Agenda and minutes

None

Scrutiny Committee Public Open Forum ~ Guidance

Our Scrutiny Committee meetings are live streamed and a link to the live stream will be available on the meeting page of the Monmouthshire County Council website

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The deadline for submitting representations to the Council is 5pm three clear working days in advance of the meeting. 

If representations received exceed 30 minutes, a selection of these based on theme will be shared at the Scrutiny Committee meeting.  All representations received will be made available to councillors prior to the meeting.

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To discuss learning following the impact of the pandemic and how we prepare for a future one, following publication of the revised Outbreak Control Plan Wales

Cabinet Member Paul Griffiths and Dave Jones introduced the report and answered the members’ questions with Jane Rodgers, Louise Driscoll and Alun Thomas. 

Key Points raised by Members: 

·        To note for residents that the LRF is the Local Resilience Forum, it’s important that residents understand that this forum is ongoing to ensure the county is kept safe, for any particular development that might bring about risk, not just about the pandemic. 

·        This report is, understandably, from an Environmental Health perspective, but the committee also asked about a review of what happened to the rest of the staff: when staff went away for Test & Trace, how everyone managed; how people coped with working from home i.e. impact on the council of the pandemic and what was done in finer detail? Will there be another report covering this, and what would be done differently?– ACTION: discuss whether a further report can be done that incorporates learning from all directorates combined 

·        Councillor Bond previously sent a tool for a Before Action Review and review – will that follow? – ACTION: Councillor Bond to resend 

·        The Integrated Impact Assessment is very important, as it needs to be written down what was done, how ethnic minorities and more vulnerable people were thought about, etc. – if it’s not written down then it could be forgotten. 

·        What was the involvement of elected members and Cabinet, and is there any learning coming out of that as to what could be done better? 

·        How were changes managed and the ability to ensure that Cabinet members, the Leader and all members were properly informed? How would that work in terms of a post-Covid recovery plan? 

·        It seems that non-pandemic issues that wereaffected by the pandemic in some cases began to test some of the relationships and some of the decision making – was that the case? 

·        Councillor Murphy provided a Cabinet perspective from the period: Peter Davies and he had weekly briefing sessions and contact in some form 7 days a week. A great deal of information was exchanged, and although officers naturally took the lead in the specific operations Councillor Murphy felt he always knew what was going on, and his opinion was sought on things. He was very impressed by how the various agencies linked together. 

·        Councillor Murphy observed that where the system broke down was that initially all of the public followed the rules, then frustration kicked in and an unwillingness to follow the rules began to set in. Departments were affected, in that internal audit and Monlife disappeared, and an important part of the strategy was to furlough as few people as possible and move them into other operations. One of the best things that was done was the introduction of the Cwtch, for staff to come together online to share their frustrations and be kept  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

To include a piece on future planning, incorporating reviews from teams, to bring back to the committee, as discussed today. – ACTION

The minutes were confirmed.