Agenda and minutes

Councillors McCloskey and Wilkinson

Councillors McCloskey, Wilkinson, Britter and Holliday had given their apologies.  Councillors Reid and Barnes substituted for Councillors McCloskey and Wilkinson respectively. 

No interests were declared.   

29 June 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 29 June be agreed and signed as an accurate record.

None had been received.

No matters had been referred to the committee.

Police and Crime Panel (16 July 2015)   - update from Councillor McCloskey attached.

Health Community and Care O&S Committee / Economic Development Scrutiny Committee – update from Councillor Clucas attached

Councillor McCloskey had given her apologies and as such, an update on the Police and Crime Panel had been circulated with the agenda.

A written update on the Economic Development and Health and Care scrutiny committees had been provided by Councillor Clucas and circulated with the agenda.

Members were asked to contact the relevant member with any queries or comments.

A verbal update from the Cabinet on key issues for Cabinet Members which may be of interest to Overview and Scrutiny and may inform the O&S workplan. 

The Leader hoped that all members would be aware that a Gloucestershire devolution bid had been submitted on the 4 September 2015.  This had involved a lot of work throughout August and resulted in a detailed 66 page document, which had been circulated to all members.  It was now a case of waiting for Governments decision about who would be in the first stage.  The themed groups that were set up to look at different aspects of the bid were ongoing and were now starting to look at the ‘bottom lines’ for all districts.  He suggested that a task group should be set –up to look at the ‘bottom line’ for Cheltenham and having had a discussion with Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, he agreed that a unilateral discussion between CBC and the County would be useful. 

Presentation of lessons learned by Severn Trent , Paul Evans – no decision required

Wayne Ellis, Paul Dennison and Paul Evans from Severn Trent introduced a PowerPoint presentation (attached at Appendix 1).

The following responses were given to member questions;

·         Severn Trent tended only to engage with the Environment Agency (EA) when undertaking works and were not aware of the EA setting up any groups to look at particular issues.

·         Severn Trent were not aware of any businesses in the Suffolks that were dissatisfied with the compensation they had received and would be interested to have specific details if this was the case. 

Members made the following comments;

·         In Prestbury ward, Severn Trent had needed to cut a trench through the entire length of the allotment site and having canvassed residents there had not been a single complaint, but almost a year on, the compensation claim had still not been settled.  Severn Trent would raise this with the relevant department. 

·         Thank you to Severn Trent and Ubico for the considerable assistance they offered to the elderly residents in her ward during the works.  

·         Having heard nothing but positive feedback form residents, a member hoped that Severn Trent recognised the benefits of engaging communities.  Severn Trent should be proud and other utilities companies could learn from their approach. 

The Chairman thanked the representatives of Severn Trent for their attendance and congratulated them on a job well done.  

No decision was required.

Progress update from the Managing Director of Ubico, Rob Bell – no decision required

The Managing Director of Ubico, Project Sponsor and Richard Coole, the Project Manager, introduced the update as circulated with the agenda.  The committee had reviewed the Project Initiation Document (PID) earlier in the year and in summary the project objectives were to bring the material bulking operation under Ubico on behalf of CBC and delegate the material marketing/sales responsibilities to the Joint Waste Team at Shire Hall.  The Lead Officers on both streams of the project were reporting that the project was on track and there were no issues which would impact on project delivery. 

The following responses were given to member questions;

·         The market had always been volatile and could be affected by a number of things including the price of raw materials, emerging markets and the price of oil, though this impacted some materials and not others.  This was a risk that the council had always and would always have to carry.  The collection method used by Cheltenham resulted in a good quality material and this in turn meant that even when the market had crashed in the past, Cheltenham had always been successful in marketing its material. 

·         The traffic light system was not meant to mislead members, actions that were not yet completed were marked as green because they were on track and there was every confidence that they would be delivered on time. 

·         All partners had a different approach to waste, it was more expensive to collect waste that had been segregated at source but this resulted in a higher sale value and not segregating at source meant that it was cheaper to collect but would command a lower sale price.  There were interesting arguments for both approaches. 

·         Income stream was a key output for the project and a strategic benefit.  A long term aspiration would be to go out to market with waste from other partners, not just Cheltenham, although it was important that the highest quality was maintained. 

A member commented that the move to sell the material as a commodity would put us in a better position than being tied into a contract at a less favourable rate. 

The chairman thanked the Project Sponsor and Project Manager for their attendance and looked forward to the next update.  

No decision was required. 

A discussion paper

 The Chairman advised that he was minded to allow councillors in attendance but not on the O&S Committee, to ask questions at the appropriate stage.  The committee were comfortable with this.

Andrew North first explained that at the Member Seminar held the previous week, members had commented that they did not feel that David Neudegg, Interim Managing Director for 2020 vision, was as visible as they felt he could be and with this in mind he had invited David Neudegg to attend, as well a range of Officers to who would provide expert advice if required.

Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) was incredibly ambitious for the town and always striving for Cheltenham to be as good as it could be; something which was acknowledged by the Peer Review Team and reflected in their report addressed later on the Committee agenda.  CBC did not keep large reserves, instead spending money to benefit the town and as a council it was prepared to borrow to fund such improvements.  There were three elements which were key to enabling the council to deliver these ambitions; (1) the REST (Regulatory and Environmental Services Transformation) services which shaped the town’s present and future (Planning, Licensing, Public Protection, etc); (2) key to place shaping was the Cheltenham Development Task Force which worked to develop sites across Cheltenham, not solely CBC sites; (3) the Engagement Team.  Each of these three required a high degree of influence and control by Councillors and he could appreciate therefore, why Councillors did not want these services undermined. 

The overarching ambition for 2020 Vision was “a number of councils, retaining their independence and identities, but working together and sharing resources to maximise benefit leading to more efficient, effective delivery of local services”.  The MTFS currently identified a funding gap over the next 4 years of £1.5m and he suggested that this was more likely to grow rather than reduce in the short term, meaning that in 5 years the council would either need to be spending £1.5m less or have increased revenues by this amount.  The shared services which had been entered into to date had proved successful, not only in monetary terms, having saved the council £2.73m, but also in creating teams with a wider pool of expertise and greater capacity it had built resilience and offered staff increased career opportunities.   The business case for 2020 identified annual savings to this council of £581k, with further savings of £227k which could potentially be achieved through the establishment of a local authority company and therefore have a significant role to play in closing the council’s MTFS funding gap in the short to medium term.  He stressed that the services being considered for sharing were not those place shaping functions earlier described, but support services such as customer services, revenues and benefits (including council tax collection) and property services, services which needed to be done well but not necessarily directly by this council.

The paper which had been circulated with the agenda outlined  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

Report of the Chief Executive, Andrew North – see recommendations

The Chief Executive introduced the report as circulated with the agenda.  He was pleased with the huge amount of progress that had been made since the LGA Peer Review in September 2014 and asked the committee to consider whether, given the progress that had been made, there was any value in having the Peer Review Team back to look at progress.  He had formed part of two Peer Review Teams in the past and suggested that follow-up visits were often requested by councils to have their achievements recognised and commended rather than in the expectation that more recommendations would be made.  Notwithstanding the organisation and cost associated with such a visit, officers were so stretched at the moment that they would unlikely be able to accommodate a return review and therefore he had to recommend that the Peer Team were not invited to return. 

The Chairman was satisfied that progress was being made and suggested that it was the role of this committee to ensure that progress continues to be made. 

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that;

1.      Progress, as set out on the LGA Peer Review action plan update, be noted.

2.      There would be little value to inviting the Peer Review Team to undertake a follow-up, given the progress that has been made and instead the committee would review progress again in another 6 months.   

Report of the Chairman, Councillor Tim Harman – see recommendation

The Chairman introduced the scrutiny annual report 2014-15 as circulated with the agenda.  The report detailed some of the successes from last year and outlined some of the areas of focus for the coming year. 

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that the Annual Report of Overview and Scrutiny 2014-15 be endorsed and forward to Council to be noted.

The Democracy Officer gave the following updates on various scrutiny task groups;

Cycling and Walking STG – the task group had concluded their review and were in the process of establishing implications for the numerous recommendations they planned to make in the final report.  This was scheduled on the work plan for the next meeting of the committee.

Railway STG – the report and recommendations had been finalised and agreed.  This report was now ready for consideration at the next meeting of the committee (26 October). 

Shopmobility STG – the STG report was considered by Cabinet in July, at which point they resolved to consult on the future delivery of Shobmobility.  Cabinet considered the results of the consultation at their meeting on the 15 September and resolved: to the relocation of the service to The Horse and Groom, St. Georges Place; that a commissioning process for the service would commence in January 2016; and in the interim a review of fees and funding sources would be undertaken in conjunction with the 2016/17 budget setting process.

Broadband STG – three members from Cheltenham and two from Gloucester City had volunteered for the task group.  Arranging the first meeting had proved difficult but had since been set for the 20 October 2015.  Councillor hay suggested that the group contact Nigel Riglar at GCC as he had been undertaking some work with Fastershire to identify the blackspots in the county. 

Devolution STG – an email would be sent to all non-executive members inviting them to be involved in a task group to maintain an overview of the ongoing discussions in relation to devolution and Cheltenham’s position.  It was suggested that it would be useful to have a mix of Borough, County and Parish Councillors on this group. 

Members were referred to the committee work plan which had been circulated with the agenda. 

As previously discussed, the committee would be receiving final reports of the Cheltenham Spa Railway Station and Cycling & Walking scrutiny task groups at the next meeting. 

The Chairman confirmed that he had received an email from Gill Morris on the Tourism Strategy and was inclined to schedule a presentation of the draft report on the 30 November meeting.  The committee agreed.  

It was also confirmed that the Chairman had arranged for representatives of the Gloucestershire NHS Trust to attend a meeting in April 2016 to give the committee more information on their future plans for Hospitals across Gloucestershire.  

In response to a member query about the Strategic Partnerships, the Chief Executive confirmed that a presentation on this very topic had been arranged for immediately prior to the upcoming Council meeting (19 October). 

The work plan would be updated as necessary.

26 October 2015

The next meeting was scheduled for the 26 October 2015.