Finance, Resources, and Corporate Committee - Thursday 7 March 2024, 11:00am - Feedback Tab - Start video at 0:38:03 - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Agenda item :
1 Apologies for Absence
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Agenda item :
4 Minutes of the meeting held on 6 February 2024
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5 Finance and Corporate Performance
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council)
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Jocelyn Manners-Armstrong Independent Member
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Cllr Cathy Scott (Kirklees Council)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Agenda item :
6 Workforce - HR Management Information
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Cllr Cathy Scott (Kirklees Council)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Agenda item :
7 Integrated Corporate Systems
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Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Agenda item :
8 Review of Chief Executive Salary
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
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Jocelyn Manners-Armstrong Independent Member
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Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
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Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Agenda item :
9 Date of the Next Meeting
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Webcast Finished
Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.
1 Apologies for Absence
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:00:00
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:00:02
so much for attending the finance resources and corporate committee, and it was, it sometimes seems, a dry committee, it's a really exciting part of the organisation because it's about keeping checks and balances on us and what we deliver for the people of West Yorkshire, so Sarah, any apologies we have apologies for Councillor Susan,Councillor Jones, former Councillor daiquiris, attendance at 42, Councillor Jeffrey Councillor Morley's end users.
and
thank you so much, and we send our good wishes to Monday, were apparently is under the weather, if I may say as well, colleagues, that I have another meeting, so I hope to finish at 12.15. I hope that suits everyone and firstly, can I extend a very, very warm welcome to Council at Councillor Sylvia Daycare, from Calderdale sobbing for Councillor scullion, and I just want to give you that very warm welcome. Thank you for joining us moving on item 2, any members of any interests they wish to declare on any item in the agenda. No thank you so much
item 3, I understand there are no items on the agenda requiring exclusion of press and public
4 Minutes of the meeting held on 6 February 2024
very good and item 4 minutes of the meeting held on the 6th of February 2024, turning to those minutes of the F R CC meeting any comments or questions.
5 Finance and Corporate Performance
no, thank you so much, are we content to confirm these minutes as an accurate record we are, thank you very much, so item 5, I'll be coming to Alan on this and pleased to introduce this report, which gives us a comprehensive overview of our corporate and financial performance as well as outlining recommendations for refining future reporting arrangements.
and it gives us insights into our current corporate and financial performance, focusing on financial monitoring, project delivery against corporate objectives, and progress towards our strategic missions outlined in the West. Yorkshire Plan, which you will know, was developed with our five partners with a vision for 2040. It also highlights our achievements and areas of improvement in meeting our corporate objectives. So I'd like to hand over to Alan Reece, our chief operating officer, to talk in more detail about the overall performance and then to Angela Taylor, financial commercial director, to talk through the finances. Thank you Alan, thank you very much minute. So the paper sets out everything that we do in this
Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:34
organisation flows from the West Yorkshire Plan, which sets out the overall missions that the Combined Authority, the Mayor leaders partners have agreed, where we want to achieve by 2040, and then we have a corporate plan that sits underneath that, and this report is about the performance of the organisation against the objectives that have been agreed by the CA. So it's not directly about the economic, social and environmental performance of the region as a whole. We report that through the annual state of the region report, this is about the organisation andhow well it is doing against the objectives that it set itself for the year, and this report goes up to the end of quarter 3, so at the end of December 2023, the material for this report is used very widely internally, is used by senior management teams and director of management teams to assess progress and identify and rectify areas of slippage so the overall position without going into
every single item that's within it across the entirety of the organisation. There are 284 objectives set for the year, each one of which relates to one of the organization's corporate objectives, and for each one of those Arab rating is given and what we then do is we look across all of them to assess the extent to which we are on track to achieve what we've set out to do against each of those headline objectives, and I'm pleased to say that overall it paints a really positive picture and there are some really standout examples of good delivery coming up to the end of quarter 3, such as Halifax bus station opening, with the final phase 4 to be delivered by the end of February, introduction of mayor's question time delivery beginning if you can make it here, exceeding our target around retrofit of homes increase in m card sales
and so on, and it's worth noting as well that at the CA next week, which meets on Thursday, for which the papers were published last night, there is the culmination of huge amounts of work over the last three years. So, for instance, the advice to the Combined Authority around a decision about the future of of the bus market, the submission of a business case or mass transit to government publication of the housing strategy, the
the next stages of work on the economic strategy and the rail strategy and a Local Transport Plan and our Corporate Plan are planned for next year, so so this is all within the context of that meeting happening next week where there's a huge amount coming to to fruition of the draw attention, having talked about some of the positives, I will draw the committee's attention to some of the things that are a bit redder so of the 27 outcomes which is just under 10% of the total which are rated red only five of them are directly about external delivery.
the rest relate to some internal programmes, and most of them are to do with delays, and it's not that the work's not happening, it's just that it's behind schedule and work will be rolled on to the coming year is often related to resourcing challenges which is common across the whole of local government both budgetary and in terms of personnel.
and those and and that then feeds are our corporate risks which are reported to the governance and audit committee which happens to meet this afternoon, so for instance, there are a number of risks around technology and we have cybersecurity as are as as well as a very high rated risk on our Corporate Risk Register. So that all suppose, through the final thing I wanted to say before I hand over to Angeles to talk about finance the finance update and here was just around efficiency and productivity, so particularly with the unprecedented pressure on local government finance, it's absolutely crucial that the Combined Authority demonstrates value for money.
publicly, and also that we understand and can identify areas for improvement in our processes internally. So one is a flag for the committee that we're currently developing a dashboard of productivity and efficiency measures which we will use internally and publish externally, and we propose to bring that to future meetings of the committee, so in a moment very happy to take any questions or or or points from from members, but if I could just ask Angela to introduce the section on finance, please
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:07:02
thank you just before you do I mean that it is true, there are some very good news stories in here, particularly how we'd been able, with devolution, to ensure that the opportunities are targeted at.particularly women are particularly entrepreneurs and communities that are diverse, and I am proud that are social housing DeKalb fund today is the third best performing for a fund nationally, because if we're gonna hit our Net Zero target by 2038 retrofit has got to be a priority, so that is a good news story. I wonder just before I move on to Angela, if you could just talk us through, you mentioned cybersecurity. The mitigations have been put in place to make sure that that doesn't stay as one of our biggest threats. Is there anything that you can tell us to reassurance
yes, absolutely so.
Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:07:58
so, as I said, the cybersecurity is is the is is currently rated very high on our risk register. The organisation was subject to a what's called distributed denial of service attack in the autumn, where West Yorkshire Metro website went down for a week. If that were to happen today, there are now mitigations in place and there are no mitigations in place, which means that it would be back up within a matter of hours, so we and indeed there have been subsequent attacks. So so there is a set of mitigations that have been put in place to help handle the impact of cybersecurity attacks. We have commissioned what's called a security operations centre, which gives us earlier warning and earlier notice where there is an attack which then helps us to identify identify what needs to be done in order to resolve it.and we are also.
procuring some external support to help us with a range of software, updates to what's called a patching partner, which, essentially, where there are vulnerabilities in our systems, and we need some external support to help to resolve those, so there is an action plan which is shared with governance and Audit Committee and which sets out what the what the key mitigations are.
and and we also appointed in November, a new cybersecurity manager who has come in and had a fresh look at what we've been doing in his and his and his implementing new ideas around how we can become Oscar, thank you, that's helpful, Angela.
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:09:35
thank you, Mayor, yes, the this is the regular finance update and I think because the timing of this meeting you've ended up with a doubleAngela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:09:43
set of information just for completeness, so at the end of December we did our quarter 3 review against the sort of historic spend to date and you've got the information in the paper that says that there was nothing identified during that Quarter 3 review that that was of any concern. However, at the same time, in parallel we were bringing forward the budget papers for early February and so we were doing some workrecasting the the this year's budget, in the light of some of the information come within the budget work so two pieces of work in parallel, when we came to the February meeting the Combined Authority we set the revised outturn for the year.
with a small expecting a small.
overspend
the where we are now with more and more up-to-date information is we are looking at potentially at a small surplus. These are very small figures in the big scheme of things. We're talking about less than half of 1% of of shifting the that timescale, and so there have been some savings on predominant. Some of the staffing vacancies as they've been more accurately forecast as time goes by, and obviously we continue to look to find savings where we can across the piece, and it is that time of year where we are scrutinising those bits of money that aren't spent and making sure we do, we're trying to put those to one side and to feed into next year. There's clearly still pressures in it that were set out in the budget that we are still working through, and though there'll be much to be quite a review going on of the budget taking us into the summer following a number of things taking place over the next few months. The paper also sets out the capital position,
and presents that against the revised forecasts that we agreed in February at the Combined Authority.
as ever Quarter 4 is usually a period of higher spend, we also put through accruals at the year end, which we don't always do during the year, so we do tend to.
find the quarter 4 figure, spikes, so we are on track. We believe to spend the forecast 3, just over 312 million pounds or capital next year. Sorry this year that figure then increases next year as we, we move into delivery on quite a range of projects, so happy to take any questions on any of that we will be looking at the format of this reporting in the new financial year, so this is for finishing the current year.
and we are looking to bring some more integrated reporting out of the new system which helped I'll touch on later, and so this will change as we move into reporting in the new financial year, thank you, thank
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:12:16
you, any comments opened this up for discussion.yes, Silva and then Justin.
o
I I didn't see their Cathy Sylvie.
thanks. This is on both or everything. That's been said so far, so
Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council) - 0:12:36
them just in relation won't be any surprise that I'm going to pick up on the Halifax bus station sorry to be predictable, but unfortunately there was a lot of chaos there earlier in the week with buses at the wrong stations, people getting on the wrong buses, people missing buses because they weren't in the right place, and so, although it's kind ofopen, we don't want any focus to be lost on making sure re all the rest of the work that isn't yet complete, and you you refer to the the chapel and all of that that that there's still a focus on that Nick eats properly open shortly and fully functioning.
I mean, I appreciate, is bound to be teething problems, but just to keep an eye on that.
the other.
just wanted to say that I did meet somebody in Todmorden the other day who had benefited from start-up support, they didn't unfortunately fit into any of the categories that were particularly trying to address him, that he was a middle aged male, but he was absolutely delighted with the support he'd received thought it was really good.
he is he's worked in Prior in the private sector, all his life, but was striking out on his own.
and he couldn't speak highly enough of the understanding of the challenges he faced,
so that was nice and look forward to feed that back and just lastly, I've not been here to this before, so I wasn't there last year or in past years, when you've been looking at the the spending throughout the quarters, but you have got a big spike in spending that you need to catch up with the forecast so really quite big but you're you're saying you're satisfied that actually, nevertheless, on pass
the expectations you would think that that's possible.
thank you so much.
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:14:31
Alan if you want to talk about the snagging issues at Halifax and then Angela.Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council) - 0:14:37
yeah, no, I completely accept that that the that it was we were able to open the station, but not when it was entirely complete and there have been some snagging issues with it, I know the colleagues are working on it intensely with partners in Calderdale and,Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:14:54
I am looking forward to it being opened, my understanding is that that it will be there will be resolved in the next few weeks, I'm veryMayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:15:04
proud of Halifax bus station, it is really lovely and I can't wait for it to be fully open and that green roof is something I'd talk about a lot because our ambition well we would government tried to hold us back on our ambition and we went ahead and it's going to be absolutely lovely and all the apprentices that were helped with that green roof, I think there's something to be incredibly proud of said Angela regarding the spike.yes, it does, we, we could show that pattern every year and it comes from from heavy everybody.
Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:15:36
the the the programmes we're delivering are some are being delivered through combined authorities who are being delivered through local authority partners, so the forecasts are based on what partners have assured us, and what Arlington teams have assured us.and is it had some of it is a quirk of it at year end, we do focus more on ensuring we accrue work, that is being done and not invoiced, which we don't do in quarters 1 2 and 3 so he tend to find both does go up miserably. Quarter 1 is in quite light as the invoicing comes in relating to the year before and but do feel free to call us out in it when we come back next time with the final figures for the year, but I think we're quite confident we shall be close on until the 312. Thank you Jocelyn,
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:16:17
thank you firstly, I'd like to congratulate officers and staff onJocelyn Manners-Armstrong Independent Member - 0:16:23
their tight cost control in quarter 3 is that's really impressive, but we'll see what happens in quarter 4 specific question I have on the capital budget, though, is about housing and I know that there have been a lot of challenges in achieving any housebuilding, but are we saying in these numbers that none of the 15 million pound budgeted will be spent by the end of the year?Angela
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:16:51
thank you.Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:16:55
let me just check the figures we are.on the a huge amount the brownfield housing, so the forecast is that it should be spent what we're saying up to Quarter 3, you're correct, none has been spent at that point, there has been quite a flurry of approvals for some of these projects in the last couple of months, so what we often find, as these things take a long time to come along to get the work done to get the business case established when, once the approval is given, they're ready to hit the ground and there are contracts ready to be let so
we are watching closely, but we have been assured that we should be getting spending on on the brownfield housing it has another year to run beyond this, it has been discussed at this and other committees, it is a challenging target that has been set on sites that are notoriously difficult to to deliver on.
which is why we are stepping into that space, but
but yet again we will come back in June with the
full set of figures against those February forecasts.
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:17:54
also, just for context Jocelyn that there was a second tranche of brownfield funding came from government with the same deadline as the previous tranche, so we went out a second time to developers to try and get more interest, and actually that second call out really did deliver but as always is the case we are dependent on government.red tape and deadlines and in this market it has been quite challenging.
my target was 5,000 affordable homes and it has been really tough with COVID, with Brexit, with the way that the economy was tagged on rapid inflation. However, I think there's a good news story to tell actually that 25% of all our housing, it's since I've become mayor, was it's been affordable and that's more than Greater Manchester and West Midlands, and they've got trailblazer deals that actually support them in their ambitions around affordable housing and more housing than since the economic crash. So I do think it has been incredibly challenging, not only notwithstanding government deadlines but also the economic landscape, but I think that focus has enabled us to also draw together and it was a real privilege for the for me to have our housing associations come together and say we want to work collectively across West Yorkshire to help you deliver. That's the first time, that's happened and then I think that helps us get the first ever strategic partnership with homes England that will unlock 40,000 homes, and then we've had our first ever meeting of developers who understand that now, actually we are a place to do business where we are getting building, but I feel like you that we are desperate for affordable housing,
in our region and being able to visit a site that has homes that are now open for families in Linthwaite lovely area of West Yorkshire, where a family who'd been made homeless by no fault eviction from their landlord and now the them and their little kids, and she was having a baby, will have a decent life because of the work that we're doing and trying to always remember why are we doing this? You know, we sit in meetings all the time that when you know talk about money and projects, but actually it's about people's lives being made better, but I am with you that we need to spend every single penny of that money, and in every meeting I have is that we cannot have an underspend, we cannot be giving money back to the government, we need every penny spent, but thank you for that question. Cathy yeah, I'd
Cllr Cathy Scott (Kirklees Council) - 0:20:39
like to thank officers for a very comprehensive report. It's it's being really good to see where we're up to at the end of quarter 3, particularly in the financial position. I think you've already alluded to the fact there's been a lot of external,implications that has impacted on delivery, so I think the markets are driven by that at the moment, so costs as well, so on the housing, I understand that I think a lot of variances in the projects.
its aims set out in 1.3 a sorry 1.1 3 about Bradford Interchange, so that's been an impact that they've had. An impact and financial variances in 1.9 are projects that are in impacts of being because of individuals there, variances rather than yours. So I think there is still a good news story. I like the fact that on 1.7 that you're actually publicising the dashboard, that's exciting to actually, because it enhances our transparency out there for the general public. So all in all, I'm happy to endorse this because I think it showed some really really good progress, despite the market challenges. Thank you, if I may just raise one
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:21:52
item that I think we could definitely focus on going forward international trade portal to achieve 1,000 hits per month, it's in the first stages of development and those technical issues we need to get get get over that, because we want to be a region that is open for international trade and investment and certainly coming out of convinced of the North last week that was hugely successful was that that,determination to work as the North on investigate PrEP propositions across the North and to be somewhere that trade and we can gather trade and investment opportunities, and I think that could be something that we could maybe focus on in the Netherlands in the next few months going forward, thank you so much Uchida so we are happy to approve.
this item lovely, thank you so, moving on to a Finance and Corporate performance item 5, sorry workforce HR, management, thank you.
6 Workforce - HR Management Information
right so not item 6, as I'm pleased to present this report, an update on the data concerning our workforce and it highlights areas of strong performance and potential areas of risk. When I became mayor, I was very keen to ensure that we are become the most progressive Mayoral Combined Authority in the country, that we become a an organisation, that people desperately want to work for, and can I just say conor welcome as a new colleague that we want to make sure that we really do fly the flag for inclusivity as well, particularly in our recruitment. So I wonder if I could go to you Alan in the first instance, yeah
Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:23:42
thank you very much Ma so this this report is a bit is shorter than the last time soat the last meeting in January, we provided the Committee with a pretty comprehensive report around workforce development, alongside the publication of the two pay gap reports for ethnicity and agenda, and so therefore we haven't repeated all of that information here this is this is more of a an interim update on the latest workforce data. There are there are, there were three or four things I want to pull out of it.
the first is for transparency is that there has been a slight uptick in time lost to sickness, so this is in it is in line with the sector, so it's in line with a with local government, there are a number of reasons for it.
we think potentially seasonal last autumn, with very fogs going round, but secondly because we've introduces our we, we've we've introducing new systems which make it easier and better to report, so that's partly why we may have seen or seen an increase the the second thing is,
as an organisation we, we are becoming more representative of the communities that we serve, so we know we have a long way to go, and in particular there are a range of programmes that we have, which are aimed at increasing diversity across the workforce as a whole, but also more senior levels
but him, in particular in terms of applicants and in terms of people coming into the organisation they are, those stats show that we are becoming more in line with the communities that we serve.
the next thing is there's an interesting stat, which is that in terms of vacancy fulfilment, so how will how we're filling vacancies in the organisation where it's roughly 50% internal 50% external, which I look on as a positive, because it means that we are both providing opportunities for people internally to progress and develop their careers?
and at the same time, we're bringing in talent from outside the organisation and so, and so it's a nice mix to have.
and then the final thing I'll say, because it's just not is not mentioned in the report is that we we did receive a nomination for inclusive employer of the year from a company called vaquita, which is the diverse recruitment platform that we use, we sadly lost out at the final stage to the British Library, but I thought that was worth raising with the committee so really happy to take any any questions on any of that thank you.
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:26:22
thank you so much, one thing that I was.looking at, that is a bit troubling how long it takes us to recruit that's, why is that Alan?
OK, so, so it takes 177 days on average to recruit somebody from the point at which of.
Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:26:41
the point at which the post is approved to the point at which somebody starts in post.so there are a number of unavoidable.
pieces of like time in that so so, for instance, somebody's notice period if somebody is only three-month notice period, that's 90 days straight or for that right, so so that's part of it.
there is, then the period where you have to weigh your out forever, so if you go out for a month that's another 28 days on top, so you're at 100 days without trying very hard the, but that there are some things we could do and they said yeah, back to the point around efficiency and productivity. This is one of the stats that we are going to include, because we think it can be brought down. In particular, there are some timescales which are in our control to reduce, so, for example, making sure that when applications come in managers are shortlisting quickly, getting back to account, getting back to candidates, scheduling the interviews ahead of time so that we're not scrabbling around for dates in, is there a set of things that we could do? However, what it also tells you is that, even where we're where we've got vacancies and priority areas of work, the solution won't
always be to go out to market, because if we, given that we know it takes six months to recruit somebody to get them starting well, there are lots of pieces of work which aren't and wait for six months, plus the time for those people to get up to speed. So as an organisation we are ix, we are moving towards a position where we're able to redeploy people more easily around the organisation and respond and be more. It said, we've got a priority over here we haven't got time to recruit, so let's be, let's get them, let's get better at being flexible and more agile in terms of how we can move people around. So so my point is that there are. There are two responses to that state. One is try and reduce it, and the other is accept the fact that it does take a long time to recruit people and explore other ways of filling gaps within the organisation
I I do understand the chance, but I'm not convinced that everybody's on a three-month level as a three-month notice period, so I'm hoping
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:28:53
we can get that down. One good thing about level 4 devolution is that we will have less of the silos single projects where people are only allowed to do that, they're they're recruited through that particular budget, therefore, only allowed to do that piece of work, that we can use our workforce more creatively between projects. But I think that's a good challenge for us and I'm sure we can we can get there so any comments on workforceyes, Sylvia.
Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council) - 0:29:25
thank you just further to what you were saying, Alan there's been differences between the director at Scotland, which is presumed one of the things that he'd be working on as well in how they are managing some of those time periods, so you'd hope that next year it'll come back and then I'll be much more similar or there will be an explanation as to why particular post a particular problem particularly problematic.Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:29:49
parts of the part of some of the issue in police and crime, particularly, is vetting, so if you're in my team, whilst you're not directly in police and crime, you will, because I'm the police and crime, commissioner, you also have to be police vetted, so there's a lot of challenges there, not necessarily about the candidate, but maybe their family or whatever that might hold up some of some of those approvals, but I'm with you, Sylvia, we could do this surely or more even across the organisation.Cllr Cathy Scott (Kirklees Council) - 0:30:25
OK, OK, yes, Cathy, it's just a general comment, was very informative report, it's nice to see that you're actually drilling down into areas that you don't normally see so, yeah I I I just appreciate the working up of its comment.thank you, and I think the staff networks that we've established have
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:30:39
also been really helpful in making us more of an attractive organisation for.many people who maybe don't necessarily see themselves reflected in a workforce any further comments, happy to recommend this, thank you so much, lovely, so, moving on to integrated corporate systems, this is an update on the progress of the implementation of the integrated corporate systems.
7 Integrated Corporate Systems
Project which helps integrates finance, HR, and payroll into one single cohesive platform, and we know these big, big digital implementations are often come with a number of snags, and it has been a long time coming to get us to this point, but I'm pleased to say that now colleagues are underway.
with them with this, but Angela over to you for the detail, yes, thank
Angela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:31:35
you ma am excuse me, we brought you a paper last year explaining what we were doing and why, and so felt it was right through your papers saying we haven't done what we set out to do to an extent as the paper says we went live in November with the finance and payroll module and a limited part of HR the rest of the HR followed in January so we are now live on the the full system subject to certain elements that we can add to it in the future.and, in particular, we have a module on talent and development that we are bringing online later this year, that will help support the recruitment into identifying how we help people progress through the organisation and help with some of the informative just seen in the previous report
it is a huge project, it from beginning to end, we restarted this some time ago, but the implementation has probably taken us best part of two years, but it is a huge system it, it replaces HR finance and the procurement system payroll and it's all in one place it's a modern, more intuitive cloud-based system and everybody is using it and we've done a lot of training with people we've done well.
formed user guides as drop-in sessions and everyone is using because it has a child, so everyone is using it to book their annual leave, for example, we've got recruitment going through that, so we now have a an end to end product for recruitment rather than it being lots of people doing stuff outside of systems, on bits of paper, electronic paper and e-mailing things back and forwards and the final on the finance side we have historically, including this year we have done our budgeting on spreadsheets,
we are now, we've now got all the budgets put in to see any way so we can now go forward actually get them out of the system in a a much more agile way, as we grow bigger as an organisation as there are more choices as there are more priorities as the competing pressures, it will enable us to have better quality information more readily to decision makers, and you will hopefully see the fruits of that over the coming year. We are ending our reporting of the year under the old system, but setting everything up from April to come out of the new system, so we will have for the first time HR data Capital, Revenue, Finance information and to have approached the information all in the one system which we have not had before. Hence, you've got lots of bits of reports drawn from different sources, and so we will be working on that.
I think it's also worth noting. It's a very live system, the providers technology one due to annual update, they have a very active community and user group where we can put forward our thoughts on how it could be improved. We have access to some ongoing support to make changes to it as we need it, and we have put together arrangements to both formally close the project down with with the full lessons learned and project closure report, and we've also set up arrangements to manage it going forward, because this is not a system that just sits there and trundles on. We want to actively manage it, actively use it. If people are saying this bit doesn't work for me, OK, how do we change it and make sure it does work for you? We are trying to get away from people needing to keep separate records in the background or the finance system. Doesn't do this for me, so I've got my own spreadsheet no, we need to build that into the system for people. So there's a very active approach to how we make best use of the system,
and make the most of the the investment we have put into it. Sorry, I hope, say hopefully you will see that coming through over the coming year as we can hopefully bring more integrated reporting to you and when you ask for something instead of it, taking us some time to go away and redo it and represent it, we can do it in a much more flexible, quick, agile way, which is what we need. The world is moving fast around us and we need to keep pace with it. So have you any questions? Thank you. Thank you, Angela. Can you reassure me that
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:35:35
people who find workarounds won't be encouraged will be encouraged to not have a workaround, but will come and find a proper solution. ThatAngela Taylor, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:35:45
is absolutely the messaging we're putting out. We're looking at how we encourage people to do that and we've we've had somedrop in sessions already and we're very much a come and talk to us do not set up something different, it has to be in the system, because then everybody can access it, everybody can get the information and we have one version of the truth we don't have that team says that and this team says the other we all are saying the same thing.
so we have great hopes and really looking forward to using the system once we've finalised all the last bits of of snagging with it, but it is pretty much working, we did pay roll on it within three weeks of go live we've paid suppliers we've raised P OS we've raised debtor invoices, we have done all the transactions on it so it is it is properly in and working.
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:36:34
greater and greater access to data live data so that will help us with our dashboards, and so on is a good news story. Any comments, yes,Cllr Silvia Dacre (Calderdale Council) - 0:36:46
Sylvia, thank you and well release, as you said at the beginning of this meeting, this this meeting can appear to be dry, but because some very important things and nothing can be more important, really the lease for you as an organisation, and I think you can't overstate how important it's going to be to the better running off of the organisation, how much that benefits all the constituent district and also he can't overstate how incredible is that you have as an organisation managed to procure and implement it with so little real difficulty, because we all know from examples from the south how big systems can go horribly wrong and can absolutely recon organisation so that you've it's brilliant and it will be brilliant not just for you but for us as well. Sylvia, thank you for that positive comment and IMayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:37:29
couldn't agree more. It was incredibly difficult for colleagues to learn new systems and we've seen haven't we around the country where investment in IT systems can, like you, say, completely dragged down local authorities and organisations, so congratulations to the team and we all look forward to using it for that more fleet of foot agile organisation that can be more8 Review of Chief Executive Salary
immediate in responses. Thank you OK, so we are happy to note the progress on the implementation of CIA. Anyway, good stuff, thank you. Moving on to item 8 review of the chief executive salary, I'm very pleased to introduce the paper which presents recommendations of the independent remuneration panel regarding the remuneration of the Chief Executive. This paper encompasses the outcomes of their review, highlighting the significant evolution of growth of our organisation, the establishment of the chief executive role and extensive growth in responsibilities, along with the considerations leading to the proposed salary reset.
Alan if you may summarise, thank you thanks very much ma, so, as Osman said,
Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:38:42
this, the the decision of the chief executive salaries are, is a matter for matter for members, hence works coming in front of this committee, the chief exec salary was set in 2016 and since then has been subject to cost of living adjustments but otherwise has not been reviewed.and
and on the the the the the case for changing the salary is set out in the report from the independent remuneration panel, which has been published publicly so.
everything everything is is completely transparent. The case made in the report sets out, if I might summarise, the increase in responsibility. So the size of the budget of the organisation going up from around a quarter of a million, the figure that the API have is is, is this year's budget figure actually next year, the budget of the CA is 868 million pounds in one year. So, sorry, sir, it's a very significant growth in the scale of responsibility, the scale of investment that the organisation is responsible for and the the the the second thing is in in. In line with that increase in budget, there's been a consequent increase in the number of staff in the organisation, so it's gone up from around 450 to
around 820. Today,
the next thing is that the nature of the organisation has changed, so in 2016, when the Head of Paid Service role was created, there was no devolution deal, there was no Mayor, so the the nature of the role in terms of becoming a mayoral combined authorities is different than it was in in in 2016 and then finally the independent remuneration panel have benchmarked.
against what they consider to be the nearest, comparable combined authorities, so they've they considered a range of other similar roles in the public sector, including local authority, chief executives and chief executives in the health service or discounted both of those because it's not, they're not, they're not directly comparable. What they did feel was comparable was the salaries of the other, similar combined authorities, as they looked at the salaries of the local city region Combined Authority, the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and they have made a recommendation to you
that the salary is set at 193,000 pounds a year.
which sets it broadly at the mid-point of those those authorities and also to make that the recommendation to you is they can be considered because clearly this these changes that I've just described have happened over a period of time.
so they considered a range of effective dates, including the 12th of May 2021,
and
and and other dates as well, and they have concluded or a recommendation that this becomes effective from the 1st of October 2023, so so last October, and the reason for that is that is the data which the pay scales for all other CIA employees changed which was as part of the new modernised terms and conditions which have since been agreed in which the rest of which came into effect on the 1st of January so in summary, the recommendation from the independent remuneration panel to the committee is to set the salary at 193,000 a year.
effective from the 1st of October 2023, and then to delegate to me all necessary actions that miss the required to implement that decision, thank you, and I am pleased that it has come to this committee because
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:42:19
as mayor, I want to be the most transparent organisation in the country so any comments yes Jocelyn,Jocelyn Manners-Armstrong Independent Member - 0:42:28
can you clarify the consequences for the rest of the senior management team and differentials, or is there is their pay increased just as part of collective agreement, or is this now going to be reviewed as well?so the pay scales for all of the other members of the Combined Authority, including the rest of the senior team.
were set in.
Alan Reiss, Chief Operating Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:42:51
Back in October, so that has already happened, so there is no impact of this decision on the salaries of anybody else at the Combined Authoritythe the the in terms of future years, we currently negotiate, as part of what's called the passenger Transport Forum collectively with a number of other authorities and those negotiations happened on an annual basis, and that applies to every vote, the result of that applies to everybody in the in the Combined Authority but to answer the question directly,
the this decision has no impact on the salaries of anybody else within the Combined Authority.
James, thank you, it's good to have followed about the passenger Transport Executive Group and engagement with trade unions around this
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:43:36
I think we've got a very.I mean, I think we all recognise the change in the organisation set out in the reports and supposed was created in a clear recommendation. Clean and renewable ration panel have done a lot of work on our behalf on this, I'm really pleased with the partners today, thank you so much
Mayor Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire - 0:43:57
James any other further comments, wonderful thank you and so are members. In agreement with the recommendation from the API as set out in paragraph 2.2 0 of the report and with the recommendation at 10.00.29 Date of the Next Meeting
we are. Thank you. In addition, can I also seek the agreement of the Committee to delegate authority to the Chief operating Officer to implement the committed decision. Thank you. So the Committee approved the recommendation that the remuneration of the chief executive should be reset in line with the proposal in the report implemented from the 1st of October 23, and that the Chief Executive should continue to receive the annual cost of living costs of living revisions to salary and allowances in line with all other employees of the Combined Authority. Thank you so much, colleagues, so moving on to the end of the meeting that and the date of the next meeting, obviously we are coming up to a low. My election made the second, so there is a bit of a hiatus until hopefully, hopefully the good people of West Yorkshire will see that I've delivered some things that they're happy with and that I will come back and continue my transformative plan for the region, so the next meeting is in June, subject to the approval of the proposed calendar of meetings 24 25, thank you all so much. This
Webcast Finished - 0:45:22
meeting has now closed.- (4) FRCC - 6 February 2024 - Draft Minutes - PUBLIC, opens in new tab
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