Issue - meetings

Report of the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny

The Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (O&S), was pleased to present the 2019/20 Annual Report for O&S.  He very much enjoyed his role as Chair and thanked members for approaching the work of the committee in a non-political way.  He thanked officers for their support and took the opportunity to thank Councillors Parsons and Wilkinson, who had sat on the committee during the period the report covered, and welcomed Councillors Britter and Horwood, who he looked forward to working with in the future. 

Over the last 12 months, the committee had been striving to make the committee meetings more effective and efficient and as part of this, guests were expected to produce a report in advance and permitted only 5 minutes to provide an overview of highlights as way of introduction, with the rest of the allotted time dedicated to question and answers; this was undoubtedly a working progress, but he felt that progress was good.  The most significant aspect of the 2019/20 report was the review that had been undertaken by Campbell Tickell, which had been searching and unafraid of asking challenging questions.  All of the recommendations had been accepted by O&S and the most important for him personally, was the recommendation that O&S should focus its time and resources on issues where Cheltenham Borough Council could control or influence the outcome, and the committee had been looking to do this; and would continue to adopt this approach going forward. 

There were no questions.

Councillor Wilkinson reflected on his time on the committee, which had proved more effective and efficient of late, having in his opinion, become far too parochial in the past, which was not where he felt scrutiny ought to be.  He echoed the comments of the Chair in relation to the committee being non-political and felt that Councillor Mason demonstrated the value of opposition led scrutiny, commending his ability to hold people to account.  He felt that Members should be proud of scrutiny at Cheltenham Borough Council and hoped that the Campbell Tickell recommendations would further inform and improve process and outcomes.

As the previous vice-chair of O&S, Councillor Sudbury thanked Councillors Mason and Payne for their support, she had enjoyed the role and wished Councillor Horwood luck.

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED THAT

the Annual Report of Overview and Scrutiny (2019/20) be noted.