Leeds Migration Partnership – profile
James Rogers, Assistant Chief Executive (Citizens and Communities) – Leeds City Council
About James
 Started working for Leeds City Council on a Youth Training Scheme in 1985
 Worked in a number of areas before choosing a career in Human Resources
 Went to college and then university day release for seven years to secure a range of qualifications
and progressed to HR Manager
 Moved into a more project management role in 1993 getting involved in a range of issues affecting
the council
 Moved into the corporate team in 1999 and became the Assistant Chief executive in 2007
 Has a broad knowledge of council services and functions and experience of a wide range of
corporate and service based issues having worked in most areas of the council in some form or
another
Currently Responsibility For:
Customer Services - The council’s contact centre deals with 1.4 million calls and 125,000 emails each
year. Face-to-face contact - There are a number of one stop centres/community hubs across the city,
which handle 0.53 million face-to-face customer contacts each year. Digital access - The Digital access
team manages the council’s website which receives 6 million external visits (i.e. figure excludes visits from
council computers) each year, and is developing new ways for customers to find what they are after on-line
including web-chat which has seen over 70,000 chats take place since it went live in September 2013. The
team also manage customer enquiries that come via the Council’s social-media presence on Facebook and
Twitter.
Communities: The communities’ team includes delivery of the council’s locality working arrangements
(community committees and area working), equalities, migration, volunteering, third sector relationships
and infrastructure, provision of community centres and support for the Communities Board and the Poverty
Truth Challenge. Our work on locality working provides targeted solutions to tackle a wide range of local
issues (e.g. environmental issues and community safety, health well-being, adult social care, children’s
services and skills and welfare reform). Area Committees and Community Champions provide local
leadership and a local voice on these issues from a grass-roots perspective.
Welfare and Benefits: The provision of welfare and benefits services including the welfare rights team,
fairer charging team, financial hardship service, benefits and council tax processing. Council Tax
Collection - This service is responsible for the billing and the collection of Council Tax which totals more
than £330 million from 341,000 properties. Local Welfare Scheme – The service operates an emergency
payment scheme for individuals and families facing crisis. Housing benefit – The service is responsible for
the assessment and payment of housing benefit to over 70,000 tenants totalling more than £280m each
year. Education benefits - The service provides a free school meals assessment service on behalf of
schools, both LEA run and Academies. Over 20,000 children in Leeds are assessed each year as being
entitled to free school meals. The introduction of universal entitlement to free school meals for reception
and 1st year pupils has had little impact on the need to continue to assess entitlement.
Licensing & Registration: Electoral services: The team compiles the register of electors for Leeds
comprising an electorate of 556,000 people in 335,000 properties and is responsible for the arrangement
and conduct of elections and referendums for 8 parliamentary constituencies, 33 city council wards and 31
town and parish councils. Registrars of births, deaths and marriages – provision of a front line public
service that deal with the registration of 9,800 births and 6,500 deaths, issuing 17,000 certificates, attesting
6,900 notices and performing 1,800 marriage and civil partnership ceremonies, and issuing 2,600 British
Citizenship certificates. Licensing - administrate and enforce licenses for the sale of alcohol (approximately
2,700 premises and 7,100 personal licences), provision of entertainment, gambling (136 premises licenced
for gambling and 736 gambling permits, notices and registrations) and other various miscellaneous
licences. Taxi and private hire licensing administer and enforce licences for taxis (hackney carriages) and
private hire vehicles. There are 537 hackney carriage vehicles; just under 1,000 hackney carriage drivers;
approximately 3,700 private hire vehicles; around 4,800 private hire drivers; and, 90 private hire operators.
Local land charges are responsible for the compilation and maintenance of the up-to-date local land
charges register and provide the information for approximately 9400 local land search requests each year.
Key Council/Partnership Boards Attended:
 Member of Councils Corporate Leadership Team
 Member of Communities Board
 Attend Executive Board
 Attend Cabinet Meeting
Chairs the following key boards:
 Cross Council Migration Meeting (Councils internal strategic migration group)
 Cross Council Safeguarding Board
 Equality Hub Network
 Equality Board
 Elected Member Equality Champions
 Diversity Staff Forum (meeting of chairs of staff networks)
 Citizens@Leeds Programme Board
 Citizens and Communities Leadership Team
Officer Champion/Lead Roles:
 Officer lead on tackling Poverty and Deprivation
 Equality and Diversity Champion
 Armed Forces Champion
Citizens@Leeds – Priorities for 2015/16
Ambition and Approach:
The Citizens@Leeds programme supports the council`s ambition for Leeds to be the best city and for Leeds City
Council to be the best council in the UK. Through our Citizens@Leeds approach we will ensure that: essential
services are provided in an integrated and accessible way to the most in need of services, support and advice; those
requiring financial assistance have quick and easy access to financial advice and cost effective credit facilities; those
seeking employment and/or training have easy access to advice, support and awareness of training and employment
opportunities and; that we are better connected with the citizens of Leeds.
Our Core Outcome:
To improve the quality of life for all our residents, particularly those who are vulnerable or experiencing poverty.
Objectives and priorities for 2015/16:
Helping People out of Financial Hardship:
Tackling the financial challenges of poverty, deprivation
and inequality with a focus on:
Helping People into Work:
Helping people into work by providing easy access to
advice, support and awareness of training and
employment opportunities with a focus on:
1. Delivering financial support schemes which support
the most vulnerable.
2. Delivering integrated pathways of support within
welfare and benefits services, community hubs and
the corporate contact centre.
3. Providing more accessible advice services to meet
demand.
4. Developing proposals for greater devolution of
welfare responsibilities to core cities.
5. Tackling high cost lenders.
6. Working with Leeds City Credit Union to provide
affordable credit services.
7. Maximising the impact of the Social Inclusion Fund
at a local level.
1. Reconfiguring the employment and skills role within
Community Hubs.
2. Delivering the new Council Tax Support scheme
which has a clear focus on helping people into work.
3. Working with Community Committees to ensure a
localised focus on helping people into work.
4. Creating an effective partnership with the
Department of Works and Pensions that delivers an
accessible and effective Universal Credit service.
5. Strengthening our partnership approach with
Jobcentre plus and exploring integration/co-location
with Community Hubs.
6. Ensuring that our approach to volunteering provides
opportunities to develop the skills required for work.
7. Focussing our work on priority groups (e.g. mental
health) to help those furthest away from the labour
market.
Strengthening local accountability and being more
responsive to the needs of local communities:
Supporting and enabling local people and communities
to engage and interact with the council on issues that
are important to them with a focus on:
Providing accessible and integrated services:
Creating integrated access to council and partner
services that places the customer at the centre of what
we do and meets their needs with a focus on:
1. Working effectively with community committees and
local members to prioritise and tackle local issues.
2. Increasing the community use of, and interactions
with, the Community Hubs and ensuring they meet
local need.
3. Using the Communities Board to create a culture of
effective partnership working to support the delivery
of stronger and more cohesive communities.
4. Establishing high standards for cross-council
safeguarding, with a specific focus on taxi and
private hire services across Leeds.
5. Reviewing the taxi and private hire fleet to ensure
there is a wide range of vehicles which meet
customer access requirements.
6. Reviewing the statement of licensing policy to
reflect local needs.
7. Delivering the joint general parliamentary, local and
parish/town council elections in May 2015.
1. Rolling out a network of community hubs across the
city.
2. Delivering integrated housing, welfare and advice
services in community hubs.
3. Delivering the centres of excellence model within the
corporate contact centre, including the delivery of a
fully integrated council tax service.
4. Delivering integrated pathways around vulnerability
issues, including safeguarding, drugs and alcohol
and domestic violence.
5. Completing phase 1 of the customer contact
platform and starting the implementation of phase 2.
6. Delivering a benefits e-claim solution that becomes
the principal method for claiming benefits.
7. Developing a coherent branding and marketing
approach for all our Citizens@Leeds activities to
support improved community engagement.