Agenda and minutes

Grahame Lewis, Strategic Director and Lead Officer had given his apologies and Jane Griffiths, Assistant Chief Executive was attending in his place.

The Chairman advised Members that the Art Gallery and Museum Development Scheme Update (formerly agenda item 10) had been deferred as the relevant Officer had been taken ill.  Revised agendas had been circulated and this item would be rescheduled on the work plan.

Councillors Walklett and Driver declared a personal and prejudicial interest in agenda item 9 (St. Pauls Regeneration Update) as CBH Board Members.

The minutes of the last meeting had been circulated with the agenda.

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on the 10 January 2011 be agreed and signed as an accurate record.

None received.

The Chairman highlighted the decision by Council for the continuation of the Budget Working Group with existing membership, which included committee members Councillors Smith and Walklett.  The committee were happy with this proposal.

Cabinet Member Corporate Services

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services hoped all members had taken the opportunity to read his email dated the 22 February 2011, in which he had outlined the current position of the Council in its move to become a strategic commissioning authority.

A members working group had been established some time ago and was originally tasked with assessing the rationale behind the move to strategic commissioning. 

In December 2010 Council agreed the move to strategic commissioning and associated changes to the Council structures.

The working group were now focussing on member roles and he was attending the meeting in this instance to seek the views and comments of the committee on who should be involved, when and how.

He was confident that this was an opportunity to enhance the role of all members.  Commissioning required knowledge of needs of the community and members had a role in feeding back from their wards, constituents and the town in general. 

The relevant Cabinet Member(s) would sit on the Programme Board for each commissioning exercise and maintain a dialogue with all Councillors to ensure that they were all fully engaged.  He was also keen to see Cabinet Working Groups established to support these reviews.

Whilst Cabinet Members were accountable, Overview & Scrutiny (O&S) had a role in monitoring services and ensuring the outcomes were being delivered. 

Establishing member roles and a way of approaching commissioning exercises with which all members were comfortable was crucial.  No decisions had yet been made, it was an evolving process and as such he urged members to respond to his email. 

The working group had discussed the current three committee O&S structure and whether this was the right way forward and whether there was an opportunity to change the structure, though it was not for Cabinet to decide how scrutiny was organised.  The County had a different model for O&S, elements of which could be used. 

Working groups were focussed, interesting and could prove more effective, enabling more open dialogue on options.  The Budget Working Group could prove a useful example.

The Chairman felt that it was important to maintain an open dialogue and challenged all members to respond to the email from the Cabinet Member Corporate Services.   He suggested that co-optees would offer valuable insight and asked that they be sent a copy of the email. 

He assured members that this was merely an introduction to strategic commissioning and more detail would be provided next time.  The next few months would be important in establishing a successful process of member involvement. 

A member raised the importance of transparency in the decision making process when the Council commissioned services.

With reference to the future O&S structure he considered that working groups of interested and knowledgeable members for specific topics would be a sensible approach. 

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services suggested that Cabinet Members would approach all members to express an interest and tease out a manageable sized group.  Given that members would be expected  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Cabinet Member Housing and Safety

Cabinet Member Sport and Culture

The Cabinet Member Housing and Safety had attended a meeting of the Supporting People Board at which the strategy had been approved.  This was a very high level strategy and she had been pleased to see that some of the comments made by the committee had been taken on board.   The budget had been affected and whilst it had proved manageable, there would be changes to the service as a result.  She was able to provide a budget summary on request which was difficult to understand in isolation but it did detail funding to specific client groups.

A small group from the Children and Young Peoples Partnership had been looking at the Councils allocation of £50k for youth work in the borough and it was now appropriate to include those members of the committee who had expressed an interest in further involvement, Councillors Coleman, Teakle, Driver and co-optee Karl Hemming.   The difficulty that needed to be overcome was that the County Council had stipulated that their £50k was for activities alone, not youth workers, but CBC were not in a position to fund this with their £50k as this would not be sustainable.  Members were referred to the ‘Ageing Well Strategy Consultation’ briefing note which had been circulated prior to the meeting and invited nominations for membership on the task and finish group that would inform the Council’s response.  Those that were interested would need to be available to meet in the coming weeks.  She invited other members to highlight specific issues or priorities.  The Chairman confirmed that the Mayor, Councillor Regan and Councillors Flynn, R. Hay and Seacome had indicated that they were interested in being involved in further discussion of this matter.  The committee were happy with the proposed membership.

Anti-social behaviour would be discussed in more detail later on the agenda.  However, Best Bar None, a national scheme of incentives and awards for licensed premises having met best practice would be launched by the Mayor on Friday (5 March).  The Government were consulting on Anti-Social Behaviour and the consultation would close on Thursday (4 March) and she would circulate a link outside of the meeting. 

The Cabinet Member Housing and Safety gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• The £50k County and CBC funding for youth work would not fund youth workers.
• The County Council were being prescriptive about how the £50k should be spent in that they had stipulated it should fund activities only, no staff costs, along similar lines as the ‘Places to go, things to do’ funding which provided funding to existing groups.  This funding would not be available until July 2011.

The Cabinet Member Sport and Culture explained that the review of Leisure Services was a three stage process;

1. Assessing what services were provided at the moment.
2. Establishing what services the council wanted to deliver.
3. Deciding the best way of delivering the services of choice.

Currently on stage one, the systems thinking approach had been taken to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Discussion paper of Policy and Partnerships Manager

The Policy and Partnerships Manager introduced the report as circulated with the agenda.

The objective and outcomes framework had been retained, though as the council’s budget had reduced by nearly £3m from last year and the scale of activity had reduced with 14 less improvement actions.

Members would not be surprised by the improvement actions as 11 had been retained from the previous year.  Item 3.1 of the report set out the outcomes that were directly applicable to the work of the committee.

Government had lifted the national indicator set which had been welcomed as it presented an opportunity to reflect on indicators used to measure corporate performance and choose new indicators which could be more meaningful. 

To ensure that the formal views of the members were captured the draft strategy would be considered by all three overview and scrutiny committees, before going to Cabinet on the 15 March and then to Council on the 28 March for final approval. 

Feedback from the O&S committees would be included in the final report or in a verbal update from the Leader.

The following responses were given by the Policy and Partnerships Manager to questions from members of the committee;

·        The performance indicator for the number of new dwellings started could be a useful monitoring indicator rather than a direct service indicator.

·        All six districts were working to review the Service Level Agreement with Gloucestershire First and they in turn were reviewing their action plan and scaling back given the reduction in members of staff.  Districts were assessing what needed to be done at a local and county level and Cheltenham still had 2.5 members of staff, though 1 would soon be on maternity leave.  Were there to be any changes to the current arrangements, the outcome would be amended accordingly.

·        Executive Board were reviewing all frozen posts and considering whether recruitment was necessary.  Assistant Directors were looking at this within each of their divisions.  Work was ongoing with Human Resources with reference to workforce development going forward.

·        When a vacancy arose the relevant service manager would complete a form detailing why the post needed to be filled, how it contributed to the corporate strategies, etc and would identify alternative options.  Executive Board would consider the request and may challenge the service manager to provide more information.   

·        The proposed indicator for measuring ‘residents sense of community and their involvement in resolving local issues’ by the number of VCS organisations supported by the Council that have gone onto deliver former public services was limited.  Previously there had been 5 indicators from the Place Survey and officers had struggled to establish alternative indicators but were happy to take alternative suggestions from the members of the committee.

The Chairman thanked the Policy and Partnerships Manager for his attendance and suggested that members raise further concerns and comments between now and the Cabinet meeting on the 15 March.

Presentation by Head of Regeneration and Housing Support Services – Cheltenham Borough Homes

The Assistant Chief Executive and Head of Housing Support Services, Cheltenham Borough Homes, introduced a PowerPoint presentation (available on request from Democratic Services). 

The Assistant Chief Executive had come before the committee in the past and considered this to be a good news story. 

The process had been challenging for CBH as an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) of the Council, Housing Associations had done development but for an ALMO this was new ground.  The development was very much a partnership undertaking with the Council having provided Officer, financial and legal support. 

The urban design by Nash Partnership was developed into a large scale planning submission which was approved in December 2009 with no objections, which had been a pleasant surprise to all.

CBH undertook a tender exercise for the construction contract, in which residents were involved and subsequently, Wates Construction had been successful.  Wates had agreed to appoint a Tenant Liaison Officer and had a proven track record of developing communities.

The final plans had required a vast range of design and planning and large amount of community consultation, which had proved invaluable in ensuring that CBH took the community with them.  This in turn had resulted in there having been no protests or complaints to date.

A technicality in the process was the grant agreement with the HCA, for which complex legal arrangements had been necessary.  Collectively it equated to a large financial package which had been eased by the free transfer of land to CBH by CBC. 

Organising the necessary road closures was always going to be an issue and whilst these were still being negotiated, it was hoped that they would be finalised soon.  It was highlighted that no objections had been received. 

The Assistant Chief Executive outlined the 2011 programme of works.  He also detailed some of the outcomes that would be achieved, which included transformational improvements to the retained stock, which would be run as a separate contract by the same contractor. 

The committee were shown a computer image of what would be achieved and were reminded that the build would be at level 4 of sustainable homes standards, making them energy efficient and therefore more cost efficient for future residents.

The community regeneration aspect had been helped by the formation of the ‘Heart of St. Pauls Association’ and the ongoing success of the Community House on Folly Lane which was fully utilised by residents.  This would remain open until the purpose built facility was complete. 

Child poverty was an issue in the St. Pauls with levels of deprivation some of the highest in the Country.  To get some of these families actively involved in the project had required family liaison.

Employment Initiatives had been especially successful in combating anti-social behaviour in the area, one man in particular had secured work with a contractor following a period working for CBH.

A testament to the success in St. Pauls was that at one point there were large scale voids in the area,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Cheltenham Community Safety Partnership (Chair of Partnership, Partnership Officer and Community Protection Manager)

Gloucestershire Police Authority (Police Authority Representative)

County Safer Communities O&S Committee (Councillor Helena McCloskey)

Rosi Shepherd, the Chair of the Cheltenham Community Safety Partnership (CCSP), along with Helen Down the Partnerships Officer and Trevor Gladding the Community Protection Manager introduced themselves to the committee. 

The Partnerships Officer explained that CCSP was statutory, each of the six districts had one and all fed into the county partnership.  The CCSP sat under the Cheltenham Strategic Partnership and consisted of 7 statutory partners.

The aim of the CCSP was to reduce crime, anti-social behaviour (ASB) and fear of crime. 

The priorities of the CCSP were set annually in an action plan and worked was delivered through action groups on ongoing issues (substance misuse, domestic abuse, hate crime, ASB) and a range of partners were involved in each. 

The CCSP also had to be responsive to crime trends.  Crime in Cheltenham was down by 8% on last year, the partnership had set a target reduction of 17.5% by April 2008, which was achieved eventually and had continued to fall since then.

For some time the partnership had focussed activities on reducing crimes linked to the night time economy, mainly assaults.  This included initiatives such as the taxi marshals, Best Bar None and street pastors which was launched at the end of 2009.  The result was a 31% reduction in assaults by the end of 2009-2010 and alcohol related crime was down by 16% this Christmas compared to last and was lower in Cheltenham than Stroud.

Last year domestic and shed/garage burglaries linked to cycle thefts was the main problem in Cheltenham and the partnership supported various strands of work to stop domestic burglary.  This remained a priority for the partnership and the Police had asked for help in organising a conference.

In terms of challenges ahead, the uncertainty about future funding was the main issue.  Since the paper had been circulated it had been announced that the County Council would receive £580k of un-ring fenced money for community safety from the Home Office.  It was hoped that some of this would be passed on to the district councils but emphasis was given to the fact that this was not ring fenced to community safety. 

Despite this, the partners had agreed a series of actions for 2011-12, which included the implementation of the Cardiff A&E model for violence prevention in Cheltenham. 

The Chair of the CCSP highlighted that the key to addressing domestic burglaries was ensuring good communication with residents on how to manage risk to their homes. 

The Community Protection Manager offered the perspective of his area of work.  CBC had benefited from a good relationship with the Police since the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act.

Cheltenham was the first district to have a full time Police Officer sited in the CBC Anti-Social Behaviour Team, he was confident that this would expand in the future given that the Superintendent of Cheltenham accepted the need to work in Partnership.

The days of working in silos were long gone, but this had not happened over night  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

The Chairman referred members to the work plan as circulated with the agenda. 

Given that the Art Gallery & Museum Development Scheme and Leisure & Culture Commissioning Review updates had been scheduled for the next meeting (9 May), some of the items currently scheduled on the work plan would need to be rescheduled. 

The Chair and Vice-Chair would agree the agenda for the next meeting on the 31 March, at which point work would start on the draft 2011-2012 work plan. 

This would be presented to members at the next meeting of the committee for approval.

In the meantime, members were invited to contact the Democracy Officer with details of any items of interest to be added to the work plan. 

Councillor Driver suggested that she would be in a position to provide a Youth Café update earlier than was proposed on the work plan given that it would be opening sooner than originally thought.  This would be considered at the Chairs Briefing.

There were no urgent items for discussion. 

9 May 2011

The next meeting was scheduled for the 9 May 2011.