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Agenda and minutes

Contact: Democratic Services 

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

County Councillors L. Jones.

2.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

None.

3.

Open Public Forum

Minutes:

The Committee were joined by Mt Peter Sutherland representing Llanbadoc Community Council who raised the following points;

 

Although happy to have confirmation of the speed camera at Woodside it was asked if it would be possible to have a camera installed at Monkswood.

 

The Llanbadoc Community Council clerk wrote to the council on the 18th December 2017 regarding an issue at Glascoed Common and to date have received no response.

 

Traffic through Usk during the gas works – the utility company was praised for their communication with residents, but here are concerns regarding the lack of information regarding the alternative routes for HGVs during the duration of the works.

 

Review of community boundaries – the community council submitted their views some time ago and these seem to have been ignored. There is a working party at county level which has no community council representation. It is understood that there will be a final set of proposals which the community council will be allowed to comment on, this is felt to be unsatisfactory. It is asked that some engagement with community councils is invited.

 

 

 

 

 

4.

To confirm minutes of the previous meeting pdf icon PDF 168 KB

Minutes:

The minutes were approved and signed by the Chair.

5.

Public Protection Performance pdf icon PDF 97 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Context:

 

To undertake scrutiny of service delivery across Public Protection services in the first nine months of this financial year 2017/18, with comparison to previous years. The Public Protection division comprises of Environmental Health, Trading Standards & Animal Health and Licensing.

 

Key Issues:

 

In January 2015 Cabinet requested that Public Protection performance was reviewed regularly by this Committee to assess any negative impacts. As a consequence six monthly reports have been provided to Strong Communities Select committee, together with annual reports to Licensing & Regulatory committee.

 

The report summarises performance over the first nine months of 2017/18, and highlights the following –

 

The four service teams, for the vast majority of the services they deliver, meet the Authority’s legal obligations in relation to Public Protection services.

 

As detailed in Appendix A, most proactive and reactive work is being carried out professionally, within prescribed response times. There are only a few exceptions - due to the reactive nature of most of the services – these being some slippage in housing visits, private water inspections and animal health visits.

 

Annual reports will continue to be made to this Committee to assess performance over time, and help inform future priorities noting the competing demands.

 

Services may struggle to take on any new statutory duties that protect the public and the environment, and therefore funding must be sought to support any new work.

 

Future strategies for sustaining Public Protection services will be developed, (to include further income generation and collaboration), locally, regionally and nationally.

 

Services will improve linkages to the Authority’s Corporate Business Plan 2017/22 and other key drivers, for example the Chief Medical Officer Wales’ priorities.

 

Member Scrutiny:

 

A Member raised concerns regarding the large scope of work undertaken by the team and the authority as a whole. With staff absence being a major concern it was asked if the current level and quality of work could be sustained with such low staff numbers.

 

The issue of dog fouling was raised and it was asked if, as with other authorities we could employ a private company to tackle dog fouling and littering with a view to raising revenue.

 

The Committee praised officers for the report, they felt that all key information was accessible and it allowed members to identify the key indicators.

 

A Member asked what income was being received on income stream to supplement the team’s budget.

 

Clarity was sought in regard to private water supplies, the size of supply and what monitoring takes place, especially in view of recent staff shortages.

 

It was asked if the team would be liaising with Richard Cope to ensure all bus drivers receive level one safeguarding training.

 

It was asked how many registered social landlords we have and how many properties are registered, what actions are taken if the properties are not being used correctly.

 

In respect to construction on the M4 proposed relief road, it was asked if we can encourage developers to engage with Members prior to work starting.

 

Weights and measures – it was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

Month 7 Budget Monitoring pdf icon PDF 692 KB

Minutes:

Context:

 

The purpose of this report is to provide Members with information on the revenue and capital outturn positions based on activity data at month 7.

 

This report will also be considered by Select Committees as part of their responsibility to,

 

• assess whether effective budget monitoring is taking place,

• monitor the extent to which budgets are spent in accordance with agreed budget and policy framework,

challenge the reasonableness of projected over or underspends, and

• monitor the achievement of predicted efficiency gains or progress in relation to savings proposals.

 

Key Issues:

 

Members consider the forecast net revenue outturn overspend of £62,000.

 

That Cabinet requires Chief Officers to continue to work to reduce the £1.333m over spend on services, using measures such as a moratorium on non-essential spend and the freezing of vacant posts other than where recruitment is considered essential.

 

Members consider the forecast capital outturn spend, the levels of capital slippage proposed and the levels of capital receipts to assist with capital programme funding, primarily the Future Schools Tranche A considerations.

 

Members note that the low level of earmarked reserves, which will severely reduce the flexibility the Council has in meeting the financial challenges of reducing settlements and consequent need to redesign services.

 

Members note the significant and continued forecast reduction in the overall school balance at the end of 2017/18 and supports the continuing work with schools to ensure that the Council’s Fairer Funding scheme requirements are met and that the overall schools balance reverts to a positive position at the earliest opportunity.

 

Members note the significant over spend on services and consider recurrent and new pressures that need to feature in the draft revenue budget proposals currently out on consultation.

 

Member Scrutiny:

 

A Member that the TLC line within Enterprise box does not add up. We were told that the variance is offset by the same amount in Business Growth & Enterprise so the bottom line figures are not affected. 

 

In clarification we were told the following;

 

Business Growth & Enterprise

824

644

1,468

1,779

311

23

Governance, Democracy and Support

4,061

4,061

4,122

61

Planning & Housing

1,852

-374

1,478

1,533

55

56

Tourism Life & Culture

3,140

-282

2,858

2,965

107

101

Total Enterprise

5,816

4,049

9,865

10,399

534

180

 

The monitoring information and a draft report have been provided earlier than is common, given that the Assistant Head of Finance was on extended leave. Given that, there was always a likelihood the figures would change subsequently, reflecting senior colleague’s deliberations. 

 

Finance Officers suspected there would be further adjustments between Business Growth and Enterprise and TLC, given a heightened sensitivity in the reporting of TLC, due to a variety of moving parts and Member consideration of for instance Alternate Delivery Model. 

 

 Immediately prior to month 7 preparations finance officers accommodated a request to reflect a future movement in responsibility for the Events function, which also had the effect of transferring the large deficit on Events it incurred this year to Business Growth and Enterprise. 

 

The revised  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

Community and Partnerships Team - Individual Updates on priorities and activities - verbal update

Minutes:

We were joined in the Chamber by County Councillor Sara Jones, Cabinet Member for Social Justice.

 

Context:

 

To inform partners of the function of the newly established Community & Partnership Development Team.

 

The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and the Social Services and Wellbeing Act are encouraging us to look ahead and identify new ways of doing better things.  As a requirement of the Act, the Public Service Board and the Authority undertook a Wellbeing Assessment in 2016, which provided us with an understanding of the assets, challenges and opportunities within our county.  This enabled us to set wellbeing objectives in March 2017 that will form part of the wellbeing plan in 2018.

 

The strategy for a Community and Partnership Development Team aligns with the wellbeing objectives, enabling co-production by taking a local asset and place based approach.  The new team will bridge gaps by balancing community needs with Authority priorities, to ensure the county’s future sustainability. 

 

 

Key Issues:

 

Public service delivery is changing.  With an ageing population, reducing budgets and ever increasing demand, dependency upon public services is increasing when budgets are decreasing. 

 

As a local authority we need to rethink our relationship with our local communities to enable us to successfully redesign our services.  We need to think longer term about how we work together to identify and co-produce the right services going forward that will help us tackle the challenges that lie ahead. 

 

As the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act requires co-delivery with partners, the historic disconnect between the Public Services Board (PSB), the Authority and the local community needs to be addressed. To enable this, community engagement has been repositioned within a more centralised role. 

 

The new team also provides:

 

Specialist support in strategic PSB areas such as health and wellbeing issues, isolation, ageing well, community cohesion, etc.

Support for the Authority in their Cluster Area activities

More direct Town/Community Council engagement/liaison to increase knowledge of needs and priorities and ensure these can feed into strategic decision-making at local authority and PSB level.

 

AIMS OF THE TEAM:

 

The Aim of the Community and Partnership Development Team is to work with communities and partners to help bring about social change and improve the quality of life in our county. The team will act as enablers; unlocking potential and supporting sustainability through collective impact; providing a resource and tangible link between local communities and a wide range of partners; enabling the delivery of measureable and sustainable programme of activities that will constantly look to the future.  Collective impact is a principle, which is based on the community and sector specific organisations, agreeing to solve a specific problem or local priority using a common agenda, aligning their efforts and using common measures of success.  The team will seek to exploit this principle when working with communities and partners to reach the shared goals across the county.

 

The team see communities as co-producers rather than service recipients, and will promote existing and establish new networks that can provide caring, mutual help  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.

Strong Communities forward work programme pdf icon PDF 187 KB

Minutes:

The work programme was noted.

 

Members were asked to send their thoughts to the clerk in regard to questions they would like raised with People Services prior to Officers returning to committee.

9.

Cabinet & Council forward planner pdf icon PDF 462 KB

Minutes:

The Cabinet & Council forward planner was noted.

10.

Date and time of next meeting

26th Febuary 2018 10am - Special Meeting

 

29th March 2018 10am

Minutes:

29th March 2018 at 10am