Agenda item - Overview and Scrutiny Board Work Programme

Agenda item

Overview and Scrutiny Board Work Programme

Minutes:

A number of updates were provided in respect of the Overview and Scrutiny Board’s Work Programme.

 

a)        West Midlands Scrutiny Network

 

Councillor K. J. May explained that she had attended the latest meeting of the West Midlands Regional Scrutiny Network in Sandwell on 23rd October 2015. 

 

During the meeting training had been delivered by John Cade from the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV), University of Birmingham, concerning best practice in scrutiny work programming.  He had suggested that Members should consider the following when determining whether to launch a review:

 

·         Public interest in the subject and whether it would address the concerns of local people.

·         Ability to change and whether a scrutiny review could realistically influence that change.

·         Performance, prioritising reviews of poorly performing Council services as well as relevant partner’s services.

·         Extent, in terms of the relevance of the subject to the whole district.  Good scrutiny should not focus on issues of particular concern to a single Member’s ward.

·         Replication, to make sure that a review would not duplicate work that was being conducted by other Council staff or partners.

 

An update had also been provided on the subject of Combined Authorities and scrutiny arrangements in this environment.

 

b)        Performance Measures Dashboard

 

The Chairman commented that a computer had recently been installed in the Members’ Room to enable Members to access the corporate dashboard.  To enable Members to use the data provided on the dashboard to facilitate effective scrutiny the Chairman suggested that it would be useful to invite officers to attend a future meeting of the Board to deliver a presentation on this subject.  This presentation could address the background to the dashboard and provide an explanation of the measures on the dashboard and how these were identified.

 

c)         Recommendation Tracking

 

Members discussed progress with the implementation of recommendations that had been made by scrutiny Task Groups in recent years.  It was commented that Members were keen to receive updates on this work to ensure that the findings of reviews were not ignored and particular concern was raised about the impact of the recommendations that had been made by the Youth Services Provision Task Group.

 

Officers explained that the Board received a scrutiny tracker report on a quarterly basis, with the next edition due at the end of the calendar year.  Recommendations remained on the tracker until they had been implemented.  In addition, updates were provided in respect of specific Task Group recommendations approximately a year after the review had concluded.

 

There was general consensus that it would be useful, particularly following Worcestershire County Council’s recent agreement to change their funding for positive activities, to reconsider the findings of the Youth Services Provision Task Group.  Following circulation of the report for the consideration of Members it was possible that additional areas might be identified as being suitable for further scrutiny.

 

d)        General Work Programme Issues

 

Officers confirmed that the updates on Burcot Lodge Emergency Homeless Unit, which had been requested during the meeting, would be incorporated into the Work Programme.

 

RESOLVED that

 

(1)       The Head of Business Transformation and Organisational Development and Policy Manager be invited to attend a meeting to deliver a presentation on the subject of the measures dashboard;

(2)       the Board’s Work Programme be noted.

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