An apology of absence was received from Cllr Leslie Hills (Chair).   

The Minutes of the meeting held on 2 April 2015 were signed by the Chair

No declarations of interest were made.   

The Technical Services Manager gave an update to the Committee on the progress of the IPad project.

The Technical Services Manager summarised the following:

·         All sixty three IPads purchased have been allocated to officers and Members

·         The training sessions went well and we have received positive feedback

·         IT will attend Full Council to assist Members if needed 

·         In cases of damage, AppleCare will replace up to two times and Apple stores will provide assistance with the IPads if Members need it. 

The Assistant Director (Corporate Performance) added the following:

·         Wi-Fi has been updated and speeds have been increased

·         The buddy system is in place to help Members with their IPads

·         The Grand will be offering training sessions for basic skills on the IPad at the Civic Centre; dates will be sent out to Members. 

The Assistant Director (Corporate Performance) informed Members of the proposed future delivery of Internal Audit & Assurance services for the Council:

Internal Audit & Assurance

·         The shared management arrangement for shared management of Internal Audit services between Gravesham Borough Council and Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council has been terminated, due to an approach from Medway Council to share management of this service, with a commitment to exploring a fully shared service between the two organisations in due course.

·         Discussions have taken place with the Leaders of both organisations, together with the Senior Management Teams.  In addition, the respective Chairs of the Finance & Audit Committee and Performance & Administration Committee, both pre and post the recent election, have been consulted and have provided their agreement to the new arrangement.

·         Medway will pay GBC £40,000 towards the cost of the shared service of the Audit & Assurance Manager

Fraud Services

·       The shared management of Fraud Services between GBC and Tonbridge & Malling (TMBC) is going to be terminated as TMBC have served notice that they wish for this arrangement to cease.

·       The Fraud Investigations Manager will now solely work for GBC, although options are being looked into to offset this loss of income.

The Assistant Director (Corporate Performance) advised the Committee that the hope is to have fully shared Internal Audit and Fraud Services with Medway Council by 1^st April 2016.

Cabinet be advised that the Committee endorses the proposed future delivery of Internal Audit and Fraud Services for Gravesham Borough Council.

The Policy Officer presented to the Committee the Year-end Performance Report 2014-15 and highlighted the following:

·         Outturns in appendix two have been reported to Members throughout the Cabinet committee cycle in 2014-15.

·         Para 2.4 specifies the progress of indictors when compared to 2013-14:

-       11 indicators have displayed an improvement

-       1 indicator maintained the same level of performance

-       4 indicators fell in performance

One Member asked the Policy Officer to keep Members updated with which indicators have been omitted and which are being added and monitored for the future Corporate Plan performance monitoring process.

The Policy Officer informed the Committee that the performance framework for the new Corporate Plan will be based upon the new administration’s core objectives for the Council

albeit; many of the core measures are likely to remain.

The Policy Officer advised he is happy to update Members when the indicator list is finalised and formally adopted to keep the P&A committee up to date on developments.

Members noted the Year-end Performance outturns for the measures of accountability and information only indicators collected in 2014-15.