Agenda and minutes

To confirm the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 16 April 2015 (enclosed)

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 16 April 2015 be confirmed as a correct record for signing by the Chair.

To note the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel meeting held on 22 June 2015 (enclosed)

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel held on 22 June 2015 be noted.

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any pecuniary interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda.

If you have a pecuniary interest you must withdraw from the meeting. Normally you should leave the room before the business starts to be discussed. You do, however, have the same right to speak as a member of the public and may remain in the room to enable you to exercise that right and then leave immediately. In either case you must not seek to improperly influence a decision on the matter.

There were no declarations of interests.

There were no questions by any members of the public.

To consider the minutes of the Executive Cabinet meeting held on 25 June 2015 (enclosed)

Members considered the minutes of the Executive Cabinet meeting held on 25 June 2015.

RESOLVED – That the minutes be noted.

To consider the Notice of Executive Decision’s that was published on 2 July 2015 (enclosed)

Members considered the current Notice of Executive Decisions which gave notice of both key and other decisions which the Executive expected to take, over the forthcoming 28 days.

The Chair reminded Members that they could request further information on any forthcoming decisions to be brought to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for their consideration before any decision was made.

RESOLVED – that the Notice of Executive Decisions be noted.

To consider the Annual Report of the work undertaken by Overview and Scrutiny Committee in 2014/15 (enclosed)

Members considered the Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report that detailed the work of the Committee in 2014/15, including the specific outcomes from the Task Groups and the Committee’s role in crime and disorder scrutiny, other performance and holding the Executive to account.

Members were pleased with the amount of work that the Committee had undertaken over the year.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted and submitted to the next meeting of full Council for information.

Report of the Chief Executive (enclosed)

Draft Work Programme for Overview and Scrutiny in 2015/16 (enclosed)

The Committee received a report of the Chief Executive that sought agreement of the work programme for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for 2015/16.

Members have repeatedly raised the Council’s Contact Centre as an area to be reviewed and it has been an area that the Performance Panel had looked at in previous years.

The Council are committed to the delivery of a Single Front Office where services are delivered as far as possible at the first point of contact. It is intended that the migrating of processes to the front office will achieve significant savings and improve and sustain good performance in service delivery.

The project has resulted in a lot of changes to working processes across the Council and staff are undertaking an intense training programme to ensure its success. A review by Members at this stage of its delivery was considered to be quite timely and the Committee appointed Councillor Alistair Morwood to Chair a Task Group to undertake this review.

Councillors, Mark Jarnell, Margaret Lees, Matthew Lynch, June Molyneaux, Greg Morgan and Debra Platt all agreed to take part in the review.

A number of other topics were also suggested that included Communications, Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), the Council’s responsibilities under the Counter Terrorism Act and the work of the PCSO’s in Chorley.

Members were concerned about the current level of PCSO provision across the borough particularly in view of the recent reduced budgets. It was agreed to invite the relevant representatives of Lancashire constabulary to the next meeting of the Committee to talk about the PCSO’s roles and responsibilities.

The Chair explained that the Executive Member (Customer and Advice Services) would be attending a meeting of the Panel in December to answer questions about his portfolio. This would be a good opportunity to speak to him about how key service information is communicated between the different teams across the Council.

It was also agreed that the Committee would seek to undertake future scrutiny reviews on Child Sexual Exploitation, the Counter Terrorism Act and Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector (VCFS) and that the Work Programme would be update to reflect this.

RESOLVED

1.            That a review of the Single Front Office be undertaken and Chaired by Councillor Alistair Morwood.

2.            That representatives of Lancashire Constabulary be invited to the next meeting of the Committee to talk about the work of the PCSO’s in Chorley.

3.            That the Work Programme be updated to reflect future scrutiny reviews on Child Sexual Exploitation, the Counter Terrorism Act and VCFS.

4.            That the Executive Member (Customer and Advice Services) be asked to explain how key service information is communicated between teams across the Council at the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel in December.

To consider the response of the Executive Cabinet to the recommendations of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group on the review of Neighbourhood Working (enclosed)

The Committee received a report of the Director of Public Protection, Streetscene and Community that provided the Executive Cabinet’s response to the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group review of Neighbourhood Working.

The Chair of the Task Group, Councillor June Molyneaux was pleased that all of the recommendations had been accepted, apart from one, (Recommendation 4) relating to the provision of a single point of contact on neighbourhood matters for parish councils and community groups.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.

Report of the Chief Executive (enclosed)

The Chief Executive submitted a report that updated the Committee on the progress made against the recommendations of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group relating to the Health and Wellbeing element of the Integrated Impact Assessments.

This was the final monitoring report and good progress had been made. Since the last update report, all staff and Members had received training on the new process and using the new template, 11 Integrated Impact Assessments had been completed as part of the approved Play, Open Space and Playing Pitch Strategy.

In response to an action in the Council’s Annual Governance Statement, a wider review of the Council’s Equality Scheme is due to take place by the end of September and the Integrated Impact Assessments will form part of this wider in depth review.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.

Public Transport Task and Finish Group

To receive the final report on the inquiry (enclosed)

The Committee received the final report of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group’s review on Public Transport Issues in Chorley. Councillors June Molyneaux and Matthew Lynch presented the groups findings and drew Members attention to the 15 recommendations that would highlight to the Executive the importance of considering all public transport needs for its residents when undertaking all relevant Council projects as good transport links are extremely important for both residents of the borough and visitors to Chorley.

RESOLVED – That the final report of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group – Public Transport Issues in Chorley be submitted to the next meeting of Executive Cabinet in August.

To consider the exclusion of the press and public for the following items of business on the ground that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

By Virtue of Paragraph 3: Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

Condition:

Information is not exempt if it is required to be registered under-

The Companies Act 1985

The Friendly Societies Act 1974

The Friendly Societies Act 1992

The Industrial and Provident Societies Acts 1965 to 1978

The Building Societies Act 1986 (recorded in the public file of any building society, within the meaning of the Act)

The Charities Act 1993

Information is exempt to the extent that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Information is not exempt if it relates to proposed development for which the local planning authority may grant itself planning permission pursuant to Regulation 3 of the Town & Country Planning General Regulations 1992(a).

RESOLVED - That press and public be excluded for the following items of business on the ground that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

Report of the Director of Public Protection, Streetscene and Community (enclosed)

The Committee received a report of the Director of Public Protection, Streetscene and Community updating them on the procurement of the upgrade of the CCTV Infrastructure. This report would also serve as the first monitoring report of the Overview and Scrutiny Review that had recommended the upgrading of CCTV in Chorley.

A procurement process is currently underway which links the upgrade work to the renewal of a service and maintenance contract for the system. A provisional capital budget of £250,000 had been agreed to provide the upgrade work and the revenue provision to provide the service/maintenance contract is currently £25,000 per annum.

The contract period is set at three years which provides the successful contractor with an opportunity to phase the upgrade work and it is expected that the Council will benefit from a reduction in service and maintenance costs as new and upgraded equipment replaces the current equipment provision over the three year life of the contract. All Members had received this information along with guidance about the new Code of Practice that provided guidance on where and why a new CCTV camera was to be sited.

Executive Cabinet had recently approved the evaluation process to be used in determining the successful contract bidder and granted delegated authority to the Executive Member for Public Protection to award the contract to the winning bidder in accordance with the proposed selection criteria. The new contract would commence on October so it was agreed that the second monitoring report be delayed until March 2016. This would be amended in the Work Programme for Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.