Issue - meetings

The Board considered the Improvement Plan Exception Report as at 30th September 2009.

During the discussion Members paid particular attention to CP1: Town Centre and in particular 1.4.6 Establish Proposed Civic Centre Study Group and commented that this needed to be monitored as the regeneration of the town centre as a whole was an important issue.  The Assistant Chief Executive confirmed he would contact the Executive Director (Partnerships & Projects) and relevant Portfolio Holder to request a project plan/timeline for discussion at the next meeting.  It was also confirmed that the New Council House Accommodation was on the Overview & Scrutiny Work Programme for 2010/11 and that the Economic Regeneration Policy was on the current Work Programme of the Scrutiny Board, and would be investigated further in early 2010.

The Assistant Chief Executive also drew Members’ attention to item 1.5 Train Station and confirmed that Worcestershire County Council continued to work with Network Rail, the current design was not sustainable and there was a shortfall in the funding available.   The Assistant Chief Executive confirmed he would contact County to establish the current position and report back to the next meeting.

In relation to FP1: Managing Finances (including Value for Money) Item 5.2.8 Deliver Use of resources action plan in relation to new framework.  Management Performance under CAA would be published on 10th December and would be included for discussion at a subsequent meeting.

Members questioned the need under PR4: Improving Partnership Working item 12.3.1 and the Assistant Chief Executive confirmed that the Council did not have a formal grants policy and a corporate policy was needed to clarify the Council’s position.

Members were concerned to note that under HR & OD3: Positive Employee Climate, item 16.4.1 delivery of employee health and wellbeing programme, had been cancelled due to room availability.  This was felt to be unacceptable and the Assistant Chief Executive advised that he would check to see that the programme had been put in place and that this situation did not happen again.

RESOLVED:

(a)               that the revisions to the Improvement Plan Exception report together with the corrective action being taken be noted;

(b)               that it be noted that for the 104 actions highlighted for September within the plan 76% of the Improvement Plan was on target (green), 8.7% is one month behind (amber) and 3.8% is over one month behind (red).  11.5% of actions have been reprogrammed or suspended with approval.