Agenda item
Report from Chairs of Scrutiny Committees
To receive reports in accordance with Standing Order 41.
Minutes:
Council received the following reports from Chairs of Scrutiny Committees, as detailed in the Supplementary Agenda to this meeting:
(i) Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee
Councillor Kelcher, Chair of the Council’s Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee updated Council on some changes to the Committee, notably, Councillor Miller moving to the Cabinet, and welcomed Councillor Stopp who had replaced Councillor Miller on the Committee. Councillor Kelcher went on to say that, given the changes in political groups announced earlier that evening, he was pleased that the Vice-Chairman was to remain in that position on the Committee, which was positive news.
Councillor Kelcher spoke on events that had been undertaken to raise the profile of the scrutiny function and to take its business outside of the Civic Centre. First of all, he said, last Friday, the Committee had had a fantastic Young People Takeover Day where young people from various local schools had come along to learn about the workings of the Council and worked through some of their policies. Councillor Kelcher wished to thank Councillor Conneely, who had insisted at the start of this process that scrutiny should be one of the things the young people learned about and that it had been great to sit in their workshops and learn about some of the policies they had devised for the day. He said that he had also spoken at a local School Council about the role of scrutiny recently and hosted a scrutiny café in Harlesden where local people had come along and told Members what they thought the Council should be looking at. Councillor Kelcher said that it had been reassuring to discover that most matters raised were on the agenda for consideration, which was a positive sign.
Councillor Kelcher also said that one of the biggest issues his Committee had considered was the reporting back by the first task group of this municipal year, which had been chaired by Councillor Davidson and had looked into the wider issue of business rate devolution. He said that this was a really important issue since it was the biggest change in local government finance in some of our lifetimes and certainly over the last two decades and it was great to hear that this had been seen as a trailblazing report by some other Councils who had not yet done work in this area. Councillor Kelcher confirmed that Councillor Davidson and the Council’s Scrutiny Officers would be attending the London Scrutiny Network and would tell people about the work of Brent’s scrutiny committees. Councillor Kelcher said it had been a true cross-party report with all four groups on the Council represented in some capacity on it and that the meeting had been warmly welcomed by the Deputy Leader of the Council.
Councillor Kelcher stated that some of the other issues his Committee had considered had been related, namely, income generation, which was a particularly interesting discussion about how the Council could get more out of its assets. This, he said, was a matter that had come out of last year’s Budget Scrutiny Panel as something the Committee really wanted to look at so he was pleased that this was now being fed through and being looked at as part of the Civic Enterprise Stream and also one of the specific recommendations which came through scrutiny last year about monetising some of the Council’s CCTV infrastructure and using the bandwidth, as reported.
Councillor Kelcher went on to say that his Committee had also looked at the Council’s Customer Access Strategy and following a conversation he had had with a Salvation Army activist, about how ghosting could often be seen as a better way of testing a service than mystery shopping that the Committee made a recommendation on that basis, which he believed was being adopted.
In terms of the main issues to be scrutinised, Councillor Kelcher said that scrutinising of the Budget was an important legal duty, which his committee had every year though it was working very closely in conjunction with Councillor Sheth’s committee and had set up a Budget Scrutiny Panel, which would be investigating the Budget and whose first meeting was scheduled to be held on Thursday 24 November 2016. He said that the Panel’s report was due to be published in the New Year and in good time to be analysed at the first scrutiny committee on 10 January 2017. The Committee, he said, would also be looking at the Council’s Investment Strategy, its Capital Budget and general issues around the high streets.
In conclusion, Councillor Kelcher said that enough signatures had been gathered by Members to call-in the Cabinet decision relating to the South Kilburn Regeneration and that officers were now working to find a date to hold the call-in meeting.
(ii) Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee
Councillor Sheth, Chair of the Council’s Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee said he was sure that the Mayor and the Leader would agree with him that the Council had enjoyed a hugely inspirational and challenging event with Brent’s young people last Friday for Takeover Challenge. Talking about the young people, Councillor Sheth said that one of the most important responsibilities the Council had was to promote the effective safeguarding of the Borough’s children and young people. He added that this was not something that one organisation could achieve on its own and that safeguarding was everyone’s business and it was important that all agencies and organisations played their part and worked together effectively to make Brent a safe place for its children and young people who were at risk of harm.
Councillor Sheth said that, this week, his Committee would be scrutinising the Annual Report of the Brent Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, which would be presented by its independent Chair. The Board, he said, had a strategic role in coordinating safeguarding of the Borough’s children, bringing together the Council, schools, Police and the voluntary sector as well as lay members from the community. Councillor Sheth said that his Committee would be scrutinising different aspects of the Board’s work and would want to ensure that safeguarding policies and procedures were not just written down on paper by organisations but actually translated into effective safeguarding at the frontline. The Committee, he said, would also want to discuss whether the Board had the requisite resources to carry out its duties effectively and met its statutory objectives. He said he looked forward to reporting back to the Council in the near future about the conclusions reached.
Councillor Sheth stated that Children Social Care was also something the Council must never overlook. Brent’s social workers, he said, played a vital role in improving life’s chances of many children and young people in the Borough as well as supporting their families. He reminded Members that he had set up a scrutiny task group called Signs of Safety to focus on how the Council had implemented the new way of working with children and families.
Councillor Sheth said that, over the past few weeks, his colleague, Councillor Hoda-Benn, had led this task group and it had met with senior officers and social workers to understand how Signs of Safety worked and what difference it had made to the Council’s work with children, young people and their families. The Task Group, he said, would be reporting back with a number of recommendations in the New Year.
Councillor Sheth reiterated that the Cabinet had decided a few days
earlier to agree that the management of the Council’s housing
stock be brought back in-house, subject to
consultation. This, he said, was a big
step and not the sort of decision which a local authority took
every day. It was, he said, a decision
which affected many thousands of Brent’s residents and given
this, his Committee had held a special meeting last month to
discuss the options for managing the Council’s housing stock
in the future and he wanted to take this opportunity to thank once
again all those residents who attended the meeting in such large
numbers that evening and who made valuable contributions to the
discussions. Councillor Sheth said that
he had not seen such a large group of residents at scrutiny before
and was very proud to have shared their company. In conclusion, Councillor Sheth said that he
thought it was very important that residents were given a voice in
important discussions and he was very pleased that scrutiny was
able to do that and looked forward to his Committee facilitating
more of that in the future.
Councillor Collier sought clarification on a point of information in relation to a statement made by Councillor Sheth in his report to which Minute No.16 (ii) above referred. Councillor Collier asked that where Councillor Sheth had stated that a decision had been taken to take the Council’s housing back in-house, subject to consultation, was this indeed the case or was it the case that a decision had been taken to consult on whether or not to take the Council’s housing back in-house.
In response, the Chief Executive confirmed the latter.
Supporting documents:
- Report from Chairs of Scrutiny Committees - Community & Wellbeing, item 16. PDF 126 KB
- Report of Chair of Scrutiny Committees - Public Realm & Resources, item 16. PDF 132 KB
- Appendix 1 - Public Realm & Resources Forward Plan, item 16. PDF 48 KB