Agenda and draft minutes
Venue: Council Chamber, County Hall, Ruthin and by video conference
Media
Webcast: View the webcast
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APOLOGIES Additional documents: Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Gareth Sandilands. |
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DECLARATION OF INTERESTS Members to declare any personal or prejudicial interests in any business identified to be considered at this meeting. Additional documents: Minutes: No members declared any interests of a personal, or a personal and prejudicial nature, in any of the business items listed for discussion. |
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APPOINTMENT OF VICE-CHAIR To appoint a Vice-Chair for Performance Scrutiny Committee for the municipal year 2025/26 (copy of role description attached). 10.05am – 10.10am Additional documents: Minutes: Nominations were sought for the office of Vice-Chair of Performance Scrutiny Committee for the 2025/26 municipal year. Councillor Carol Holliday nominated Councillor Gareth Sandilands for the role of Vice-Chair, Councillor Ellie Chard seconded the nomination. No other nominations were received, therefore the Committee: Resolved: that Councillor Gareth Sandilands be
appointed as Vice-Chair of Performance Scrutiny Committee for the 2025/26
municipal year. As Councillor Sandilands had tendered his apologies for the meeting Councillor Holliday advised she had discussed with him her intention to nominate him for the role. He had given his assent for his name to put forward. |
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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. Additional documents: Minutes: No items of an urgent nature had been raised with the Chair or the Scrutiny Coordinator prior to the commencement of the meeting. |
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MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING To receive the minutes of the Performance Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 6 May 2025 (copy attached). 10.10am – 10.15am Additional documents: Minutes: The minutes of the Performance Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 6 May 2025 were submitted: Accuracy: page 8, second paragraph the word ‘how’ should be amended to read ‘have’ page 11, penultimate paragraph the word ‘needed’ should be amended to read ‘need’. The Committee: Resolved: subject to the above amendments that the
minutes of the Performance Scrutiny Committee meeting held on the 6 May 2025 be
approved as a true and accurate record of the meeting’s proceedings. Matters arising: Page 8, Minuets of the previous meeting – Councillor Andrea Tomlin informed the Committee that the Task and Finish Group established to ‘Review the Roll-out of the New Waste and Recycling Service’ had held its inaugural meeting the previous week. It had decided to take the unusual step of appointing co-chairs, one from the north of the county and the other from the south, in order to share the workload. The first meeting had been a productive ‘brainstorming’ session to gather together all relevant themes that would need to be examined as part of the review. No date had yet been set for the Group’s next meeting, but it would be announced in the near future. |
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To consider a report (copy attached) from the Strategic Planning and Performance Officer which analyses the Council’s performance against its functions, including Corporate Plan and Strategic Equality objectives and seeks the Committee’s views on the progress to date. 10:15am – 11:00am Additional documents:
Minutes: The Lead Member for
Corporate Strategy, Policy, Equalities and Strategic Assets alongside the Head
of Corporate Support Service: Performance, Digital and Assets (HVE), the
Insight, Strategy and Delivery Manager (RL) and the Strategic Planning and
Performance Officer (EH) presented the Council Performance Self-Assessment 2024
to 2025 and Performance Update Report October 2024 to March 2025 (previously
circulated) to the Committee. They
explained that the report presented the Council’s Performance Self-Assessment
for 2024 to 2025, providing an end of year analysis of achievements and
challenges with the Council’s key performance objectives (the Corporate Plan
themes), together with the Authority’s October 2024 to March 2025 Performance Update. The Committee was
guided through the report which consisted of an Executive Summary (Appendix I)
highlighting performance against objectives and the seven governance areas; the
Performance Update Report October 2024 to March 2025 (Appendix II); details of
the improvement activities identified through discussions to date, along with
the new Citizen Voice report (Appendix III). The Lead Member
reflected that the Council should be proud of what had been achieved in
difficult circumstances over the past twelve months, with clear evidence of
delivering to high standards. She highlighted the five key achievements
over this period and the four key challenges and areas for improvement as
detailed in Appendix I. The Head of
Corporate Support Service: Performance, Digital, and Assets thanked the
Strategic Planning Team for producing the documentation and the Governance and
Audit Committee for their suggestions and comments following their debate. The Strategic
Planning and Improvement Officer provided further context, advising that 20%
(16) of corporate plan indicators had been categorised “red” and the team would
be working to pre-empt indicators in the future to prevent deterioration and
undertake further work to make reports more user-friendly and easier to
navigate. She elaborated on several areas of excellent performance -
“greens,” performance trends against various other performance indicators,
together with “red” areas where challenges were faced. The Chair thanked
the lead member and officers for the thorough report prior to Members
discussing the following points further –
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SCRUTINY WORK PROGRAMME 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. 11:10am – 11:25am Additional documents:
Minutes: The Scrutiny Coordinator introduced the report and appendices (previously circulated) seeking members to review the Committee’s forward work programme (Appendix 1 to the report). During her introduction she drew members’ attention to the paragraph within the covering report which informed members that the report on the Planning Software System, originally scheduled for presentation to the Committee at the current meeting had with the Vice-Chair’s consent, in the absence of a Committee Chair, been deferred until November’s meeting following a request from officers. The basis of the request to defer was the complex nature of the information which required to be collated and presented in a comprehensive and meaningful report to the Committee. Some Committee members registered their disappointment with the delay in producing the report as originally intended and with the process of informing the Committee of its deferral. They felt that not having the opportunity to scrutinise the matter at the original designated time would put members’ off in future from proposing items for Scrutiny. The Scrutiny Coordinator assured the Committee that the report’s deferral had been agreed following the well-established process for agreeing a deferral. This was confirmed by the Monitoring Officer who also read a statement from the Development Manager, Public Protection and Countryside Services which provided some background to the new Planning software system’s introduction and the rationale for seeking the report’s deferral, including the importance of incorporating the findings of a recent Internal Audit review into the transitioning to the new IT system into the final report. Once the findings of the review were received improvement actions would be identified and progressed by a proposed task and finish group. All of this information would then form the basis of a comprehensive report to the Committee in November 2025. Members were assured by the Monitoring Officer that Scrutiny was and should always be member-led. Officers advised that by rescheduling a report on the forward work programme, with the Chair or Vice-Chair’s approval, it ensured that an item would not be ‘lost’ but would be examines at the most appropriate time to add value to the scrutiny process when the Committee was in possession of all the required data and facts. The Chair requested that the report when presented include details on whether the software supplier had been paid in full, and if the contract contained any financial penalty clauses. Some members felt that the member who proposed the item for examination by Scrutiny should, in addition to the Chair, be consulted on any requests received for an item to be deferred until a future meeting. The Monitoring Officer agreed to raise this suggestion with the Scrutiny Chairs and Vice-Chairs Group (SCVCG). The next SCVCG meeting was due to be held on 30 June 2025 and members were encouraged to complete the proposal form (Appendix 2) if they had any items which in their view merited detailed scrutiny. Appendix 3 to the report contained Cabinet’s forward work programme for members’ information and Appendix 4 outlined the progress to date with the recommendations made by the Committee at its last meeting. At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee: Resolved: subject to the above, to confirm the
Committee’s forward work programme as detailed in Appendix 1 to the report. |
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FEEDBACK FROM COMMITTEE REPRESENTATIVES To receive any updates from Committee representatives on various Council Boards and Groups Additional documents: Minutes: None. Meeting concluded at 12.25pm. |