Agenda item

A draft of the 2^nd annual report to Council is attached. This report is to be agreed at the Committee’s meeting in March to ensure that it is sent to April’s Council meeting. 

Councillor Mrs Heazell presented this item on the draft 2^nd Annual Report to Council by suggesting that working on this report could become a task for the training day. It was noted that the final report would have to be agreed at March’s meeting so that it could go to April’s Council.

The Committee made the following comments:

• There had been no monitoring of the recommendations on the Neighbourhood disputes.
• Concerns of bus services task and finish group could be passed on to the Local Strategic Partnership with reference to the Community Strategy.
• The issue of legal advice offered by CALC could be revisited. It was noted that both Milton and Shepreth parish councils had received beneficial assistance from CALC.
• The letters being sent to the Minister regarding the post office closures should be included in the report.
• Paragraph 3.1.1 be reworded to explain that the Committee now considered that it was inappropriate for officers, however senior, to be questioned on matters of policy, which should be the domain of Cabinet members. It was suggested that there should be less attendance from senior officers than in the past, to enable them to focus on service delivery.
• The monitoring of portfolio holders had been praised in the CGI report, but should be further developed.
• Mention of the Vice-Chairman’s report on the scrutiny training in York should be included in paragraph 3.3.1.
• The issue of website development needed to be re-examined, with reference to the number of hits received.
• Paragraph 4.0.1 should make reference to the CGI report.
• Paragraph 4.1.1 should be amended to include the fact that the Climate Change Advisory Group would meet in April, following the appointment of the new Strategic Sustainability Officer.
• A Scrutiny Sub-Group had been set up to look at the scrutiny function, but its work had not been fully referred to.

The Head of Policy and Communication suggested both the Committee’s annual report and the forthcoming training day should cover:

• What the Committee was trying to achieve;
• What difference scrutiny had made to services for residents;
• Where the gaps were in the Committee’s approach to scrutiny and how it could learn from good practice elsewhere.

He added that the underlining in the report should be removed, in line with the Council’s Disability Equality Scheme, as it made it more difficult to read.

Monitoring

In the absence of an item on the agenda, the Committee’s monitors were invited to report any matters of note. Nothing was reported.

Councillor Mrs Heazell suggested that Members should look at the scrutiny arrangements of our surrounding authorities with a view to undertaking a site visit. It was suggested that any attendance of another authority’s Committee should be made by invitation only.

Training in York

Councillor Hall stated that he would be bring a full report on the recent training course in York to the next meeting. In summary he stated that there had been 20 delegates from 15 authorities, the majority of which had more than one scrutiny committee.