Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: This will be an informal, online meeting.

Contact: Candida Mckelvey, Democratic Services Officer  tel: 07895 213820 Email: candida.mckelvey@southandvale.gov.uk

Note: This is a virtual meeting - you can watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTj2pCic8vzucpzIaSWE3UQ This is an informal meeting of scrutiny members to review items that are non-statutory or for internal consideration. Please see the agenda documents above for full details. 

Items
No. Item

9.

Declarations of interest

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting. 

 

Minutes:

None.

10.

Urgent business and chair's announcements

To receive notification of any matters which the chair determines should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chair. 

Minutes:

Chair ran through meeting procedure for this informal, virtual meeting.

11.

Public participation

To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak. 

12.

Work schedule and dates for all South scrutiny meetings pdf icon PDF 184 KB

To review the attached scrutiny work schedule. Please note, although the dates are confirmed, the items under consideration are subject to being withdrawn, added to or rearranged without further notice.

 

Minutes:

Chair is keeping the task and finish group on green grants and home retrofitting skills on the work programme. The grants have been withdrawn but there may be future opportunities. Cllr Casey-Rerhaye explained that this will continue, joint scrutiny were keen to continue investigating this topic, lessons can be learned from green grants and some interesting meetings have already been held (for example, with OxLEP). Officers intend to write a report on this in due course.

There was no specific date to update the committee on the green grants task and finish joint scrutiny group.

 

Cllr. Turner asked whether quarterly report dates will be given for performance management framework? Officer explained that these would be added after the Cabinet report is presented to Cabinet. More detail will be provided in the agenda item this evening.

 

Committee members were informed that they will be informed of meeting format as soon as possible (formal/informal).

 

Chair was keen to keep the flooding roles and responsibilities item on the agenda, starting with an all councillor briefing on the matter. Concerns are to be fleshed out and then the committee can focus appropriately.

 

The work programme is kept under review by senior management team. Any concerns over readiness of reports (scheduled in the work programme) will be escalated to scrutiny chairs.

13.

Performance management framework and year 1 corporate delivery plan pdf icon PDF 231 KB

To review a Cabinet report outlining the council’s performance management framework, and to consider the year 1 corporate delivery plan and associated performance metrics. For scrutiny members to provide comments to the Cabinet member for Corporate Services.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Cabinet member for corporate services, Councillor Andrea Powell, introduced the report. Comments were welcomed on this item.

The planned new structured approach to performance management will ensure we can monitor progress on objectives with openness and accountability (a council commitment). We can focus our limited resources on areas needed or deemed a corporate priority and report with transparency. We may adjust activities in light of results.

·       Corporate plan is the strategic context.

·       Priority projects in the plan provide the operational parameters

·       SMT and Cabinet have been working to populate the year one delivery programme, and to identify appropriate measures and to ensure that the service teams are putting work plans in place and are engaged in the process.

4 components to the report presented:

·       Paper to introduce the plan – context for the framework and year one delivery plan.

·       Draft framework - Approach, reporting timelines, the way in which applied at all levels – to ensure cohesion and accountability

·       Year one delivery plan – measures applied to projects, frequency of reporting and ownership.

·       Interim performance report – since October 2020. Work achieved so far in qualitative and quantitative measures.

 

Focus of this meeting is on process not framework content – how do we roll out and monitor success?

Cabinet member recognised the number of staff involved and the ownership. We won’t be burdening officers with too much monitoring that would negatively affect delivery.

Statutory and operational KPIs will still continue to be collected but are outside of this framework.

 

Comments made as follows:

·       Congratulations given on the work done.

·       Inclusion and diversity – felt the report was more accessible. Diversity communications plan is being developed.

·       Page 8 in the meeting pack – list of points, ranking based on a survey, it was discussed whether the quantitative values used could be shown. It was answered that the data is found in the published public engagement survey results. Other members felt that more quantitative data is not needed, but some clarification / context of the different priorities per council could be useful.

·       Page 9 – service teams setting goals – what is sign off procedure for goals? Cabinet members will be briefed on teams work.

·       Year one measures – how are all the different areas working on a priority pulled together and reported on, and how will it be scrutinised? E.g. delivery of new council homes. It was answered that there will be a headline report for each theme. Then the separate projects will be reported on. We are always looking to improve processes, and we may find technologies to support this, so you can drill down to specifics.

·       Will a diversity and inclusion champion be established? It was responded that the inclusion and diversity strategy is to be progressed, and adaptation of measures will happen as this progresses. Reference made to 0A3.

·       Mix of narrative and quantitative data provided and well explained. Well written report.

·       New measures will be used to define success and these will adapt as we progress, as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

 

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