Members and Officers are invited to make any declaration of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on this agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the items or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

Members and Officers should make their declaration by stating:

a)             the item they have the interest in

b)             whether it is a pecuniary/personal interest and/or prejudicial interest

c)             the nature of the interest

          There were no declarations of interest made.

The Committee will be asked to approve as a correct record the minutes of the Corporate Support Committee held on 24 March 2022.

          The minutes of the meeting held on 24 March 2022 were approved by the committee and signed by the Chair.

To receive questions from the public (for a period of up to 15 minutes)

          There were no public questions received for the meeting.

The Committee is required to agree its meeting start time for 2022/23.

          It was proposed by Chair and seconded by Cllr Bennett that the meeting start time for this committee be 6pm.

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED

                     That the meeting start time be 6pm.

This report is the annual update of progress with the strategies and has been provided to give the committee insight to the delivery of key themes.

(Cllr Huntley arrived at the meeting at 18:02pm)

          The Head of Technology and Digital provided members with an overview of his report where he highlighted that over the last two years there had been an unprecedented increase on the reliance of technology particularly around remote working and the adoption of digital services. Excellent progress had been made with improving the underlying technical infrastructure as well as advancing the councils customer facing digital channels. The council’s website had seen a significant increase in visitor numbers and more recently achieved its one millionth customer visit. At the same time the team had made improvements to the usability and accessibility of the site and provided more targeted content, which enabled customers to get to the right place much quicker. He also confirmed that the council’s cloud first strategy was also progressing well, confirming that the council’s reliance on in-house infrastructure had been reduced by about a third. In summing up he explained that the internal support team, even when faced with the pandemic had managed to exceed their service targets despite experiencing covid themselves.

          The Chair then took questions from members where several points where raised, and answers were provided. Three members raised concerns regarding the recent changes that had been reported regarding reception areas at the Civic Centre and Bognor Regis Town Hall. It was confirmed by the Group Head of Operation Excellence that both sites are open to the public and the changes implemented were to provide a more streamlined customer experience. She confirmed that customers would still be able to meet with officers on a face-to-face basis should that be what they want.

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED

1.    Note the report received and continue to receive annual updates.

The Committee Work Programme for 2022/23 is attached for the Committee’s information.

          The committee noted its work programme.