Agenda item

Christine Parker, Head of East Kent Internal Audit Partnership, led the discussion. Mrs Parker leads the audit team that works independently for Dover, Canterbury, Shepway and Thanet local authorities. She gave an overview of the work conducted by her in reviewing the Dreamland project after being commissioned by the Corporate Management Team (CMT). The focus of the audit was on project management and to identify any lessons learnt by the organisation.

The structure of the report was according to the following themes;

•  Project management;

•  Governance arrangements;

•  Financial managements

•  Project risk management.

The report concluded that there were some lessons learnt that included the council being able to identify what projects to push back and which to embark on once satisfied with the operational capacity of the council to manage such projects taking into consideration the project risks in the context of overall resource impact for the organisation. The report concluded with an action plan for reference going forward.

Speaking under Council procedure 20.1, Councillor Tomlinson suggested that Members of the Panel set up a working group to carry out further in-depth review of the Dreamland project on what had gone wrong.

When the debate was opened up to the Panel Members made the following comments:

•  The report was fine, but the Panel would have wanted to sponsor their own report, hence the need to set up a working group;

•  Need for further clarification on some areas in the report including basic project management;

•  Council should have consistently used Smart Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely (SMART) methodology in order to manage risk for this project;

•  Governance arrangements should have been robust enough to withstand staff turnover;

•  Can it be confirmed that SHL went through the proper due diligence process that was amended in December 2014 considering that the operator selection had been first approved in April 2010 and later in May 2014;

•  Did SHL meet all the criteria when they submitted their bid in the second procurement process;

•  There should have been a Master File for such a multi departmental corporate project to eliminate risk;

•  What has been put in place to communicate to Cabinet and Members when a corporate project is not meeting targets;

•  Commended the Council’s Finance Department on the demonstration of strong financial management systems being place for the duration of this project;

•  There is a need to consider how much political influence has affected some of the decisions made for this project.

In response Madeline Homer, CEx said that:

•  Members had requested for a report on the Dreamland to understand the finance, governance and project management of this project;

•  There is a need for clarity on what it is that Members wanted to review which had not been covered by the report before the Panel;

•  Any scrutiny review would have resource implications for the organisation;

•  There is a comment in the report that states that there was no political influence in the decisions made relating to this project and it may not be appropriate for the Panel to review political aspect of a project.

Councillor Campbell proposed that the Panel stood down the Electoral Registration Process Review Working Party and set up a Dreamland Working Group and Councillor Bayford seconded the proposal.

Tim Howes, Director of Corporate Governance advised that it was entirely appropriate for the Panel to set up a seven member working group. Nick Hughes, Committee Services Manager then added that in the case of a seven member sub group and the sub group was set up on the basis of proportionality then it would translate to a membership of 4 UKIP, 2 Conservative and 1 Labour Members.

In conclusion Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Bayford seconded and when put to vote Members agreed that the Panel stood down the Electoral Registration Process Review Working Party and set up the Dreamland Working Group, made up of seven members.