Thursday 26 June 2008

Corporate Services Committee

Last night was the first time I had been to Corporate Services Committee. Executive Members go to the Select Committee that is most relevant to their area. As my portfolio is rather new and has quite vague boundaries, I go to two Select Committees - this one and Overview and Scrutiny.

Last night's meeting was an eye opener about a lot of areas of work - although in some cases there was great news.

What stood out for me was the work done by the people in the Benefits Maximisation Team. They have been helping Liverpool people get the benefits they are entitled to and so making a real difference to some of the poorest of our citizens.

It still worries me though that there are people who don't claim because there is some feeling that claiming is stigmatising. A bit of a short chat about how we can deal with that and I am confident that the team will be doing more to target this type of non-claimant in future.

2 comments:

PM Swimmer said...

Does your remit cover the Liverpool Direct joint venture? If so I think you should seek to widen the current review into the council being ripped off by BT(which I can assure you does happen. Either that or LDL is supply the council with gold plated IT equipment cause it doesn't cost what you get charged) into the negative impact the JV has had on Liverpool based IT companies both hardware and software, as I can think of a number of examples were services that could have been delivered by Liverpool based SMEs went to companies that turned out to be owned by BT as far afield as Dublin. Not ethical in terms of business practice or environmental impact I would say.

Paula Keaveney said...

No my remit doesn't cover LDL but we are having a review of the relationship with them anyway as we other with other JVs as it makes good sense to do this.