Issue - meetings

To receive reports from the Chairs of the Council’s Scrutiny Committees in accordance with Standing Order 36. The reports have been attached as follows:

11.1    Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee

11.2    Community & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee

(Agenda republished to include the update from the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee on 17 November 2023)

NOTED the update reports provided by the Chair of the Resources & Public Realm and Chair of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committees.

During the open question time session Councillor Lorber took the opportunity to highlight the concerns previously raised at what he felt had been the limited scope of the discussion permitted in response to the call-in on the decision to approve the Barham Park Trust Accounts at the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee call-in meeting held to deal with the matter.

Eligible for Call-In: No

Before being presented with the updates from each Scrutiny Committee, the Mayor reminded members the time set aside for this item was 12 minutes, with each Chair having up to three minutes in which to highlight any significant issues arising from the work of their Committees.  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 Committee Chairs on matters relating to the work of their Committee.

Councillor Conneely was then invited to introduce the update report on the work being undertaken by the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee, with the following issues highlighted:

·             Referring to the Committee’s ongoing focus and work in relation to development and delivery of the Council’s Climate Emergency Strategy, members were advised that this would be subject to further review early in 2024 with the contribution made by Action for the Climate Emergency in Brent as part of their earlier deputation also welcomed.

·             The Committee had met twice since the previous update with one of those meetings having been to consider a call-in relating to the decision made by the Barham Park Trust Committee to approve their accounts for 2022-23.  Having consider the concerns raised under the call-in in relation to accuracy of the accounts and noted that the Chief Executive had also (independently of the call-in) commissioned a separate high-level consultancy based review on the concerns raised the Committee had agreed, as an outcome of the call-in, to refer the original decision made on the Accounts back to the Trust Committee for reconsideration.

·             The Committee had also continued to actively monitor the Council’s financial forecast position and medium-term financial outlook along with the risks and uncertainties regarding the budget setting position for 2024 – 25.  Having noted the current £13m overspend forecast and unprecedented nature of demand driving these pressures in relation to the rise in homelessness and reduction in the supply of suitable accommodation, the Committee had welcomed the actions being taken in response to mitigate against and seek to address the pressures identified.  Whilst recognising the efforts being made to maintain a financially resilient, balanced and sustainable budget position the Committee had recognised how difficult this had become given the ongoing reductions in core funding received by central government and overall level of savings which had needed to be made as a result since austerity had been introduced in 2010.  The position would continue to be kept under review by the Committee with the issues highlighted also due to be considered by the Scrutiny Budget Task Group which members were advised had recently commenced its review as part of the budget consultation process for 2024-25.

The Mayor thanked Councillor Conneely for her update and then invited Councillor Ketan Sheth as chair of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to introduce the update report on the work being undertaken by that Committee.  The following issues were highlight as part of the update:  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12