Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Council Offices, Thorpe Road, Weeley, CO16 9AJ. View directions

Contact: Ian Ford  01255 686584.

Items
No. Item

32.

Apologies for Absence and Substitutions

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

 

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Broderick and M Brown. There were no substitutions.

 

33.

Minutes of the Last Meeting pdf icon PDF 90 KB

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Monday 17 November 2018.

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 17 September 2018 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

34.

Declarations of Interest

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Personal Interest, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

 

Minutes:

There were none made at this time.

 

35.

Questions on Notice pursuant to Council Procedure Rule 37

Subject to providing two working days' notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

Minutes:

There were no such questions on this occasion.

 

36.

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive - A.1 - Performance Report 2018/19 Second Quarter pdf icon PDF 184 KB

To present to the Committee the Performance Report for the period July 2018 – September 2018.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee had before it a report of the Deputy Chief Executive which presented the Performance Report for Quarter Two (July to September 2018), including the Corporate Plan and Priorities and Projects 2018/19.

 

The Deputy Chief Executive (Martyn Knappett) outlined the purpose of the Performance Report as a ‘snapshot’ performance management tool that is it helped the Council’s senior management and Members see if the Council was delivering what it had set out to deliver.

 

Appendix A to that report contained details of the 18 indicators and projects where performance was measured. Of those, 15 (84%) were on, or above, their expected target and 3 (16%) were not currently in line with the expected performance.

 

Members were informed that the Performance Report for Quarter One would be presented to Cabinet on 9 November 2018. Any feedback from the Committee would be presented to a future meeting of the Cabinet as a separate reference report.

 

The Council’s Human Resources & Business Manager (Katie Wilkins) gave the Committee an update in respect of the indicators and projects.

 

Officers responded to questions raised by Members on various topics and where an answer was not immediately available, the Human Resources and Business Manager undertook to respond to Members as soon as possible after the meeting.

 

In addition, the Deputy Chief Executive gave the Committee an update in respect of the “Transforming the Way We Work” Project and he responded to questions raised by Members. Where an answer was not immediately available, the Deputy Chief Executive undertook to respond to Members as soon as possible after the meeting. Matters that the Deputy Chief Executive touched on included:-

 

(1)   Ongoing works at Pier Avenue and Northbourne Depot;

(2)   Barnes House Extension and Link – Tender Awarded;

(3)   Westleigh House – Timetable for demolition;

(4)   Town Hall works – Planning permission granted;

(5)   Firmstep: new customer portal;

(6)   Learning Zone – new e-learning platform; and

(7)   New HR Policies – Flexi Working and Remote Working.

 

In response to a question that had been submitted prior to the commencement of the meeting by Councillor Miles, the Deputy Chief Executive gave an update on the Council’s regeneration plans for land at Mill Lane, Walton-on-the-Naze which included the old Fire Station building which was now the subject of a petition. He then answered Members’ questions on this subject.

 

It was moved by Councillor Everett, seconded by Councillor Baker and:-

 

RESOLVED that this Committee recommends to Cabinet that –

 

(a)       in the light of recent events, an in-year review of the milestones for the Garden Community project and the Local Plan be carried out with a view to establishing new, more realistic targets and milestones for these projects; and

 

(b)       an in-year review of the impact of the new National Planning Policy Framework’s definitions of ‘major and ‘minor’ applications on the Handling of Planning Applications speed of process figures be also carried out.

 

37.

Review of the implementation of the new Overview and Scrutiny Arrangements

The Committee will discuss its experience of the new Overview and Scrutiny arrangements since their implementation in May 2018 with a view to submitting its comments and/or recommendations to the Finance and Corporate Resources Portfolio Holder’s Constitution Review Working Party who will be conducting a review of the new committee structure introduced in April 2018.

Minutes:

The Committee discussed its experience of the new Overview and Scrutiny arrangements since their implementation in May 2018 with a view to submitting its comments and/or recommendations to the Finance and Corporate Resources Portfolio Holder’s Constitution Review Working Party who would be conducting a review of the new committee structure also introduced in May 2018.

 

Following those discussions it was:-

 

RESOLVED that the following comments be submitted to the Portfolio Holder’s Constitution Review Working Party namely that –

 

(1)       the terms of reference of the Resources and Services and Community Leadership Overview and Scrutiny Committees should be looked at with a view to making them ‘more equal’ in workload. A suggestion is that leisure and tourism matters could be reallocated to the Community Leadership Committee;

(2)       there should be a sharper focus on the remit, scope, responsibilities and expected outcomes of Task and Finish Working Groups. A suggestion is that guidance in the form of an Overview and Scrutiny handbook should be produced;

(3)       better attendance of Members at All Member Briefings should be encouraged; and

(4)          the Committee reiterates the importance of providing training on overview and scrutiny matters to those Members who have been appointed to serve on an overview and scrutiny committee immediately after the Annual Meeting of the Council in May 2019.

 

38.

Councillors Call to Action pdf icon PDF 101 KB

Pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 9, Councillor Everett has submitted a Call for Action that a Planning Policy Review relating to the presumption in favour of development and potentially out of date policies is carried out.

 

Once Councillor Everett has explained what specific action he wishes the Committee to take the Committee will decide at which meeting this review will be considered having regard to its Work Programme. The Committee may decide to hold a special meeting to do this or it could refer the matter to a Task and Finish Working Group.

 

The Committee must endeavour to consider the matter within a reasonable time scale. The current Work Programme for the Committee is attached for Members’ reference.

Minutes:

The Chairman informed the Committee that this item had been withdrawn by Councillor Everett prior to the commencement of the meeting.

 

The Committee’s current work programme had been circulated to Members in anticipation of this item being discussed at the meeting.

 

Members discussed the following three items that were due to be considered at its next meeting on 29 November 2018:-

 

·           Corporate Budget Monitoring 2018/19 Second Quarter (including update on Financial Forecast

·           Recycling - Task & Finish Group’s Final Report

·           Tourism Strategy

 

It was moved by Councillor Scott and seconded by Councillor Amos that the Tourism Strategy be removed from the Committee’s work programme and instead be made the subject of an All Members’ Briefing, which vote on being put to the vote was declared LOST.

 

It was then:-

 

RESOLVED that the meeting of the Committee due to be held on Thursday 29 November 2018 will now commence at 7.00 p.m. and not 7.30 p.m. as previously scheduled.

 

39.

Scrutiny of Proposed Decisions pdf icon PDF 119 KB

Pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee will review any new and/or amended published forthcoming decisions relevant to its terms of reference and decide whether it wishes to enquire into any such decision before it is taken.

 

Matters may only be raised on those forthcoming decisions at the Committee meeting where the Member has notified the Committee Services Manager in writing (or by personal email) of the question they wish to ask, no later than Midday, two working days before the day of the meeting.

Minutes:

Pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee reviewed any new and/or amended published forthcoming decisions relevant to its terms of reference with a view to deciding whether it wished to enquire into any such decision before it was taken. The relevant forthcoming decisions were before the Committee.

 

The Committee noted the submitted list of published forthcoming decisions.

 

It was then moved by Councillor Baker, seconded by Councillor Everett and:-

 

RESOLVED that, pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee wishes to enquire into the following forthcoming decision before Cabinet takes a final decision on the matter:-

 

Adoption of a Draft Housing Strategy and Action Plan.