Agenda and draft minutes
Venue: Conference Room 1a, County Hall, Ruthin
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APOLOGIES Minutes: No apologies were received. |
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DECLARATION OF INTERESTS PDF 115 KB Members to declare any personal or prejudicial interests in any business identified to be considered at this meeting. Minutes: No members declared any personal or prejudicial interests in any business identified to be considered at the meeting. |
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APPOINTMENT OF VICE-CHAIR PDF 58 KB To appoint a Vice-Chair for Performance Scrutiny Committee for the municipal year 2017/18 (see attached copy of the role description for Scrutiny Member and Chair/Vice-Chair). 11.15a.m -11.20a.m. Minutes: Nominations were sought for a Member to serve as the Committee’s Vice Chair for the 2017/18 municipal year. Councillor Martyn Holland nominated Councillor Hugh Irving, seconded by Councillor Ann Davies. No other nominations were received and it was therefore; RESOLVED that Councillor
Hugh Irving be appointed as the Performance Scrutiny Committee’s Vice Chair for
the 2017/18 municipal year. |
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URGENT MATTERS AS AGREED BY THE CHAIR Notice of items which, in the opinion of the Chair, should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency pursuant to Section 100B(4) of the Local Government Act 1972. Minutes: No urgent matters received. |
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MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING PDF 350 KB To receive the minutes of the Performance Scrutiny Committee held on 16 March 2017 (copy attached). 11.20a.m-11.25a.m. Minutes: The minutes of the meeting of the Performance Scrutiny Committee held on 16 March 2017 were submitted. RESOLVED that the minutes
of the meeting held on the 16 March 2017 be received and approved as a correct
record. |
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CORPORATE RISK REGISTER PDF 146 KB To consider a report (copy attached) which provides an update on the Council’s Corporate Risk Register. 11.25a.m-11.55a.m. Additional documents:
Minutes: In introducing the
report (previously circulated) the Lead Member for Finance, Performance and
Strategic Assets gave a brief overview of the risk register methodology and the
relationship between individual service risk registers and the corporate risk
register, including the process for escalating a risk from the service register
to the corporate register and the de-escalation process. He explained
that the Corporate Risk Register was revised on a twice yearly basis by Cabinet
and the Corporate Executive Team (CET) prior to being presented to scrutiny for
observations. During his introduction the Lead Member highlighted the
main changes made to the register as listed in Appendix 1 to the report,
explaining the reasons behind the amendments. Responding to
members’ questions the Lead Member and the Strategic Planning Manager advised
that: ·
they
supported the decision to remove risk DCC032 relating to local government
reorganisation as the Welsh Government’s (WG) Cabinet Secretary for
Finance and Local Government had made it clear that he would not be looking to
change local government geographical boundaries within the foreseeable future,
but would rather be looking to councils to work together in specified areas to
deliver services on a regional basis. With the development of regional
services new risks associated with them may be identified and appear on the
corporate risk register in due course; ·
DCC011
- the need to have contingency and resilience plans in place in the event of
disasters, be they natural disasters or otherwise, had come to the forefront in
recent weeks in the wake of terrorist attacks in the UK and the Grenfell Towers
fire. The Council did have such plans and these would be tested in the
near future in the form of a resilience and business continuity exercise.
The proposed exercise would test the resilience of all aspects of the Council’s
infrastructure to deal with a disaster situation and the subsequent recovery; ·
as
part of the Council’s contingency planning work officers were currently
undertaking a checking exercise to ensure that the Council was fully aware of
all individuals residing in its housing stock properties; ·
the
Council’s IT Service had successfully responded to the recent cyber-attack on
the National Health Service’s (NHS) computer system; ·
all
CET members and a number of Senior Leadership Team (SLT) members were trained
to ‘gold command’ emergency planning level standard, with middle managers
having attained ‘silver command’ competencies; ·
North
Wales had a joint regional Emergency Planning Service to respond to sudden
disasters. All local authorities, emergency services and the health
service worked closely with this regional service; ·
In
view of the recent announcement that the Council’s Corporate Director:
Economy and Public Realm would be leaving the authority in the near future the
Council’s capacity and skills as outlined in risk DCC030 would be tested during
the forthcoming months; and ·
Building
resilient communities to mitigate the risks identified in relation to DCC033, ‘the
risk that the cost of care will outstrip the Council’s resource’, would
take time. In the meantime mitigating actions, including supporting
independence and developing extra-care housing were being delivered. Due
to the time required to deliver objectives relating to this the risk score
associated with it had not been downgraded. Members stressed
the importance of ensuring that business continuity and resilience information
was easily accessible to all staff at all times, and that staff members were
regularly advised on where the information could be found, particularly in the
event of an emergency. In response to
points raised during the discussion the Lead Member and officers undertook to: · ensure that the next review report contained coloured charts for all ‘corporate risks’ as no illustration had ... view the full minutes text for item 6. |
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CORPORATE PLAN (Q4) PDF 218 KB To consider a report (copy attached) monitoring the Council’s progress in delivering the Corporate Plan 2012-2017. 11.55a.m-12.25p.m. Additional documents: Minutes: Introducing the
report (previously circulated) to the Committee the Lead Member for Finance,
Performance and Assets advised that the report was now a historical report as
the term of the Corporate Plan had ended with the term of the previous
Council. A summary of the Plan’s delivery during its final year had been
reported to County Council in May 2017. A member workshop had been held
recently to formulate the new Council’s corporate priorities and the draft
new Corporate Plan for the Council term 2017-2022 would be presented to County
Council for approval during the autumn. During his introduction the Lead
Member advised that it was pleasing to report that all outcomes in the 2012-17
Corporate Plan had been delivered to at least an acceptable level. He
explained that the Council had set itself a very ambitious target for education
indicators, it had set itself an excellence threshold and aimed to be best in Wales.
Nevertheless, achieving this was not wholly within its control as school
improvement work was now within the control of GwE. Denbighshire was also
performing well in areas such as the condition of it roads, clean and tidy
streets and the protection of vulnerable adults (POVA). Responding to
members’ questions the Lead Member and officers: ·
advised
that some of the performance measures used to measure the Council’s performance
were national indicators, others were comparisons with similar local
authorities known as ‘family group’ comparisons, and other performance
conclusions were based on independent monitoring undertaken by external
organisations such as ‘Keep Wales Tidy’; ·
clarified
the definitions ‘deficit school places’ and ‘surplus school places’, emphasising
that generally there were insufficient school places in the north of the county
and empty school places in south Denbighshire; ·
confirmed
that the performance indicators (PIs) relating to cleanliness did not include
weeds. Neither did it include alleys or walkways, which were areas that
seemed to have problems with litter and dog fouling; ·
that
whilst GwE was responsible for delivering school improvement services across
North Wales, Head teachers and governing bodies should also be held accountable
for their own school’s overall performance. The School Standards
Monitoring Group (SSMG) was due to be re-established in the near future.
However, if Scrutiny wished, it could request individual Head teachers and
Chairs of Governing Bodies to attend scrutiny to answer questions about their
schools performance; ·
confirmed
that they would enquire whether the Council’s request to suspend ‘The Right to
Buy Scheme’ in relation to its housing stock to Welsh Government (WG) had been
granted and whether the new Service Manager for the Intake and Intervention
Service had been appointed and had taken up post; and ·
confirmed that a report would be presented to
County Council in the autumn on ‘Long term empty
properties and second home taxation’, which could potentially help to bring
empty homes back into use and ease housing pressures. Members raised
concerns in relation to problems which had recently come to light with the
performance of the Council’s weed spraying contractor and enquired whether
the tendering and procurement process for this contract had been adequately
robust. The Scrutiny Co-ordinator agreed to request further information
from relevant officers with regards to this matter. Concerns were also raised by members on the number of good teachers across the county which had taken up posts with GwE under secondment arrangements. They felt that this had a detrimental effect on individual schools’ performance and on the county’s overall performance in the field of education. The Chief Executive advised members that it was school governing bodies who granted permission to teachers to take up secondment opportunities not the ... view the full minutes text for item 7. |
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YOUR VOICE' COMPLAINTS PERFORMANCE (Q4) PDF 225 KB To scrutinise information (report attached) on Services’ performance in complying with the Council’s complaints procedure. 12.40p.m- 13.10p.m. Additional documents: Minutes: Due to the
unplanned absence of the relevant officer the Committee deferred the
presentation of this report until September’s meeting. However, a number
of queries were raised which the Scrutiny Co-ordinator agreed to follow-up with
relevant officers, theses being: ·
the
general trend over recent years for the number of complaints received to peak
during Q1 of every year; ·
the
feasibility of including Ember Dashboard customer satisfaction/public opinion
information in future quarterly ‘Your Voice’ reports to the Committee The Vice-Chair
requested the Committee to robustly challenge the data in the Your Voice
reports and use it as a basis for developing its forward work programme with a
view to further improve service delivery and outcomes for residents. It
was: Resolved: - subject to the above queries being
followed-up, to defer the presentation of the Your Voice Quarter 4 2016/17
report until the Committee’s meeting on 28 September 2017. |
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SCRUTINY WORK PROGRAMME PDF 137 KB To consider a report by the Scrutiny Coordinator (copy enclosed) seeking a review of the committee’s forward work programme and updating members on relevant issues. 13.10p.m-13.25.p.m. Additional documents:
Minutes: A copy of a report by the
Scrutiny Coordinator (SC), which requested the Committee to review and agree its forward work programme and which
provided an update on relevant issues, had been circulated with the papers for the meeting. A copy of the ‘Member’s
proposal form’ had been included in Appendix 2 the SC requested that any
proposals be submitted to herself. The
Cabinet Forward Work Programme had been included as Appendix 3, information and
a table illustrating Service Challenge Groups was included as Appendix 4. The
SC informed members that, for each of the 9 Service Challenge group’s, a
representative from Performance Scrutiny was sought to serve on the groups. In
addition a representative was sought to serve on the Strategic Investment Group
(SIG). Following discussions the
Committee appointed the following:
Members’ requested that
information be provided to them, ahead of September’s meeting on: ·
the
percentage of teaching assistants across the County which were being utilised
as teachers to cover staff shortages; ·
absenteeism
rates (both authorised and unauthorised) for each individual primary and
secondary school in the county during the 2015/15 and 2016/17 academic years;
and ·
the
role of local education authority (LEA) governors on school governing bodies Resolved: (i)
that, following consideration of
Denbighshire pupils’ provisional external examination results and teacher
assessments report and other associated education related matters at the
Committee’s September meeting, consideration is given to inviting head teachers
and chairs of governing bodies to future committee meetings to discuss their
plans to improve outcomes; and (ii)
if the Council had been granted permission to
suspend its ‘Right to Buy’ scheme, that a report on the impact and
effectiveness of this decision on the availability of properties within the
Council’s housing stock be presented to the Committee in twelve months’ time |
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FEEDBACK FROM COMMITTEE REPRESENTATIVES To receive any
updates from Committee representatives on various Council Boards and Groups. 13.25p.m- 13.30p.m. Minutes: No relevant meetings had been held since the Committee’s last meeting for members to feedback to the Committee on the discussions. |
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The meeting concluded at 13:00 pm. |