Agendas, reports and minutes

A meeting of the Redesign Board will take place on Tuesday, 27 February 2018 at 11.30am in Committee Room 2, Highland Council Headquarters, Glenurquhart Road, Inverness. 

You are invited to attend the meeting and a note of the business to be considered is attached.

Yours faithfully

Stewart Fraser
Head of Corporate Governance 

BUSINESS

1.  Apologies for Absence

2.  Declarations of Interest

Members are asked to consider whether they have an interest to declare in relation to any item on the agenda for this meeting. Any Member making a declaration of interest should indicate whether it is a financial or non-financial interest and include some information on the nature of the interest. Advice may be sought from Officers prior to the meeting taking place.

3.  Provision of External Legal Services

There is circulated Report No RDB/1/18 dated 16 February 2018 by the Area Care & Learning Manager (South).

The Board is asked to recommend:-

• to reduce dependency on and the cost of commissioned legal services by establishing a solicitor post at a cost of £45,000 (either on a full time or part time basis) which would at a minimum be cost neutral, to focus on employment and some procurement and litigation activity. 
• to strengthen conveyancing capacity to deliver financial savings and additional income for the Council by establishing a Paralegal Apprenticeship post at a cost of £32,000 once qualified.

The Board is also asked to agree the following which would be taken forward at an operational level:- 

• that funding for the Solicitor post would be achieved through top slicing service budgets on an agreed formula as approved by the Director of Corporate Resources;
• that subject to a business case a further Paralegal Apprenticeship post be considered should income levels exceed assumptions on a recurring basis; 
• to improve the visibility of expenditure incurred in relation to commissioned external legal services through amending the subjective codes to provide greater clarity over this type of expenditure; and 
• that exploratory work is undertaken to identify the issues that would need to be considered should the Council wish to proactively market the Conveyancing Team to other public sector organisations as well as third sector organisations such as Registered Social Landlords.

4.  Review of Grey Fleet                                                                                          

There is circulated Report No RDB/2/18 dated 16 February 2018 by the Grey Fleet Team.    

The Board is asked to agree the review recommendations detailed at Section 14 to this report, in summary they are:

• To reduce the need to travel;
• Where travel is necessary, to reduce the spend and carbon emissions associated with it;
• To review the travel desk, including expanding its role to accommodate pool cars;
• To enable the use of car clubs where appropriate; 
• To support active travel for short journeys;
• To review and implement new travel policies; and
• To adopt the implementation plan provided.

Members are asked to note that the responsibility for reducing grey fleet travel costs following this review would sit with the Depute Chief Executive/Director of Corporate Resources. 

All recommendations are operational matters that can be taken forward as delegated powers to officers, apart from the recommendation to review and implement new travel policies which would need Committee consideration. 

Approval can be sought to undertake this work at the Council meeting in March if the Board agrees. If subsequent Committee consideration is needed that would be delegated to the Corporate Resources Committee.