Agenda item

REPORT OF THE SCRUTINY OFFICER

 

To consider the issues that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee plans to review at future meetings and the activities of its sub-groups.

RESOLVED:

 

(1)       That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme be noted;

 

(2)       That the Chairman, Chief Executive and Scrutiny Officer be requested to develop the outline for a workshop that would enable Members to identify issues and topics for discussion at future meetings of this Committee;

 

(3)       That the Scrutiny Officer be requested to produce a scope for a Task and Finish Group on Communication and Engagement and present this to the next meeting of this Committee;

 

(4)       That Head of Development and Building Control be requested to formulate a discussion paper regarding the Strategy for a New Settlement to be presented at the next meeting of this Committee;

 

(5)       That the Communications Manager and Customer Services Manager be requested to formulate a discussion paper regarding Channel Shifting and present it to this Committee on 19 September 2017.

 

REASON FOR DECISION:To enable the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to plan and carry out its workload efficiently and effectively.

The Chairman advised Members that the main consideration in this report was the findings of the workshop, attended by Members that considered how this Committee could scrutinise issues more effectively in the future.

 

The Scrutiny Officer presented the report entitled Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme and drew attention to the following:

 

Future methods of Scrutiny

The Committee had expressed a wish to have an earlier and more effective input into policy and an earlier awareness of potential problems and consideration had been given, over a period of time, as to how this could be achieved.

 

A workshop for Members of the Committee was held in April 2017 from which a number of options were identified and these were set out on Pages 91 and 92 of the report.

 

Any changes adopted by the Committee were not intended to be particularly onerous for officers, but aimed to get the Committee to understand more and enter the process earlier and this could be achieved in a number of ways as follows:

 

The Corporate Plan

There was a feeling that the current Corporate Plan did not reflect the activities of the Council in an effective way and needed to be re-drafted.

 

Service Plans

Some Service Plans had already been published, although some had yet to be so.

 

Each Service Plan had an action plan attached, which gave an outline of the things that the Council would be undertaking during the next Civic Year and this gave an opportunity for the Committee to identify projects, reviews and issues that were coming up and have an input at an early stage.

 

The Development and Building Control Plan identified an action to Develop a Strategic Approach to the Local Plan 2031 New Settlement and that this could be an opportunity to invite the Head of Development and Building Control to come to the Committee to share his thoughts and for the Committee to provide feedback and ideas.

 

The same document identified that the Council was considering the introduction of a Community Infrastructure Levy in December 2017 and this could be considered at later date.

 

The Communications Service Plan contained a project regarding Channel Shifting, which was about encouraging use of on-line methods of communications in order to reduce the amount of direct customer contact with the Customer Service Centre. This project was due to report in March 2017, but had been deferred to report in March 2018 and this may be a subject that the Committee would be interested in.

 

The Chairman stated that considering items identified in action plans could be less burdensome for Officers and would enable the Committee to have an input into the though processes before the project was developed.

 

If the Committee chose a new method of choosing issues to consider, tools such as the Forward Plan should continue to be used and not forgotten,

 

A Member commented that one of the challenges was to make sure that officers put their projects on the Forward Plan in good time.

 

Top Risks

The Scrutiny Officer advised that the Council’s top risks and risk register were listed on Covalent, which was available to Members and it was notable how many projects were at Alert status.

 

Members Information Service

Information on projects was provided in MIS and this could be cross reference with other sources of information.

 

By reading this document, the Scrutiny Officer noted the inclusion of a timetable relating to the Waste Contract and upon investigation through other source he discovered that this project had been delayed, although there had been no mention of the delay in MIS. This project was also mentioned in the risk register, which identified that the late awarding of contracts could have consequences.

 

The Chairman advised that at this point they would hear the presentation by the Chief Executive, after which discussion regarding this agenda item would be continued.

 

Following the presentation by the Chief Executive, the Chairman gave the example of the Green Space Strategy, that had been included in the Service Plan for some time, yet the Committee had not identified it as an item to consider, which resulted in a Call-In with the consequent burden that this placed on the organisation, had this been identified at an earlier stage, the Committee could have added value by discussing consultation before any decisions was taken.

 

She queried how this may have been avoided by interrogating Service Plans.

 

The Chief Executive advised that the Chairman could have a briefing meeting with Heads of Service to ask them what was coming up and to discuss what issues the Committee were concerned about. This could identify issues not only for the current year, but over a longer period.

 

Approximately four years ago Overview and Scrutiny had a discussion item on their agenda regarding the Local Plan that had included what the scope of the Local Plan might look like, the sorts of issues that would have to be considered, what the implications might be and what was outside of the Council’s control. This had been a successful discussion based item supported by a two page discussion paper, rather than the usual long and technical report.

 

The Chairman commented that being able to spend time considering one issue, as they had this evening with the Task and Finish Group report, had the potential to add more value and suggested that it would be valuable to hold an annual workshop to discuss with Heads of Service and Executive Members what actions the Committee could consider.

 

Members commented that it was important to engage with the wider public and not just the small numbers of the same people who commented on everything and it was important to find a way to achieve wider public engagement. It was also important to find ways that the wider public can voice their opinion and how this could be facilitated.

 

They considered that advertising the issues that were due to be discussed via social media may increase public participation and awareness of what the Council was doing and that other Member colleagues could be invited to take part in those discussions.

 

The Chief Executive suggested that the Committee may wish to consider how the Council communicates and engages with the public in the round and that this could be a piece of work undertaken over a period of time.

 

Members commented that more engagement did not necessarily increase confidence or happiness and that the Council had to be careful of raising expectations that because someone had engaged their opinion would be acted upon.

 

Members agreed that the proposed Task and Finish Group on Communication and Engagement should be brought forward.

 

In respect of possible discussion items Members considered that there was a danger, when considering items such as the Strategy for a New Settlement, that people think this would be happening in the near future.

 

Channel Shifting was extremely important as it proposed reducing face to face contact with the Council and increasing on-line contact, which could cause concern for residents.

 

In respect of the suggested delay with the Waste Contract members were advised that this was moving forward satisfactorily and that it was currently in the tendering stage. They felt that it would b difficult to add value to this subject and it may be that the process was hindered if the Committee were involved.

 

They agreed that the Strategy for a new settlement should be brought to the next meeting and Channel Shifting to a future meeting.

 

The Scrutiny Officer informed Members that the Corporate Plan, an update on Play Areas and the Task and Finish Group on Larger Projects would be considered at the next meeting.

 

RESOLVED:

 

(1)       That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme be noted;

 

(2)       That the Chairman, Chief Executive and Scrutiny Officer be requested to develop the outline for a workshop that would enable Members to identify issues and topics for discussion at future meetings of this Committee;

 

(3)       That the Scrutiny Officer be requested to produce a scope for a Task and Finish Group on Communication and Engagement and present this to the next meeting of this Committee;

 

(4)       That Head of Development and Building Control be requested to formulate a discussion paper regarding the Strategy for a New Settlement to be presented at the next meeting of this Committee;

 

(5)       That the Communications Manager and Customer Services Manager be requested to formulate a discussion paper regarding Channel Shifting and present it to this Committee on 19 September 2017.

 

REASON FOR DECISION:To enable the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to plan and carry out its workload efficiently and effectively.