Agenda and draft minutes

Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, County Hall, Ruthin and by video conference

Media

Webcast: View the webcast

Items
No. Item

1.

APOLOGIES

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Gareth Sandilands.

 

 

2.

DECLARATION OF INTERESTS pdf icon PDF 118 KB

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.

 

 

3.

APPOINTMENT OF VICE-CHAIR pdf icon PDF 184 KB

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.

 

 

4.

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.

 

 

5.

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING pdf icon PDF 355 KB

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.

 

 

6.

COUNCIL PERFORMANCE SELF-ASSESSMENT 2024 TO 2025 AND PERFORMANCE UPDATE REPORT OCTOBER 2024 TO MARCH 2025 pdf icon PDF 314 KB

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 –

 

  • Some members felt that the complexity of the content made the report difficult to read and recommended that the documents be made more user and reader friendly. Members also suggested that graphs and tables could be included in the report to ensure that the data was easier to track and would provide a clearer illustration of performance trends. Officers responded, clarifying that all documents needed to comply with accessibility requirements, so graphs and tables would not meet the required standards. However, they would investigate the matter further to see if they could be incorporated in some way in future reports.
  • The Committee sought clarification on whether stakeholders invited to participate in the stakeholder survey included staff members.  As per our statutory duties, the groups invited to take part in the survey included: Denbighshire residents; Council staff (although separate staff survey in place); County Councillors; Town, City and Community Councils; Local businesses; Trade Unions; and any other stakeholders the Council works with, such as third sector or charity/voluntary organisations.  Members had concerns that residents/stakeholders would find the information within the report difficult to navigate and follow. Officers highlighted that the main headlines and findings in the report were found in the executive summary, which was not too onerous to read.
  • The Citizen’s Voice Survey and the responses received was discussed.  Officers stated that they were satisfied with the responses received.  Although the response rate was not high it had met the meaningful response rate threshold.  Nevertheless, more work was required going forward to ensure there was no imbalance or bias  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

SCRUTINY WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 153 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.

 

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.

 

 

8.

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.