Agenda and minutes

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

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillor Bray, with Councillor V. Guglielmi as substitute.

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on 18 March 2019.

The minutes of the meeting of the committee held on 18 March 2019 were approved as a correct record and signed by the chairman.

Councillor Stephenson then invited the Committee to concur with his view that a new agenda item will be added for all future meetings of the Committee to receive a report from the Cabinet/Council outlining the determination of recommendations from this Committee to them.

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.

Councillor Griffiths declared that he has a personal interest with regards to agenda item 5 – Replacement of the Careline Computer Call Handling System.

For reasons of transparency, Councillor Turner declared that he is the Chair of the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee, of which is to be discussed on agenda item 6 – Report of the Deputy Chief Executive – A.1 – Performance Report January – March 2019 (Quarter 4 Outturn). 

Councillor Scott also declared that he is a member of the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee, of which is to be discussed on agenda item 6 – Report of the Deputy Chief Executive – A.1 – Performance Report January – March 2019 (Quarter 4 Outturn)

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.

There were no such questions on this occasion under Procedure Rule 38.

Further to the decision taken by the Committee at its meeting held on 11 February 2019 (Minute 62 refers) and pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee will enquire into the following forthcoming decision before the Corporate Finance and Governance Portfolio Holder and Housing Portfolio Holder take their final joint decision on the matter:-

“Replacement of Careline Computer and Call Handling System”.

The Council’s Head of Customer and Commercial Services (Mark Westall) will attend the meeting to answer Members’ questions on this proposed decision.

Further to  the decision taken by the Committee at its meeting held on 11

February 2019 (minute 62 refers) and pursuant to the provisions of

Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee  enquired into the following forthcoming decision before the Corporate Finance and

Governance Portfolio Holder and the Housing Portfolio Holder take the final joint decision on the matter:-

“Replacement of Careline Computer Call Handling System”

The Council’s Head of Customer and Commercial Services (Mark Westall) attended the meeting to answer Members questions on this proposed decision. Mark also presented to the Committee a PowerPoint presentation outlining why the replacement of the existing system was being proposed and why the recommendation to the Portfolio Holders would be the replace that system with the UMO system from Verklizan.

After some deliberation by the Committee it was proposed by Councillor

Griffiths and seconded by Councillor V. Guglielmi and RESOLVED that;

•       The Committee recommended the Portfolio Holder for Independent Living (Councillor Broderick) to approve the purchase of this system.

•       The Committee also wished to record its congratulations for all the hard work of Careline Staff.

The Committee requested for the Council’s Head of Customer and Commercial Services (Mark Westall) to come back to the Committee at a later date to update it on the implementation of the new system in order that the envisaged benefits could be assessed at that stage.

To present the Performance Report 2018/19 (Resources & Services) for the period January to March 2019 (Quarter 4 - Outturn).

The Committee had before it a report of the Deputy Chief Executive which presented the performance report for Quarter 4 (January to March 2019) including the Corporate Plan and Prioritise and Projects 208/19.

Appendix A to that report contained details of the 18 indicators and projects where performance was measured. Of those, 13 (72%) are on, or above their expected target and 5 (28%) are not currently in line with the expected performance.

Members were informed that the performance report for Quarter 4 was presented to Cabinet on 14^th June 2019. Any feedback from the Committee would be presented to a future meeting of the Cabinet as a separate report.

The Council’s Human Resources and Business Manager (Katie Wilkins) gave the Committee an update in respect of the indicators and projects with particular focus on those indicators that were currently listed as behind target.

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

It was proposed by Councillor Stephenson, and seconded by Councillor Griffiths and RESOLVED that this Committee recommends that –

1.    The Committee are concerned about the progress of the North Essex Garden Communities scheme and the limited information available to the

Committee to date, on the Business Plan for the scheme. The Committee were looking forward to receiving this information at its meeting on 29 July 2019, including the slippage on the scheme and its description on the performance system as being “on target”.

The Committee would be happy to receive information that is exempt from publication if this was necessary in order for it to perform its overview and scrutiny role of the North Essex Garden Communities Scheme.

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 Committee meetings 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.

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.

RESOLVED that, pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny

Procedure Rule 13, the Committee wishes to enquire into the following forthcoming decision before the Finance and Corporate Resources Portfolio Holder and Housing Portfolio Holder take their final joint decision on the matter:-

-IT transformation Update – the Committee will review this around six months after it has started when a briefing will be provided by the Head of IT and Corporate Resilience. If the Committee considers that there is a need to further scrutinise matters the matter will  be added to the work programme for further review.

Further to the decision taken by Members at the Annual Meeting of the Council held on 28 May 2019 (Minute 21 refers), the Committee will consider its work programme for 2019/2020 with a view to ratifying it or amending it as appropriate.

Further to Minute 21 of the Annual Council Meeting on 28 May 2019, the work programme approved at that meeting was submitted to the Committee for consideration. In addition, some further items had been identified at the Overview and Scrutiny training for Members held on 5 June 2019 and further suggestions had been made in response to the invitation to identify items from the Chairman of this Committee and the Vice-Chairman of the Corporate Leadership Overview and Scrutiny Committee sent to all Members. These suggestions were reported to the Committee as they were relevant to the terms of reference of this Committee.

RESOLVED that the following amendments be made to the Committees

Work Programme for 2019 / 2020 :-

1.    The “Review of the Business Case for the future of publicly owned Leisure Centres within the District” currently on the work programme for the 29 July 2019 Meeting is to be moved to the 16 September 2019 Meeting.

2.    The topic of “Ground Maintenance (including Weeding) is to be added onto the Work Programme for the 29 July 2019 Meeting.

3.    The topic of “Energy Efficiency” is to be added onto the Work Programme for the 23 March 2020 Meeting.

4.    To record an expectation that the Committee would be provided with a report for each item on its work programme