Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SCRUTINY OFFICER

This report highlights items scheduled in the work programme of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for the 2025-26 civic year. It also includes items that have not yet been assigned to a specific meeting of the Committee.

RESOLVED:

(1)         That the Committee prioritised topics for inclusion in the Work Programme attached as Appendix A and, where appropriate, determines the high-level form and timing of scrutiny input.

(2)         That the Committee, having considered the most recent iteration of the Forward Plan, as attached at Appendix B, suggests a list of items to be considered at its meetings in the coming civic year.

REASONS FOR DECISIONS:

(1)         To allow the Committee to set a work programme which provides focused Member oversight, encourages open debate and seeks to achieve service improvement through effective policy development and meaningful policy and service change.

(2)         The need to observe Constitutional requirements and monitor the Forward Plan for appropriate items to scrutinise remains a key aspect of work programming

Audio recording – 2 hours 45 minutes 44 seconds

The Scrutiny Officer presented the report entitled ‘Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme 2025-26’ and advised that:

·                Members should contact the Scrutiny Officer, Chair or Vice-Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee if they wished to raise an item for the Work Programme and a form to aid this process was in development.

·                Detailed explanations on deferrals to the Museum Storage Update and North Herts Town Centres Strategy items could be found in the published supplement.

·                The S106 Task and Finish Group met on 16 July to draft consultation questions. These had since been compiled into questionnaires and would be circulated to stakeholders.

·                A further meeting would be held with Strategic Planning Officers on Tuesday 30 September to address questions on scope and S106 obligations.

·                The Local Government Association Peer Review had been removed from the report as all actions on this had been completed. 

·                The Decisions and Monitoring Tracker had not been included in the report as there were no decisions to monitor at this meeting.

Councillor Ralph Muncer noted that due to advice to delay stakeholder consultation, it would be more appropriate for the S106 Task and Finish Group to present their report to the Committee meeting in February rather than January.

The Chair highlighted the following:

·                The update from the Director on Health Equalities could be deferred to the meeting on 6 January 2026 as it was not a time critical item.

·                It would be feasible to postpone the item on Environmental Health to the Committee meeting in January.

·                Given the volume of business, 2-3 items scheduled for the Committee meeting on 11 November would need to be postponed or deferred.

In response to points raised by the Chair, the Director – Resources advised that:

·                The Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) item could be deferred as consultation needed to take place on this before changes were made.

·                As part of Local Government Reorganisation, future CTRS timelines would be changed to align with other authorities once it was known which authorities would be grouped together to form the new unitary authorities.

The following Members asked questions:

·                Councillor Paul Ward

·                Councillor Ralph Muncer

In response to questions, the Chair advised that:

·                The North Herts Town Centres Strategy would be presented at the meeting in November.

·                The Museum Storage Update did not have a deadline for decision, therefore, it could be postponed to a future meeting.

In response to questions, Councillor Jon Clayden advised that they did not have the data related to the waste contract change yet, therefore, it would be better to delay discussion on this until the relevant data was available.

In response to questions, the Scrutiny Officer advised that they would contact the Director – Environment to investigate the availability of data from the waste contractor.

In response to questions, Councillor Paul Ward advised that the waste contractor might be operating under a normal regime once the six-monthly review was due in February.

In response to advice, Councillor  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24