Agenda and minutes

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 any interest.

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

To note the minutes of the Overview and scrutiny Performance Panel held on 24 September 2015 (enclosed)

RESOLVED - That the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel be noted.

There were no questions from any member of the public.

To consider the Executive Cabinet minutes of the meeting held on 27 august 2015 (enclosed)

Members considered the minutes of the Executive Cabinet held on 27 August 2015, in particular the minute relating to the Single Front Office midterm report and the Chair asked Councillor Morwood to update the Committee on the work currently being undertaken by Members on the Single Front Office review.

The Group have undertaken a number of meetings and participated in the shadowing of customer services staff in the contact centre, as well as receiving a demonstration on the MyAccount system and the development of the new website to be launched shortly.

A scoping document had now been prepared and was submitted to the Committee for approval.

The Committee commented on the changes in the development of customer services staff that had been reported to Executive Cabinet as this seemed to be a move away from initial thinking on generic roles and asked if the Task Group would look into the reasons for this change.

RESOLVED

1.    That the minutes of the Executive Cabinet held on 27 August 2015 be noted.

2.    That the scoping of the Single Front Office review be approved.

To consider the Notice of Executive Decision published on 29 September 2015 click here

The Committee considered the list of Executive Decisions that was published on 29 September 2015 and asked for further information on the Waste Contract update be provided.

RESOLVED

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That further detail be provided on the Waste Contract update.

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

Representatives of Lancashire Constabulary will be present at the meeting to answer any questions.

The Committee welcomed DCI Jonathan Clegg and PS Neil Sladen to the meeting who were attending to answer questions of the members in relation to the deployment of Police Community Support Officer’s (PCSO) in Chorley.

Councillor Paul Walmsley, Executive Member (Public Protection) was also attending along with the Head of Health, Environment and Neighbourhoods, Simon Clark.

The Director of Public Protection, Streetscene and Community had submitted a report to enable the Committee to meet the Council’s statutory obligation to undertake an annual scrutiny review of the Chorley and South Ribble Community Safety Partnership with the particular focus for 2015/16 being PCSO deployment in Chorley.

It was explained in the report that PCSO’s are employed by Lancashire Constabulary to support the work of the police particularly in the role of neighbourhood or community policing. PCSO numbers had increased steadily since their introduction several years ago and in Chorley the base number was around 22 in number.

For a number of years Chorley Council, through a Memorandum of Understanding, has augmented this base number through an arrangement with the Constabulary that originally part funded 50% of the cost of an additional PCSO, amounting to 22 additional PCSO’ at a cost to the Council of £242,000 in 2009.

In 2012, the authority agreed with the Constabulary to part fund a further 5 PCSO’s at the same rate, increasing our annual contribution to £297,000. This means that there are currently a total of 49 PCSO’s in Chorley, of which 27 are additional provision, part funded by the Council.

However, Members noted, that whilst the Council’s contribution of £11,000 per PCSO has stayed static it now no longer provides 50% of the cost of a PCSO. In real terms it now amounts to approximately 33% of the cost. The annual Council contribution of £297,000 levers in an additional £584,000 worth of resource from the Constabulary who fund the remaining.

Members are aware of the financial constraints being place on the Constabulary and as a result of those constraints a review of PCSO numbers across Lancashire has been undertaken based on risk and threat. On that basis, the Constabulary have determined that the base number of PCSO’s for the Chorley area will be set at 14. However, given the authority’s level of contribution the Constabulary are able to increase PCSO numbers deployed in Chorley to a total of 27 PCSO’s.

In addition the Constabulary are seeking to task and deploy a small number of the PCSO resource away from geographic policing duties (i.e. patrols and visibility), to early intervention and prevention case work. This application of resources to early intervention and protection work is one that accords with the Councils focus for resources allocation, in that directing resources upstream reduces the need for expensive crisis intervention later.

PS Neil Sladen delivered a presentation on the work of the Police Early Action Team. The team had been allocated 4 PCSO’s at the start of September who had been deployed as follows:

·         Youth Intervention/Family Support – 2 X  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.OS.18

Report of the Director of Customer and Advice Services (enclosed)

The Committee received a report of the Director of Customer and Advice Services that provided the final update on progress made to implement the fifteen recommendations made by the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group which looked into Select move. The final report of the task group was published in April and had been endorsed by Executive Cabinet in August 2014.

Following a detailed review, that included desk top analysis and engagement with partners and customers, the task group concluded that Select Move does largely meet customer’s needs, as satisfaction was good and allocations made within a period considered to be reasonable.

Reducing the waiting list was a desired objective of the review and this has been achieved. A recent snapshot taken illustrated the total waiting list to be 938 which was dramatically much reduced from 1522, the figure at the start of the review.

Information was requested on how many cases on the waiting list were ‘transfer’ cases, and if so how many ‘transfers’ had been made. This was in relation to reports of management moves or direct matching.

The implementation of the majority of recommendations required the willingness and cooperation of partners, particularly the Registered Provers of Social Housing (RPs) as the Council no long has any housing stock and the Committee were provided with an update against each of the 15 recommendations with the following progress being highlighted:

Net Inward migration continues to be monitored in the Housing Team on a monthly basis, and the team are now able to demonstrate a significant reduction from 7.8% in 2012/13 to -2.7% in quarter one of 2015/16.

To increase the awareness and use of Select Move, the Council is undertaking a corporate project to promote digital inclusion that involves a series of drop in events across the borough to enable customers to learn digital skills that will include the Select move online system.

The Council is continuing to work with Registered Providers in order to enable new affordable housing and have successfully delivered a good supply across the borough, with a further 165 units being delivered in 2014/15.

Members noted the good progress that had made, there were however still some concerns about the state some properties when being allocated and Members were asked to report specific issues with the relevant registered providers.

RESOLVED

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That information on the number of transfer cases be provided to members of the Committee

To consider the Scrutiny Work Programme for 2015/16 (enclosed)

The Committee considered the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme for 2015/16.

The final monitoring report of the Adoption of Estates review had been delayed due to a long term staff absence within the planning team. However, members asked if this could be brought the next meeting of Committee in January as it was long overdue.

The group also discussed the suggested topics that could be undertaken as the next scrutiny review of the Committee and agreed that Democratic Services would email out to members of the Council towards the end of the year for the nomination of a Chair and membership.

RESOLVED

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That the Director of Public Protection, Streetscene and Community be asked to present the final monitoring report of the Adoptions of Estates review to the next meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in January 2016.