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PRESENT:            Councillors Mrs Stockell (Chairman), Bradshaw, Butler, Hotson, Mrs Marshall, Mortimer, Parr and F Wilson.

 

APOLOGIES:        None.

 

56.    Web-Casting

 

The Chairman highlighted that there was an urgent Part II item and Members agreed that all items apart from this should be web-cast.

 

          Resolved:   That all Part I items on the agenda be web-cast.

 

57.    Notification of Substitute Members

 

          There were no substitute Members.

 

58.    Notification of Visiting Members

 

It was noted that Councillor Garland was in attendance to be interviewed for Agenda Item 8, “Council Decision-Making”.

 

59.    Urgent Item

 

The Chairman highlighted that the “Review of the Council’s Senior Staff Structure” would be taken as an urgent item in order to ensure that the comments of the Committee could be received by the Cabinet at its meeting on 8 October 2008.

 

Resolved:   That the “Review of the Council’s Senior Staff Structure” be taken as an urgent item.

 

60.    Disclosures by Members and Officers

 

The Chief Executive disclosed a personal interest in the urgent agenda item, “Review of the Council’s Senior Staff Structure”, by virtue of his being a part of the Council’s Senior Management Team.

 

61.    Exempt Items

 

Resolved:   That the urgent agenda item, “Review of the Council’s Senior Staff Structure”, be taken in private due to the possible disclosure of exempt information.

 

62.    Minutes

 

 

Councillor Parr highlighted that he still had not received the project brief for the Park and Ride master planning exercise as referred to in Minute № 47.

 

Councillor Wilson referred to Minute № 51, Resolution (b) and requested that a date be included in the Future Work Programme to ensure that the Council’s partnerships were investigated by the Committee at a future date.

 

Resolved:   That

 

a)   The minutes of the meeting held on 5 August 2008 be agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman;

b)   A copy of the project brief for the Park and Ride master planning exercise be provided to Councillor Parr; and

c)   A date for a review of partnerships be included in the Future Work Programme.

 

63.    Council Decision-Making

 

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Chris Garland, stated that all administrations since the introduction of the Cabinet system had found it necessary at times to take urgent decisions.  Nine decisions had been taken as ‘urgent’ in 2007-08, three of which he considered to be strategic decisions affecting the whole Council.  Three had been taken to date in 2008-09.  He did, however, believe that it was beneficial to look at the procedure for taking urgent decisions to ensure that these only occurred when absolutely necessary.  With regard to the two decisions this year that had caused some concern, in the case of the procurement of recycling bins, there had been an urgent need to take the decision to ensure procurement.  There had been a procedural issue with the free swimming decision as a response had to be given to Central Government within a limited timeframe.

 

The Leader of the Opposition, Councillor Fran Wilson, agreed that it was important to reflect on how decisions were made.  When she had been Leader in 2007-08, she had been unhappy about having to take urgent decisions that bypassed scrutiny and had felt occasionally that reports were presented to Cabinet too late to allow for scrutiny.  It needed to be investigated whether reports were being received late due to capacity issues, or as a result of the competence or experience of officers.  In her opinion, bypassing the scrutiny process made the Council weaker.

 

The Chief Executive, David Petford, stated that it was extremely important that all decisions were held to account and he and his officers worked hard to ensure that this happened; this was why the Council performed well.  Debate through the scrutiny process strengthened decisions, particularly on complex matters.  One reason why some decisions needed to be taken as urgent was that Central Government often gave extremely short deadlines.  In the case of procurement issues, it sometimes made good business sense to take decisions quickly.  In his experience, late reports were rarely due to capacity but were due to competence issues and officers not giving reports a high enough priority.  In these cases, he would request that the officers started again with the process to ensure a high quality report and appropriate timescales.

 

A Councillor recommended that a letter be sent to the Local Government Association on behalf of the Committee highlighting that short Government deadlines had a negative effect on the democratic process and this needed to be raised with Central Government.  The Committee agreed that this should go ahead as it was an issue of cross-party concern.

 

Several Members highlighted the importance of scrutiny holding the Cabinet to account and stated that this was a vital part of the Cabinet system.  It was also noted that call-in, which was bypassed in the case of urgent decisions, was not always used to change decisions but to ensure that full explanations of decisions were received and to allow for a full debate which was not possible at Cabinet meetings.  This was vital for both councillors and the public.

 

Resolved:   That a letter be sent to the Local Government Association on behalf of the Committee requesting that the issue of short Government deadlines be raised with Central Government as this had a negative effect on the democratic process.

 

64.    Response to the Comprehensive Area Assessment Consultation

 

The Director of Change and Support Services, David Edwards, introduced the Council’s draft response to the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) consultation to the Committee.  He informed Members that the CAA would replace the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) for local authorities in order to bring together the work of different inspectorates to give an overarching view of a specific area.  Many aspects of the CAA were still being defined and it was therefore unclear how much of it would work in practice.  A key part of the CAA was bringing different assessments together, for example the Council currently received a separate rating for Use of Resources but this would now be incorporated into the CAA.  Maidstone currently demonstrated a lot of good practice but it was unclear whether the Audit Commission would therefore use Maidstone as one of the first areas for CAA, or whether it would be left until later as it was seen as less of a risk.

 

The Policy and Performance Officer, Anna Collier, explained that there were two key areas of the CAA: the Area Assessment would look at the priorities for an individual area and how these were being implemented, whilst the Organisational Assessment would look at individual organisations.  The Area Assessment would be scored using flags, with green flags highlighting best practice and red flags indicating areas needing improvement.  The Organisational Assessment would be scored on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being poor and 4 being excellent.  The Local Area Agreement would form the basis for the Area Assessment so it was important to ensure good relationship with Kent County Council and to be able to demonstrate engagement with communities.

 

A Councillor stated that the report lacked clarity and was difficult to understand in places.  This would need to be addressed before it was submitted to the Audit Commission to ensure that the Council’s concerns and responses were fully understood and taken into account. 

 

Several Councillors raised concerns that the performance of the Council’s partners could impact negatively on the Council’s overall assessment.  Answers were needed from the Audit Commission on how the Council would be affected by its partners.  Mr Edwards stated that in terms of CAA, it was extremely important that Maidstone was aware of all issues; provided the Council was aware of issues or problems in the Borough and had raised these with partners and was doing what it could to address them, it would not reflect negatively on the Council if partners then decided not to deal with these as a priority.

 

A Councillor referred to the question on peer involvement and asked what this would involve.  Mr Edwards responded that there was currently very little information available on what this would cover, however for the CPA, a representative of a neighbouring authority would be involved in the inspection and it was likely to be similar to this.  Maidstone would welcome this as an open and forward-looking authority.  With regard to consultation and evidence gathering, Miss Collier informed Members that ten councils were currently trialling peer involvement and the involvement of the third sector.  These trials would finish in the near future and more information would then be available on how this would work.  A Councillor stated that parish councils should be consulted.

 

A Member asked how the Place Survey would link to the CAA and Miss Collier explained that information from this would inform both the Area Assessment and the Organisational Assessment.  The Survey had been sent out the previous week and over 500 responses had already been received.  The results would be available in February 2009.

 

Resolved:   That the Council’s response to the Comprehensive Area Assessment be reviewed prior to its submission to the Audit Commission to ensure its clarity.

 

65.    Forward Plan

 

The Committee discussed the Forward Plan and agreed that it was important to review the Communications Strategy at a future meeting.

 

Resolved:   That the Committee consider the Communications Strategy at a future meeting.

 

66.    Future Work Programme

 

The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer informed the Committee that the Corporate Improvement Plan would be considered at the meeting on 4 November.

 

Members also discussed the Gateway and suggested an update on this would be useful; Mr Petford informed the Committee that the opening date for the Gateway was now 5 January 2009.  The Committee also requested an update on how the credit crunch was affecting the Council and the review of the Council’s assets.

 

          Resolved:   That

 

a)   An update on the Gateway be received;

b)   The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and the Chief Finance Officer be invited to provide an update on the ways in which the credit crunch was affecting the Council; and

c)   An update be provided on the review of the Council’s assets.

 

67.    Exclusion of the Public from the Meeting

 

Resolved:   That the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business due to the likely disclosure of exempt information for the reason specified under schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:-

 

	Head of Schedule 12A and Brief Description
Review of the Council’s Senior Staff Structure	4 – Labour Relations

 

Public Minute of Review of the Council’s Senior Staff Structure

 

The Chief Executive, David Petford, outlined the key changes to the senior staff structure and highlighted the reasons behind these changes.  Creating headroom for some of the Council’s most talented staff was important, as was creating a structure that would serve the Council well for the future whilst also saving money.

 

There were three stages to the restructure: Stage One would see the implementation of the new directorates when Mr Gasson left; Stage Two would be the introduction of the new director in approximately April 2009; and Stage Three would be the embedding of the new structure.  The details of Stage Three would be developed in the coming months.

 

A Councillor highlighted that the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) and the Community Strategy were in different directorates, however the LSP was instrumental in the development and implementation of the Community Strategy.  It was extremely important that the connections between these areas of work were maintained across the new directorates. 

 

Members agreed that the proposed new structure represented a positive direction for the Council and commended the Chief Executive on his work in developing this.

 

Resolved:   That

 

a)    Cabinet instruct the Chief Executive to develop and monitor links between the Local Strategic Partnership and the Community Strategy across the new directorates; and

b)    Cabinet commend the Chief Executive on his work in developing the new Senior Staff Structure.

 

69.    Duration of the Meeting

 

          6:30 p.m. to 8:35 p.m.