Issue - meetings
Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Meeting: 26/11/2018 - Council (Item 13)
13 Report from Chairs of Scrutiny Committees PDF 97 KB
To receive reports from the Chairs of the Council’s Scrutiny Committees in accordance with Standing Order 46. The reports have been attached as follows:
12.1 Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee
12.2 Housing Scrutiny Committee
12.3 Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee
Members are asked to note that this session will include an opportunity (within the time available) for non-Cabinet members to ask questions of relevant Scrutiny Chair’s in relation to the remits of their Committees.
Additional documents:
- 12.2 Housing Scrutiny Chair's Report, item 13 PDF 106 KB
- 12.3 Resources and Public Realm Chairs Report, item 13 PDF 125 KB
- Webcast for Report from Chairs of Scrutiny Committees
Decision:
NOTED the update reports provided by the Chairs of the Community and Wellbeing, Housing and Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committees along with the responses provided by:
· Lead Member for Children’s Safeguarding, Early Help and Social Care in relation to the issues raised under the Community and Wellbeing update around the funding and restructure of Local Children’s Safeguarding arrangements as a result of the recent legislative changes and how these would be expected to drive forward further improvements and mitigate issues such as the impact of child poverty, on which the Lead Member advised she would provide a written response.
· Lead Member for Adult Social Care in relation to an issue raised under the Community and Wellbeing update around the monitoring and quality of care providers.
· Lead Member for Housing & Welfare in relation to issues raised under the Housing update regarding renewal of the contract for tenancy advice, decision taken in relation to the landlord licensing fee and update on the programme for installation of fire sprinkler systems in Council high rise blocks (on which the Lead Member advised she would write to the Committee with further details).
· Deputy Leader in relation to issues raised under the Resources and Public Realm update regarding the classification of savings proposals under the budget consultation process and anticipated outcome of the consultation exercise.
Responses were also provided by the relevant Scrutiny Chairs on the following additional questions raised during the open session for this part of the meeting:
· Councillor Ethapemi regarding the funding and review of street cleansing activities.
· Councillor Choudhary regarding the review of funding for Adult Social Care as part of the budget consultation process
· Councillor Nerva regarding the impact of proposed budget reductions in relation to the effective operation of the scrutiny function.
· Councillor Chan on the need to ensure, as an outcome of the budget consultation process, that detailed impact assessments were provided for all savings proposals.
Minutes:
Before being presented with the updates from each Scrutiny Chair, the Mayor reminded Members that the time set aside for this item was now 20 minutes, with each Chair having up to three minutes in which to highlight any significant issues arising from the work of their Committees on which they would like the relevant Cabinet Member to respond. Once these updates had been provided, the remaining time available would then be opened up for any other non-Cabinet members to question (without the need for advance notice) the Scrutiny Chairs on matters relating to the work of their Committees.
The following updates were provided by each of the Scrutiny Chairs:
13.1 Community & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee
Councillor Ketan Sheth introduced the report from his Committee, with the following issues identified for response by the relevant Lead Members:
a. Given the recent review undertaken by the Committee in relation to the Annual Reports from the Safeguarding Adults and Safeguarding Children Boards further details were requested on the impact of the legislative changes being introduced to the future structure of safeguarding arrangements for children in terms of:
· what improvements the new system had been designed to deliver;
· the role of the current independent chair under the new arrangements and any change in funding formula; and
· how the new arrangements had been designed to mitigate the negative impact of poverty on children and their families.
Councillor Mili Patel (responding as Lead Member for Children’s Safeguarding, Early Help and Social Care) advised that she would provide a detailed written response on the first two bullet points raised. In relation to poverty, she highlighted the complex and varied nature of the issues needing to be addressed and additional impact likely to be caused by the roll out of Universal Credit. The Council was, however, continually looking to review provision and support available in order to mitigate the issues in relation to children as far as possible.
b. Moving on to then focus on Adult Safeguarding arrangements, details were sought on how effective the arrangements for monitoring the quality of care providers were felt to be.
In response, Councillor Farah (Lead Member for Adult Social Care) assured the Chair that he was confident with the current quality of monitoring being undertaken, which was led through an independent review process involving the Care Quality Commission.
13.2 Housing Scrutiny Committee
Councillor Long introduced the report from her Committee, and began by highlighting that amongst the items to be considered at their next meeting, the Committee would be reviewing:
· the proposed change to the Housing Allocation Policy, currently on consultation involving provision for residents in Temporary Accommodation within Regeneration Areas;
· the impact of changes to administration of the Selective Landlord Licensing fee.
The following were then raised as issues for response by the relevant Lead Member in relation to the work of the Committee:
a. reassurance was sought that as part of the award of the interim contract for provision of tenancy advice there would be a requirement for ... view the full minutes text for item 13