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 interests.

To confirm the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel meeting held on 12 March 2015 (enclosed)

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Panel held on 12 March 2015 be confirmed as a correct record for signing by the Chair.

Report of the Chief Executive (enclosed)

Councillor Beverley Murray, Executive Member (Community Services) has been invited to attend the meeting.

The Chair welcomed Councillor Beverley Murray, Executive Member for Community Services to the meeting who was attending to answer questions on the scrutiny performance focus topics that had been identified for further discussion by the Chair and Vice Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Panel received a report on the Time Credit project and the progress of the Play, Open spaces and Playing Pitch Strategy.

Time Credits:

Councillor Murray gave an overview of the scheme and explained that Time Credits was a three year programme funded by the Council as a positive and proactive means of encouraging and developing volunteering effort to benefit local communities. Work undertaken in year one had focussed on existing groups to build up the service and encourage already established organisations to sign up, year two was concentrating on embedding the process into service delivery and encouraging new organisations and volunteers to engage. The programme has generated positive outcomes for users and although growth has slowed in the second year performance has been consistently good and exceeded targets, particularly in comparison to the national scheme with Chorley being notably higher, with 72% of Chorley Time Credit volunteers giving their time at least once a week.

Time Credits has opened many opportunities for people to get involved in new activities and people now regularly do things that they didn’t do before. The scheme has incentivised its members to start new community groups and it helps people to adopt healthier lifestyles and improves physical and mental wellbeing.

Councillor Murray explained that it is difficult to put checks in place to stop abuse of the system and that there has to be an element of trust; however, the Council do make regular checks of the hours that volunteers claim to have worked with organisations. The Council also monitors the spend uptake.

The Panel requested more information on the spend opportunities and commented that sometimes the booklets made available were out of date, a booklet is available on the website http://chorley.gov.uk/Documents/lancs%20brochure%202015%20FINAL.pdf but has it was difficult to keep up to date the Council were exploring ways to improve upon this information by using new technology to deliver a mobile platform.

The Time Credits Facilitator, Angela Barrago spends most of her time out in the community promoting the scheme and encouraging people to get involved. Councillor Murray explained that part of the work being undertaken in year two was to engage the wider community and the Council had recently engaged with a Polish mum’s group and the LGBT. The Panel requested further information on how the schools across Chorley were engaging in the process and Councillor Hasina Khan offered to provide contacts for BME groups across the borough.

The Panel felt that all Elected Members of the Council should be encouraged to be actively involved with the scheme, to help promote engagement within their neighbourhoods and recommended that a Member Learning Session be delivered on the Time Credits scheme.

RESOLVED

That the information on Time Credits be noted.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.OSP.3

Report of the Chief Executive and Organisational Plan (enclosed)

To view the projects overview click here

The Panel received the single organisational business plan for 2015/16 that reviewed the programme of projects that would be delivered over the coming year. The Plan pulled all the Council’s key activity into a single programme that focused on the administrations strategic priorities, encouraging ownership and accountability, increasing viability and promoting cross cutting working.

All the projects within the 2013/14 organisational plan had been reviewed and were either complete or a revised completion date had been identified. A small number of projects had been carried forward into 2015/16 due to the scale or complexity of work that included:

·         Single Front Office

·         Astley 20:20

·         Friday Street Health Centre

·         Youth Zone

·         Play, Open Space and Playing Pitch Strategy (specific actions)

There are a total of 58 projects in the organisational plan for 2015/16, 18 are corporate strategy projects, of which 10 have attached budget investment, 23 are budget investment work streams and 15 business improvement projects. A brief overview of each project was provided within the plan.

The SharePoint based MyProjects system has now been adopted across the organisation as the primary tool for the day to day management and monitoring of all actions and projects and Members were urged to log into the system to monitor the detailed milestones and timescales. Not all members are aware of this system and how it can be accessed so the Chair proposed a member learning session be considered.

A revised list of local performance measures have also been developed to support the delivery of the plan and indicators selected to give an accurate picture of the organisations performance whilst ensuring ease of reporting.

Councillor Platt asked if it would be appropriate to capture the works being undertaken to the town hall on the organisational plan due to the significance of the building for the town. It was explained that the town hall works were programmed maintenance that were captured in the Governance and Property Services business plan rather than contributing to the overall corporate strategy of the Council.

RESOLVED

That the report be noted.

That a Member Learning Session be delivered on MyProjects.