would impact them specifically.  It is due to close in March 2022, but there will be reporting, and post payment assurance elements needed in the first quarter of the new planning year.

Administration of closing test and trace self-isolation payments & final reporting elements: This represents the closing elements for Capita administration of test and trace self-isolation payments.  This will be phasing out but reporting element to HMG and HMRC will still be required.

For Land Charges:

Devolvement of LLC functions to HM Land Registry: In 2015, HM Land Registry was given the authority to create a single, national, digital register of Local Land Charges (LLC) across England and Wales. For 5C’s, this is currently scheduled to commence in 2023 with South and Vale and Mendip, with the balance of Authorities following the year after. This does not affect all the Land Charges functions, only the LLC1 element.

Appendix A(2) – IT Initiatives

Reference	Description	Detail
1	Delivery of Hart - CCRF298	Implementation Plan for agreed Target Operating Model.
2	Delivery of Mendip - CCRF335	Implementation Plan for agreed Target Operating Model.
3	Redhill Data Centre Migration	Closure of Redhill DC
4	Stakeholder Plans	Mapping of key stakeholders and a supporting stakeholder engagement plan.
5	Obligations Matrix	Annual review of the IT Obligations Matrix
6	CVW to CMW Migration	Delivery of CMW to HEH, S&V and Mendip and closure of CVW
7	Azure Migration	Migration from Nuvem to Microsoft Azure environments
8	Server 2008 Upgrades	Upgrade of 22 servers from Windows 2008 to Windows 2016 for S&V and HEH
9	Disaster Recovery Plan	Proving Exercise to be planned for transformed Councils
10	IT Strategy Roadmap	Develop joint IT strategy. Application Roadmap to be reviewed. Session to be set up with Capita Technical/Solutions Architects and IT Leads
11	Storage Policy Review	Server storage allocation to be ‘right-sized’ as allocation has been over-allocated.
12	CMDB (Configuration Management Database	Capita have agreed to do a full review of the Atrium CMDB with Paul Merrick, as Paul has questioned the accuracy of the data therein
13	Communications Plans	To be reviewed and reworked as appropriate
14	Risk Management	Development of Risk Management Plan with council
15	Microsoft 365 Separation	Proposal development
16	MDM	Mobile Device Management Solution – Microsoft InTune