Agenda and minutes

To elect a Chair(man) of the Committee for the remainder of the Municipal Year. 

The Constitution states that the Scrutiny Committee shall normally be chaired by a Councillor who is not a member of the largest political group, unless there is no such person serving on the Committee.  

CouncillorMelinda Tilley reported that she had stood down as Leader of the Opposition and therefore she was also stepping down as Chairman of this Committee and she believed that the Leader of the Opposition should also chair this Committee.  She thereupon proposed and Councillor Peter Saunders seconded that Councillor Matthew Barber be elected chairman of this committee for the remainder of the 2009/10 municipal year.

RESOLVED

thatCouncillorMatthew Barber be elected as Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee for the remainder of the 2009/10 municipal year. 

To record the attendance of Substitute Members, if any, who have been authorised to attend in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 17(1), with notification having been given to the proper Officer before the start of the meeting and to receive apologies for absence.

The attendance of substitute councillors who had been authorised to attend in accordance with the provisions of standing order 17(1) was recorded as referred to above with apologies for absence having been received from Councillors Yvonne Constance, , and Tim Smith.  Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Andrew Crawford and Chris Wise.

To adopt and sign as a correct record the minutes of the Committee meeting held on 23 April 2009. 

The minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 23 April 2009 were adopted and signed as a correct record.

To receive any declarations of Personal or Personal and Prejudicial Interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting. 

In accordance with Part 2 of the Local Code of Conduct and the provisions of Standing Order 34, any Member with a personal interest must disclose the existence and nature of that interest to the meeting prior to the matter being debated.  Where that personal interest is also a prejudicial interest, then the Member must withdraw from the room in which the meeting is being held and not seek improperly to influence any decision about the matter unless he/she has obtained a dispensation from the Standards Committee.

None.

To receive notification of any matters, which the Chairman determines, should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances, which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the Chairman.

The Chairman announced that a view on the preferred starting time of future meetings of this committee was sought.  Councillors thereupon stated that future meetings of the Scrutiny Committee should commence at 6.00pm. 

Any statements and/or petitions from the public under Standing Order 32 will be made or presented at the meeting.

None.

Any questions from members of the public under Standing Order 32 will be asked at the meeting.

None.

To consider the attached Scrutiny Work Programme and to review the list of Scrutiny Members allocated to each service area. 

Members may recall that in December 2008 the responsibility for investigating significant issues in each service area half year report was divided amongst the Committee’s membership.  That list was:

·        Contracts and Procurement – Waste: Councillor Yvonne Constance

·        Contracts and Procurement – Leisure: Councillor Julia Reynolds

·        Environmental Health: Councillor Laurel Symons

·        Commercial Services: Councillor Joyce Hutchinson

·        Planning & Community Strategy: Councillor Andrew Crawford and Councillor Jim Halliday

·        Organisational Development – Contact Services & Communications: Councillor Tim Smith

·        Organisational Development – Organisational Change: Councillor Reg Waite

·        Organisational Development – HR: Councillor Chris Wise

·        Democratic Services: Councillor Jenny Shepherd

·        Legal Services: Councillor Jim Halliday

·        Housing & Community Strategy: Councillor Melinda Tilley

·        Finance: Councillor Matthew Barber 

This no longer aligns directly with the restructured service areas, which are as set out in the attached diagram.  The Committee is asked to review how it wishes to divide this responsibility. 

Recommendation

(a)       that the Scrutiny Work Programme be adopted but be reviewed at each Committee meeting; and

(b)       that the Committee confirms or amends the list of Scrutiny Committee Members to allocate to each service area. 

The committee considered a draft scrutiny work programme which set out a series of topics for the committee to scrutinise during 2009/10. 

The draft work programme included a named scrutiny councillor against each item.  The names had been taken from the list agreed at the meeting in December 2008 when the committee had reviewed the service area half year reports.  Councillors debated the merits of naming a lead scrutiny councillor for each work programme item but concluded that there should not be designated lead councillors and asked for the “lead scrutiny councillor” column in the draft work programme to be removed. 

The committee agreed that the work programme should be submitted to each committee meeting for review, but in line with the council’s constitution noted that it would need approval by the council. 

Two further items were added to the work programme for April 2010, namely a review of progress against the equalities and diversities plan and a review of improvements to the planning enforcement service. 

The committee also reviewed the list of scrutiny councillors allocated to service areas at its meeting in December 2008.  The committee updated the list for future use, replacing Councillor Julia Reynolds with Councillor Jim Halliday for the leisure contracts element. 

R E C O M M E N D E D

(a)       that the Scrutiny Work Programme be adopted, as appended to these minutes;

RESOLVED

(b)       that the Scrutiny Work Programme be reviewed at each Committee meeting; and

(c)               that the list of Scrutiny Committee Members allocated to each service area be updated as follows:

·        Corporate Strategy – Councillor Matthew Barber

·        Commercial Services for Waste – Councillor Yvonne Constance

·        Commercial Services excluding Waste – Councillor Joyce Hutchinson

·        Community Strategy element of Planning Services – Councillor Jim Halliday

·        Democratic Services – Councillor Jenny Shepherd

·        Economy, Leisure and Property – Councillor Jim Halliday

·        Finance – Councillor Matthew Barber

·        Health – Councillor Laurel Symons

·        Housing – Councillor Melinda Tilley

·        HR, IT and Customer Services – Councillor Reg Waite

·        Legal Services – Councillor Jim Halliday

·        Planning excluding Community Strategy – Councillor Andrew Crawford

To receive and consider report 38/09 of the Head of Health and Housing.    

The committee considered report 38/09 of the Head of Health and Housing.  The report looked at the impact of the economic recession on social housing providers and the implications of various interventions made by the government in response.  The report also looked at local impacts and the council’s response to the challenges. 

It was reported that the global economic crisis had caused an unprecedented impact on the housing sector.  The council was experiencing the same impact as authorities across the South East.  This was affecting delivery of new affordable housing and the future for some low cost home ownership schemes.  A drop in home ownership had increased demand in the rented sector, putting waiting and transfer lists under increased pressure.  The impact of the mortgage-lending crisis had also affected the registered social landlords (housing associations).  Sales of shared ownership homes had slowed considerably due to lending restrictions and reduced valuations and  as a result demand for housing advice and assistance had increased markedly. 

It was reported that the council was seeking ways to work with its registered social landlord partners, housing developers and the Housing and Communities Agency to unlock major sites to maintain delivery of affordable housing during the economic recession and also to ensure that the council was in a good position to meet demand in the event of economic conditions improving.  To assist, the government had introduced several measures including:

·        increasing stamp duty

·        assisting housing associations offering shared ownership, shared equity or sale and rent back options

·        assisting housing associations to increase their housing stock

·        assisting first time buyers with incomes below £60,000

·        offering “kick start” funding to help major housing sites to progress

·        helping local authorities to build new council homes, although this was aimed at authorities that had kept their housing stock. 

The committee noted the positive steps.  Furthermore, it was noted that the council had managed to restrict the numbers of applicants placed in temporary accommodation through effective homelessness prevention measures.  The five district housing authorities had secured £30,000 in government funding for a joint initiative with the other Oxfordshire district councils aimed at homelessness prevention and reduced use of temporary accommodation.  In addition, the council had secured £38,000 government funding to provide advice aimed at preventing homelessness through avoiding repossession and the provision of hardship loans.  Supplementary funding was available to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau to offset the cost of specialist debt advice.  One councillor queried whether funding was also available for the Independent Advice Centre at Wantage.  The head of service agreed to investigate whether the centre was accredited to give such advice and therefore eligible to receive funding on a case-by-case basis. 

It was reported that having achieved the targets for reward grant funding from Local Area Agreement 1, the council was continuing to work with its neighbouring district councils in Oxfordshire towards further reward grant available through Local Area Agreement 2.  This additional funding would enable the Oxfordshire Housing Partnership to assist directly with future housing projects.  The committee noted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

To review the activity of the Executive and consider any references to this Committee.  Members are requested to bring with them to this meeting the agenda and unconfirmed minutes of the Executive meeting held on 7 August 2009. 

The committee considered the minutes of the meeting of the executive held on 7 August 2009.  No queries were raised on the activity of the executive it being noted that the two main items of debate were the corporate governance report and the revenue budget report, which had also been included on the agenda for this meeting for discussion. 

To receive and consider report 31/09 of the Head of Corporate Strategy.  This report was also considered by the Executive on 7 August 2009. 

The committee received and considered report 31/09 of the Head of Corporate Strategy which had been considered by the executive on 7 August 2009.  The report set out the corporate governance report for the fourth quarter 2008/09 (January to March 2009).  This looked at progress against the council’s corporate priorities; performance against national indicators; progress against service prioritisation plans; staff sickness and turnover data; progress with business process improvement reviews and a financial commentary.  It was explained that the management team had highlighted exceptions to the executive and the committee considered the executive’s response, together with the report. 

Councillors raised several questions to which the officers responded as follows: -

• the predicted saving arising from the civic hall catering contract had not been achieved in 2008/09 but should be achieved in 2009/10;

• q corporate property review was taking place which would consider the effect of the new catering contract on users of the civic halls;

• the strategic director undertook to investigate the cost of time lost to staff sickness and advise committee members outside of the meeting;

• it was believed that exit interviews were conducted in most cases when staff left the council’s employment but the strategic director undertook to confirm this outside of the meeting;

• the strategic director undertook to check the performance data in the report of the number of online payments (web/self-serve)made to the council and confirm to committee members outside of the meeting;

• the method of calculation of the government’s planning delivery grant was unknown.  However it was explained that it was related to development control applications considered within the performance indicator, the number of homes permitted and progress against the Local Development Framework target completion date; and

• issues about the performance of the waste management contractor needed to be reported to the client manager in the waste team.

Finally, the committee recognised that sickness levels had reduced and councillors congratulated service managers and human resources officers for their part in this. 

RESOLVED

(a)       that the report be noted; and

(b)       that the strategic director clarifies outside of the meeting:

·        the cost of time lost to staff sickness;

·        whether exit interviews are conducted in all cases when staff leave the council’s employment; and

·        the performance data in the report of the number of online payments (web/self-serve) made to the council.

To receive and consider report 33/09 of the Head of Finance. 

This report was also considered by the Executive on 7 August 2009.  Executive Members requested that the Scrutiny Committee was provided with a revised Appendix B, containing clearer reasons for variances.  This amended Appendix B will be distributed in due course. 

The committee received and considered report 33/09 of the Head of Finance, which set out the revenue budget outturn position at the end of 2008/09, which had been considered by the executive on 7 August 2009.  The committee reviewed the executive’s response to it. 

The committee noted that the executive had queried the reasons for cost centre variances as provided by the budget managers.  The executive had cited many examples where the reasons were inadequate and had asked for an amended appendix B to be made available for the this committee, with clearer explanations for the budget variances.  This appendix had been prepared and circulated to the committee prior to the meeting. 

Councillor raised a number of questions and responses were given as follows: -

• the executive portfolio holder for finance reported that the predicted level of underspend across salary budgets had been set at 6 per cent based on historical data but there would be a need to review it, as staff turnover had reduced due to the economic recession;

• the variance in the Guildhall budget had been partly caused by a delay in negotiating a new contract with the Theatre Organ Preservation Society; and

• negotiations were underway for a new contract for the electricity supply to reduce the impact of price rises on the council.

RESOLVED

that the report be noted. 

None.