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

There were no apologies.

There were no substitute Members.

It was noted that Councillor Ash was a visiting Member with an interest in all items on the agenda.

a)  Disclosures of interest.

b)  Disclosures of lobbying.

c)  Disclosures of whipping.

There were no disclosures.

Resolved:  That all items on the agenda be taken in public as proposed.

Councillor Parr referred to Minute ? 96 and asked when a response to recommendations (b) and (c) would be received.  The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer informed the Committee that the response to these recommendations had been e-mailed to Members on 18 February 2010 and agreed to re-send the e-mail to Councillor Parr for information.

Resolved:  That

a)  The response to Minute ? 96, recommendations (b) and (c), be e-mailed to Councillor Parr; and

b)  The minutes of the meeting held on 2 February 2010 be agreed as a correct record and duly signed by the Chairman.

The Chairman proposed that Agenda Item 10, “Overview and Scrutiny Function Report” be taken before Agenda Item 8, “The Council’s Approach to Consultation”, as the Chief Executive wished to speak on Agenda Item 10 and was required at another meeting that evening.

Resolved:  That Agenda Item 10 be taken before Agenda Item 8.

The Chief Executive, David Petford, stated that he was disappointed that the Overview and Scrutiny Function Report had not analysed the cost of the service, as it was important that Members were satisfied that the service provided value for money.  The Council aimed to provide top quartile performance at low quartile costs for as many services as possible, and the scrutiny service needed to be looked at in this light.  A benchmarking exercise should also be undertaken to identify how the cost and performance of the service compared to other authorities.

Members agreed that this issue had been overlooked in the report and consequently agreed to remove recommendation (ll), “that the level of dedicated officer support for overview and scrutiny remain at its current level of 2.4 FTE officers” from the report; a further review of the cost of the service, to include benchmarking, the number of officer hours dedicated to overview and scrutiny, and the exact type and level of support required, would be carried out over the coming months to inform the budget setting process in 2010-11. It was agreed that whilst the function was subject to review the recruitment process should continue.

A Councillor identified that recruitment was taking place for a junior, rather than a senior, officer and expressed concern over this.  A copy of the job advertisement was requested.  In response to a question, Mrs Woodhouse advised that the advertisement stated that the position was paid at Grade 7-9; training would be provided to the successful applicant; and a wide variety of topics would be investigated by the committees with the help of the successful applicant.  It was expected that Esther Bell, Overview and Scrutiny Officer, would support the Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee as she had 2 years experience in the section.  Mrs Woodhouse would also provide support where required.

The Committee then discussed the recommendations within the report and agreed them subject to the following amendments:

·  Recommendation (q): first sentence be amended to: “opportunities to hold meetings across the borough should be actively sought where appropriate”;

·  Recommendation (ee): amended to “councillors calling in a decision must submit a written statement at least 24 hours prior to the meeting if there is significant background or technical information to be considered”;

·  Recommendation (ee): also add the recommendation “councillors calling in a decision can take part in the debate as non-voting members of the committee”; and

·  Recommendation (oo): amended to “group leaders must take overall responsibility for their party members fulfilling their roles and responsibilities on overview and scrutiny committees”.

With regard to Members fulfilling their roles and responsibilities on overview and scrutiny committees, a Councillor highlighted the value of annual reports to ensure that Councillors were held to account.  The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer advised that the General Purposes Committee had considered the use of annual reports, and she would look into the decision taken by that committee.

Resolved:  That

a)  A review of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 111.

Interview with:

·  Councillor Chris Garland, Leader of the Council;

·  Roger Adley, Head of Communications; and

·  Vronni Ward, Marketing Manager (Hazlitt Arts Centre and Corporate Marketing).

The Chairman welcomed the Leader of the Council, Councillor Chris Garland, the Head of Communications, Roger Adley, and the Marketing Manager (Hazlitt Arts Centre and Corporate Marketing), Vronni Ward, to the meeting and asked them to outline the Council’s approach to consultation.

Mr Adley stated that the Council’s approach to consultation was still influenced by the 2001-02 Strategic Leadership Overview and Scrutiny Committee report on consultation mechanisms; particular emphasis was given to the need to have a clear purpose for consultation and feeding back results, and there were objectives to improve the coordination of consultation.  The principles of consultation were that it should be: inclusive; open; impartial; informative; involving; understandable; appropriate; strategic; joined up; resourced; professional; timely; and listened to.  Mr Adley highlighted that the forward plan outlined forthcoming key decisions and the consultation methods that would be used in relation to these.

Mrs Ward then presented a series of slides (attached at Appendix A) outlining the reasons for consultation, levels of involvement and techniques for consultation.  Key points raised included:

·  The importance of knowing what people thought, empowering them and giving them the opportunity to make a difference;

·  Establishing what could actually change as a result of consultation;

·  ‘Empowering’ people, such as by giving them a budget, was much more engaging than, for example, informing people;

·  Resources needed to be taken into account, for example holding a focus group cost around £2,000; and

·  A combination of consultation techniques generally worked well, for example to gain a broad view followed by more in-depth information.

Mrs Ward then showed Members a demonstration of a new online form that would be used to coordinate consultation carried out by the council.  The form would be completed by officers to show what the aims of consultation were, what activity had been carried out and how the information had been incorporated into a final decision.  Such a system would usually cost a significant amount to be produced, however this had been created by the Council’s own IT department.  Mrs Ward would work with officers to help them to complete the form.

Mr Adley then explained that a number of improvements were being made to the Council’s consultation, including improvements to the website, producing an annual report on consultation, using MOSAIC to gain better customer insight, and including “you said, we did” sections in the Borough Update.  The Government had also indicated that all councils should provide participatory budgeting by 2012, so this was being investigated.

A Councillor asked how it was decided whether consultation was carried out in-house or by external consultants.  Mrs Ward explained that this depended on how strategic the consultation was and what finance was available.  External consultants were also used where comparison with other authorities was required.

A Member suggested that it was difficult to find contact details for councillors on the website.  Mr Adley stated that the website followed national guidelines, however he met with the IT department regularly and he would raise this issue with them.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 112.

Interview with:

·  Georgia Hawkes, Policy and Performance Manager; and

·  Anna Collier, Policy and Review Officer.

The Director of Change and Environmental Services, David Edwards, stated that the Council had a focus on affordable change and improvement.  The Corporate Improvement Plan (CIP) outlined a number of factors that impacted on the improvement agenda.  The Council had undergone two Improvement and Development Agency peer reviews recently, focussing on productivity and community safety, to help it to develop.  The CIP was a working document, with issues within it being addressed throughout the year.

The Policy and Review Officer, Anna Collier, explained that work had been undertaken to make the CIP as useful a document as possible for both officers and members.  A targeted approach to implementing and monitoring actions was required.  The ‘closing’ of actions had been improved so that where actions had been implemented, they were removed from the plan rather than remaining in it which could suggest that they had not been achieved.  The new CIP included actions, start and end dates for those actions, and a status column to show whether actions were planned, in progress or delayed.  The CIP was an evolving document, meaning that actions arising from Corporate Management Team or Cabinet would be automatically added to it.

A Councillor asked who set the start and end dates for actions, and who monitored whether the dates had slipped.  Miss Collier explained that the responsible officer set the dates and these were checked by the appropriate Head of Service and Corporate Management Team.  The Policy and Performance Team monitored adherence to the dates in the plan.  The new performance management system would have the CIP actions loaded onto it and this would automatically generate emails to officers reminding them to report back on actions.  Mr Edwards highlighted that actions had been split into high, medium and low priority to ensure that if officers had a number of actions allocated to them, it was clear which deadlines were most important.

The Committee agreed that the new CIP was a significant improvement on the previous version and congratulated Miss Collier on her work on this.

Resolved:  That the Corporate Improvement Plan be noted.

The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer informed the Committee that the Leader of the Council and the Cabinet Member for Corporate Services would be in attendance at the next meeting to provide an update on their progress against their portfolios during 2009-10. 

The Committee would also receive either a written or verbal report from the Democratic Services Manager with regard to how councillors were consulted on Council decisions; the Scrutiny Team would liaise with the Chairman to establish the most appropriate form of report.

The Chairman highlighted that this was the Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer’s last meeting with the Committee and thanked her for her work.

Resolved:  That the Future Work Programme be noted.

6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.