Minutes

Apologies for absence were received on behalf of Councillors Matthew Dormer and Pattie Hill and it was confirmed that Councillor David Bush was attending as a substitute for Councillor Dormer.

There were no declarations of interest nor of any party whip.

RESOLVED that

the minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on Tuesday 13^th February 2018 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Chair advised that as the Committee meeting had been rescheduled at short notice due to the adverse weather conditions it had not been possible to arrange for Officers from Worcestershire County Council to attend the meeting for this item.  Instead, Officers had been asked to reschedule this for consideration at a meeting of the Committee in the following municipal year.

Councillor Gareth Prosser, Chair of the Civil Contingencies Short Sharp Review, presented the group’s final report. 

Members were advised that the review had been agreed in July 2017, though had not been launched until September that year as the group had been waiting for another review to finish. The review had been established in a context in which the Grenfell Tower fire had been the subject of discussion and the role of local authorities in responding to such incidents had been the subject of public scrutiny.

During the review the group had consulted with a number of expert witnesses from a wide range of organisations.  Members had also considered internal emergency planning arrangements in place at the Council.  Based on the evidence that had been gathered the group had concluded that the local authority had sound emergency planning arrangements in place.  However, instead of the current arrangements, whereby the Emergency Plan was reviewed every three years in line with national guidelines the group had concluded that the contents of the plan should be reviewed every year.

The group was also proposing that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee should receive an annual update in respect of emergency planning arrangements.  This would ensure that the subject was discussed in a public Committee environment and would help to provide reassurance to local residents.

The group had concluded that ideally their review should not have been launched until the North Worcestershire Civil Contingencies and Resilience Manager had returned from maternity leave.  This was because the information that had been provided by the Officer had helped to reassure Members that the Council had appropriate emergency planning arrangements in place and had this feedback been provided at the start of the review Members would not have continued with the exercise for so long.  With this in mind the group was urging the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to learn lessons and to refrain from launching reviews in the future in the absence of key witnesses until they had returned to work.

RECOMMENDED that

the content of the Council’s emergency plan should be reviewed on an annual basis.

RESOLVED that

the Overview and Scrutiny Committee should receive an annual update in respect of the Council’s emergency planning arrangements.

The Chair presented the Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s Annual Report 2017/18 and explained that this provided a summary of the work that had been undertaken by the Committee during the year.  The report would be presented for Members’ consideration at the following Council meeting on 19^th March 2018.

RESOLVED that

the report be noted.

Members noted that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s recommendation in respect of the Medium Term Financial Plan 2018/19 to 2021/22, proposed at a meeting on 13^th February 2018, had been endorsed by the Executive Committee and subsequently approved by Council on 19^th February 2018.

The Executive Committee’s Work Programme for the period 1^st April to 31^st July 2018 was tabled for Members’ consideration.

RESOLVED that

1)        the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting held on Monday 19^th February 2018 be noted; and

2)        the content of the Executive Committee’s Work Programme for the period 1^st April to 31^st July 2018 be noted.

Officers advised that Overview and Scrutiny training would be delivered on 24th May 2018.  All elected Members would be welcomed to attend.

a)        Budget Scrutiny Working Group – Chair, Councillor Jane Potter

Councillor Potter confirmed that there had been no further meetings of the Budget Scrutiny Working Group.

b)        Performance Scrutiny Working Group – Chair, Councillor Matthew Dormer

The Committee was advised that there had been no further meetings of the Performance Scrutiny Working Group.

c)         Transition of Young People Leaving Care in Redditch Short, Sharp Review – Chair, Councillor Matthew Dormer

The Committee was informed that the first meeting of the short sharp review group had not yet taken place.

a)        West Midlands Combined Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Councillor Nina Wood-Ford, the Council’s representative on the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA’s) Overview and Scrutiny Committee, confirmed that the latest meeting that had been due to take place on 2^nd March 2018 had been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions.

b)        Worcestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC)

The Council’s representative on Worcestershire HOSC, Councillor Nina Wood-Ford, advised that there had been no meetings of HOSC since the last meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Executive Director of Finance and Corporate Resources presented the Leisure and Cultural Services Business Case for the consideration of the Committee.  During the delivery of this presentation the following matters were highlighted for Members’ consideration:

·                In 2017 the Council had agreed to establish a TECKAL company, also known as a Local Authority Trading Company (LATC), to manage the Council’s Leisure and Cultural Services moving forward.

·                Subject to the Leisure and Cultural Services Business Case receiving the support of the Executive Committee and Council in March 2018 a detailed business plan in respect of this item would be presented for Members’ consideration in July 2018.

·                Officers were working on the basis that the new LATC would be in operation from October 2018 onwards.

·                A number of services would be included in the LATC’s remit, though not all.

·                Some services could potentially transfer to the LATC at a later date including the Arrow Valley Countryside Centre, the BMX Track and the Council’s Learning on Line service.

·                Officers had been consulting with the Trade Unions throughout the process.

·                Officers had made some assumptions regarding staffing and finances; the unions had expressed concerns about some of these assumptions.

·                One area of concern raised by the unions was the assumption that any new staff employed by the LATC would not have similar pension entitlements to those members of staff who had transferred to the company.

·                A number of staff would be TUPE transferred to the LATC, though some would remain employed directly by the Council where those services were not transferred to the company.  It was anticipated that 50 staff would continue to be employed by the Council and 62 would be transferred, together with additional casual staff.

·                The Council was assuming that both the LATC and the client side remaining at the Council would need to restructure following the introduction of the LATC and the unions had also expressed some concerns about this.

·                Officers were working on the basis that the LATC would need to access Council support services, such as HR and IT, for the first 12 months.  However, after this point the company could give notice and seek to obtain these services from another supplier.  Again this had been raised as a concern by the trade unions.

·                Through the LATC model the Council would retain ownership of land and assets used in the delivery of Leisure and Cultural Services.

·                The Council would have influence over the LATC, though would need to refrain from seeking to control the company as this could curtail the potential of the LATC to thrive.

·                The Council was anticipating that savings would be achieved through transferring services to the LATC.  Some of these savings would arise as the LATC would be eligible to apply for concessions in respect of Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR).

·                Officers were also anticipating that the LATC would be able to achieve efficiency savings and income growth.  Other local authorities that had established LATCs to deliver similar services had found that staff transferred to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 89.

The Head of Planning and Regeneration delivered a presentation in respect of the One Public Estate (OPE) exercise (Appendix 1).  During the delivery of this presentation the following matters were highlighted for Members’ consideration:

·                The Town Centre Regeneration Prospectus, included within the report, was an ambitious document focused on promoting Redditch town centre.

·                There were issues in Redditch in terms of connectivity between old and new parts of the town.

·                The ring road around Redditch town centre could be regarded as a barrier to areas surrounding the town centre, in terms of preventing those areas from taking advantage of access to the centre.

·                There was quite a lot of land at Church Road that was under-utilised and would benefit from regeneration.

·                Improvements could also be made to the area of the town centre in which the Redditch Railway Station was located.

·                HOW College had invested in Redditch, having established a Redditch campus.

·                In recent years improvements had been made in the town centre, with a gym, restaurants and the cinema all now accessible in the town centre and public realm improvements having recently been undertaken on Alcester Street.

·                Some Section 106 funding was available that could be utilised on regeneration works in Church Green.

·                The Executive Committee would be considering the report the following evening and would be asked to consider investing a further £50,000 to support the development of proposals contained in the Town Centre Regeneration Prospectus.

·                The OPE focused on the potential to make more constructive use of public sector assets.

·                The OPE report identified various parcels of public land and public sector assets and suggested alternative ways in which these could be used.

·                One of the suggestions made in the OPE was that the area around Church Road should be the location of a multi-agency public sector hub as it was suggested that this would help to increase footfall in the area.

·                There was the potential to make efficiency savings as a result of co-locating with other public sector organisations.

·                The Executive Committee would be asked to empower Officers to investigate these options further and it was important to note that no decisions had yet been taken on how to proceed with any of the ideas that had been suggested.

Following the delivery of the presentation Members discussed a number of points in further detail:

·                The financial support that had been provided by the Government to enable local authorities to regenerate town centres.

·                The exciting opportunities that could be made available to help regenerate Redditch town centre in the foreseeable future.

·                The organisations involved in the OPE exercise.  A number of partner organisations had been involved including Worcestershire County Council, various branches of the NHS, Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, West Mercia Policy and Homes England.

·                The focus of the Town Centre Regeneration Prospectus and the extent to which any further ideas, not detailed in this document, could be raised.  Members were advised that the prospectus focused on concepts and ideas, rather than specifics, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 90.