Agenda and minutes

No apologies had been received.

No interests were declared.

12 January 2015

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 12 January be agreed and signed as an accurate record.

None had been received.

No matters had been referred to the committee.

Gloucestershire Health Community and Care O&S Committee / Gloucestershire Economic Growth O&S Committee – verbal update from Councillor Clucas

Police and Crime Panel (5 Feb)   - verbal update from Councillor Murch

Councillor Clucas attended as the representative on the Health Community and Care and Economic Growth O&S Committees.  She talked through an update (Appendix A) and gave the following responses to member questions;

·         The concern about bringing together a number of disciplines had been raised but the HOSC had been reassured that lessons had been learnt in relation to how to manage a core discipline team, with each one committed to working together and understanding the main objectives. 

·         The case of Greater Manchester gaining control of health and social care and the estimated £6bn NHS budget had arisen between meetings of the HOSC so this particular issue had not been discussed, but she would be raising it tomorrow and agreed with the suggestion that a watching brief should be maintained.

·         The figures presented on alcohol related harm were linked to respiratory disease so there was no detail as to what form this had taken.  She would ask the question.

·         She did not have details of A&E waiting times other than those referred to in her update but this covered the Christmas period and therefore did not offer an accurate representation.  She would ask for these figures.

·         Doctors were being recruited from India and assurances had been given that these were well trained Doctors who could speak a good level of English.  No applications had been received for the positions of District Nurses. 

The Chairman explained that the NHS Trust had been invited to make a presentation on their vision for the future of the hospital in Cheltenham including (but not limited to) the future of the accident and emergency facility.  Andrew North had written on behalf of the committee but the Trust had declined the invitation on the grounds that they felt that they were not in a position to do so at this time and that the statutory responsibility for scrutiny of the Trust sat at County level.   Whilst he accepted that this could possibly be a politically difficult time, he had asked Andrew North to express his disappointment that they had declined the invitation.  Members echoed the Chairman’s disappointment and expressed their hope that the Trust reconsider, as they felt that there were legitimate reasons for wanting to speak to them, not least because they were a large scale employer within the town.   

Councillor Murch circulated an update on the 5 February meeting of the Police and Crime Panel (Appendix B) and talked through some key points.  There were no questions.    

Councillor Jordan, the Leader, referred members to the briefing which had been circulated with the agenda.  In addition to his briefing he explained that the Joint Core Strategy presented the opportunity to look at economic development at a JCS wide level.  He felt that Cheltenham was already doing good work in this area and reminded members about the seminar which had been arranged for the 16 March, adding that Mike Redman, Director of Environmental and Regulatory Services, would be producing a briefing after the seminar which would outline any priorities and reiterated that this was separate to the local plan.

He provided the following responses to member questions;

·         Winning a referendum on two areas (more than 50% of votes cast must be in favour of the BID and the positive vote must represent more than 50% of the rateable value of the votes cast) was required in order to have a Business Improvement District.  Any area of the town, with no limit to the boundaries would be defined where a higher rate would be charged in order that a particular improvement could be made.  This was entirely dependent on the businesses in the area and whilst Boots were very supportive, other businesses were less so.  The Leader was of the opinion that it would take a few years to build up to a referendum. 

·         It had not been considered sensible to appoint someone (the Business Improvement District Manager) to a permanent position at this time, given that this was an evolving process and therefore an evolving post. 

·         Whilst the operational side of tourism had transferred to the Trust, the council had maintained responsibility from a strategic standpoint. 

The Chairman welcomed the formation of the Tourism Forum and was pleased to note that their input would be reflected in the strategy. 

Cemetery and Crematorium – Ken Dale

(Members to consider the PID and decide how and when they want to scrutinise the project)

Ken Dale, the Business Development Manager, introduced the Project Initiation Document for the Cemetery and Crematorium, which was an important issue for the Council.  As background to the issue, he explained that the previous project relating to the cemetery and crematorium had been reviewed by a scrutiny task group, who had made a number of recommendations which were noted by Cabinet.  Subsequently, a Cabinet Member Working Group was established to look at the longer term issues and its membership included a number of members who had been involved in the scrutiny task group.  To date the working group had been involved in reviewing the brief and the process for appointing the consultant, had received regular updates on operational issues and advised on how any consultation should be approached.  There were two strands to the project.  The immediate focus had been on stabilising the current operational situation.  Some positive work had been done and whilst there were still some associated risks, progress had been good.  The second strand was the feasibility study.  The selection of a consultant had been concluded and a consultant had been appointed, details of which would soon be shared with members. 

The Chairman felt that there were two conclusions that would need to be reached by the committee as a result of any discussions; what scrutiny needed to be undertaken on this project, if any, and how did members want to deal with PIDs in the future. 

The Business Development Manager provided the following responses to member questions;

•    Consideration was given to whether an options appraisal of the service delivery model was required but priority, at this time, was given to stabilising the facilities and agreeing the approach to their future development. The REST project was running concurrently and the cemetery and crematorium fell within this review. 

•    The Operational Programmes Board (OPB) was in fact the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) rather than it being another term for the Project Board, which included the Cabinet Member.  Any verbal updates provided to Executive Board were merely a supplement to the written reports which were produced for the OPB (SLT) every 4 weeks and which were also considered by the Project Board.

•    The Project Board had a defined role for providing assurance, currently filled by Bryan Parsons, the Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer. OPB (SLT) and the Cabinet Member Working Group were also able to support the assurance process by asking critical questions.

•    There was an overall time and budgetary constraint, which was set out in the Project Brief and a report would be tabled with the Project Board should any increase be required at any time.  This approach had been adopted rather than having any tolerances of 10% or otherwise.

•    The initial procurement process had taken longer than anticipated, though a consultant would soon be appointed.  Once the appointment was made, the timeline would be revisited and revised as necessary, but there was still an expectation that the feasibility study would be concluded  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Discussion paper by the Strategy and Engagement Officer

(consider the draft strategy and comment as necessary)

Richard Gibson, the Strategy and Engagement Manager, introduced the draft Corporate Strategy 2015-16 action plan.  He referred members to item 4 of the discussion paper which posed a set of questions for the committee and advised those members that had not been involved in the process before, that this was their opportunity to provide input before it went to Council on 30th March for approval.  This was an important document which set out a priority list of actions for 2015-16 and a performance framework of milestones and measures.  The current strategy formed part of a five year plan which has now come to an end and this was seen as an opportunity to start afresh and reduce the number of outcomes from nine to four.  The document includes background information, which sets out what the council wants to achieve and why, as well as who was responsible for delivery and measuring range of direct service measures and outcome measures. 

The Strategy and Engagement Manager and the Leader of the Council gave the following responses to member questions;

•   There are no specific actions identified for improving air quality.  He would consider whether there was anything that could be captured but not everything could be included and it was more than likely that this was covered in the Local Transport Plan.

•   The sections on measuring performance will be updated before Council.  It was likely that most of this information was already in the system.  The council would not be doing a piece of work in an area where a positive difference could not be achieved. 

•   The context section of ‘Cheltenham’s environmental quality and heritage is protected, maintained and enhanced’ would be amended to include a reference to the areas designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

•   This corporate strategy only covers a period of 12 months, given the current position in relation to 2020 vision and the upcoming general election, etc, but the vision statement was longer term. 

•   The corporate strategy does not include everything that the council is doing.  It focuses on the key projects and activities where we are intensifying our activity to deliver the outcomes.  

•   CBC has committed itself to place-making, as it has a democratic responsibility to try and influence those that that can help deliver better outcomes for residents of Cheltenham.

•   The corporate strategy, JCS, Local Plan and Tourism Plan needed to mesh together and present a coherent message for Cheltenham. 

•   The reference to reducing the demand for social prescribing related to patients presenting at GP surgeries with non-medical needs (housing, financial, legal issues, etc) and being referred onto the relevant providers.  A group of providers had been bought together and this approach will be evaluated as part of a county-wide evaluation of different models. 

A member felt that the vision statement should describe what sort of place we wanted Cheltenham to be rather than how we wanted to act.  He felt that this was a missed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Report of the Cabinet Member Corporate Services – an opportunity for O&S to comment on the report before it goes to Cabinet on 17 March 2015.

Councillor Walklett, the Cabinet Member Corporate Services, explained that it was a requirement of the council’s connection to the Public Services Network, that there be an Information Security Policy in place.  Since the formation of the shared service with Forest of Dean District Council work had been ongoing to develop a Joint Information Security Policy and this had recently been adopted by the FoDDC.  The policy would be tabled for adoption at Cabinet on the 17 March and this was an opportunity for O&S to make comments as necessary.  The risk of not adopting the policy was that this would represent a failure to comply with the Data Protection legislation, which would in turn, put the PSN at risk.

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services, along with Bryan Parsons, the Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer and Rachel McKinnon, the Business Relationships Manager, gave the following responses to member questions;

•   The impact of the risks outlined in the risk register of the report, were assessed against the scorecard, which took account of a number of factors and whilst this was subjective, he reassured members that 3 was an appropriate score.  A detailed risk assessment was undertaken as part of the PSN process, which resulted in 200 plus pages and a large amount of mitigation had resulted in a lower score.  He was happy to meet with members, as he had when this was originally discussed with the ICT Working Group some two years ago to explain the rational. 

•   ICT were not involved with physical security of the CBC buildings beyond the issue and management of the swipe access control cards.  Staff were regularly reminded that they should prevent tailgating and challenge anyone not displaying their ID/access card.

•   Staff that were not based here and/or worked for other organisations (Ubico, Trust, etc) but who were here on a regular basis (1-2 times a week at least) would be issued with an access card.  Those that accessed the building less than this would be issued with a visitor access card or escorted around the building by a member of staff.

•   The Police had raised their risk level to severe and there were ongoing security discussions about what could be done to help protect them.  At the moment 22 police officers had been issued with access cards and these were cancelled and reissued as necessary. 

•   The ICT Shared Services is the lead organisation responsible for the production of and compliance with the policy which applies to all ICT users on the network.  Any employee non-compliance would be reported to the Joint Security Working Group and HR or the Standards Committee if this resulted in a breach by Members’. 

•   Each partner organisation was responsible for ensuring compliance with the policy and in particular the appendix that related to their own local arrangements, PSN access would be withdrawn if they were not compliant.  The use of ICT partners had actually reduced the risk to this council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

The Democracy Officer provided an update on the progress of each of the task groups. 

The Cheltenham Spa Railway STG were scheduled to meet with representatives of National Rail and First Great Western early in March, with the aim of getting feedback on the Western Route Study submission which was made by the Council.  The group then planned to look at transport links to and from the station before starting to draft their final report.  They would be involving the relevant Cabinet Member and envisaged being in a position to table the report with O&S in June or July. 

The Cycling and Walking task group continued to meet on a monthly basis to work through their work programme and currently anticipated that their final report would be tabled at the June meeting of the committee.  Councillor Wilkinson, as Chairman of the task group, advised members that good progress was being made, with the group having met with a number of people including Chris Riley from Gloucestershire Highways Agency.   

The recommendations of the Public Art Governance task group, which were agreed at the last meeting of the committee, were noted by Cabinet on the 10 February.  A further report would be taken back to Cabinet on the 17 March and a review by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had been scheduled on the committee work plan for February 2016. 

The recommendations of the Members’ ICT policy task group were noted by Cabinet at their February meeting.  A further Cabinet report was as yet to be scheduled on the forward plan and a review had been scheduled on O&S committee work plan for February 2016.

The Democracy Officer referred members to the work plan which had been circulated with the agenda.

She explained that dates of meetings beyond June 2015 would be agreed at Council in March and would then be added to the work plan.  Upcoming items had been added to the ‘items for future meetings’ section and the work plan would be populated in due course.

Members were advised that should an all-member seminar be arranged regarding shared services, as was currently being discussed, then the 2020 presentation from the Chief Executive would likely be cancelled. 

27 April 2015

The next meeting was scheduled for the 7 April 2015. 

·         Race week arrangements

The information contained within the briefing note was for information only and not for discussion but members were reminded that they should contact the relevant Officer directly with any comments or queries.