Agenda and minutes

Councillor Mason

Councillor Mason had given his apologies and as such the Vice-Chair, Councillor Sudbury took the chair.  Councillor Harman attended as a substitute for Councillor Mason. 

No interests were declared.

The minutes of the 19 August meeting are yet to be approved for publication.  These will be circulated as a supplement, in advance of the meeting.

The minutes of the last meeting had been circulated in advance of the meeting.

Upon a vote it was unaimously

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on the 19 August 2019, be agreed and signed as an accurate record.

None were declared. 

There were none.

Martin Surl, Police and Crime Commissioner

The Chair welcomed Martin Surl, Police and Crime Commissioner (P&CC) for Gloucestershire and thanked him for his attendance.

The P&CC reminded members that the Police and Crime Panel were duty bound to support, as well as challenge the commissioner and whilst he was happy to attend other scrutiny meetings, out of respect to the panel he wanted to be clear on that point.

As part of a brief overview, the P&CC advised the committee:

·      Gloucestershire, by comparison to other areas, is a safe place to live.  In comparison to areas deemed most similar demographically by the Home Office (Most Similar Group), Gloucestershire has the second lowest rates of crimes per 1000 population.

·      The County saw a spike in burglary last year due to a small number of active offenders but rates have dropped since those individuals were arrested and detained (Oct 2018).  Year on year comparisons of burglary [12 months up to the end of June 2019 compared with the year before] still show increases though and rates [per 1000 population] remain high in comparison to peers across the county.     

·      Violence with injury is down from last year.  All violent crime however is showing an increase – note that this includes verbal threats and threats made on social media.

·      The Lansdown site is working well.  Feedback from officers has been positive although there are not as many staff as he would like.  Support such as from the Dog Section and Firearms is available from Bamfurlong.

·      The former Tourist Information Centre is to become the home to Special Officers and Cadets and the PCC thanked the council for their support with this.

·      In terms of the night time economy, Cheltenham is not as violent as in other areas. Peer analysis shows Cheltenham has the second lowest rates of violent crime per 1000 population in its Most Similar Group (15 CSP areas).

·      A plea was made by the PCC, that the council look at replacing their CCTV cameras; noting that Gloucester had installed digital cameras which are much better than analogue.

·      Partnership working is critical and the ‘City Wardens’ scheme in Gloucester City is an excellent example of how successful this approach could be.  This is equally funded by the PCC, Gloucester BID and Gloucester City Council.

·      The current Police and Crime Plan will run to 2021, beyond the elections in 2020.   As it is now half way through the life of the Plan, the PCC has refreshed the document with a number of key areas of focus.  One new area is Serious Organised Acquisitive Crime which disproportionately affects rural communities.    

·      ‘Every Crime Matters’ sets out a standard of support that victims should expect to receive, placing the victim at the centre of police processes.  

·      The PCC welcomed the announcement by Government that 20,000 more officers would be recruited and looks forward to seeing more detail.  The PCC is clear that Gloucestershire needs its fair share of available funding and, based on the police funding formula, this  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Presentation and Q&A

The Chair welcomed the various representatives and thanked them for giving the committee the opportunity to better understand the process being undertaken by the Trust and to ask any questions and raise concerns. 

Deborah Lee, CEO (NHS Trust), Simon Lanceley, Director of Strategy and Dr Mark Pietroni, Medical Director (Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS FT), Mary Hutton, ICS Lead (CCG) and Paul Roberts, Joint Chief Executive (2Gether Trust) introduced themselves.

Mary Hutton talked through a PowerPoint presentation (Appendix 1).

4 written member questions had been received in advance of the meeting and these, along with responses, had been circulated to members (Appendix 2). 

The chair invited members to ask questions and asked that the relevant person respond.

·         A member queried how the Care Quality Commission report found that the Responsiveness domain ‘required improvement’ and yet Leadership was ‘good’; he also observed that some areas appeared to have gone backwards.  Deborah Lee said that there was not necessarily a correlation between the two; responsiveness in this context pertained to waiting times and whilst waiting times were not being met, this is not always with the control of the Trust’s leadership team, for example there had been a 40% increase in referrals which made meeting waiting standards very difficult irrespective of the quality of leadership.  Deborah Lee confirmed that not all services were inspected in 2019 and the ‘outstanding’ rating given back in 2017 had been retained by areas that were not inspected in 2019.  Some of the areas rated as ‘requiring improvement’ in 2017, had since been rated as ‘good’ and she was confident that the direction of travel was towards ‘outstanding’. More than 90% of Trust services are now rated good or outstanding compared with 73% two years ago. 

·         Deborah Lee reiterated the point made as part of the PowerPoint presentation that nothing had been pre-determined and there were no plans to close A&E in Cheltenham as had been suggested in the media.  She expressed her disappointment that the launch of the engagement process had not gone as planned and, as a result, misinformation was circulating which had caused anxiety for people.  The purpose of the engagement process was to allow the Trust and system partners to outline the challenges they faced, as well offering people the opportunity to give their view and suggest ideas on how the challenges could be addressed. The Trust and its partners in One Gloucestershire would then consider all of the feedback and through a two day ‘solutions workshop’ develop option which would go out for public consultation, if they constituted substantial variation to service.  

·         Professor Pietroni said that there was no single model for an Urgent Treatment Unit (UTC) on a hospital site but they would typically include a range of staff and would have a resuscitation facility to deal with any patient who presented with a life threatening condition. Type 1 A&E departments are designed to respond to life and limb threatening emergencies however, this was a complex issue, given that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Darren Knight, Executive Director of People and Change (CBC) and Simon Graham (De Courcy Alexander)

The Executive Director for People and Change reminded members that in July 2019, Cabinet had declared a Climate Emergency.  Expertise in this area was lacking and as such Simon Graham, from consultants De Courcy Alexander (DCA) was brought in to support the council with this work.  Simon would assist with the development of an action plan and a report for Council in October and Cabinet in November. 

Simon Graham, the Head of Innovation at DCA knew Cheltenham extremely well, having worked for many years at local company Commercial Ltd, where he had implemented a very successful sustainability programme and was the first in the sector to achieve Carbon Neutral and Zero Waste. Business as usual would result in a slight reduction but this would not be sufficient to meet the commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030, which he felt was achievable.  Potential concepts which would result in greater carbon reduction, though this was by no means an exhaustive list, included:  reduction; generation; engagement of the wider community, and; connecting with other organisations.  Simon had met with major employers, including Gloucestershire County Council and Superdry to discuss what was achievable. 

·         Developing a ‘Cheltenham Standard’ using imagery of Cheltenham green spaces and cultural identifications would allow people to associate low carbon options with Cheltenham.  

·         A ‘Cheltenham Green Deal’, an investment fund that could be used within Cheltenham to achieve the carbon target through individual, community and collaborative action, would offer a funding mechanism.  He had spoken to finance and they had agreed that as well as having positive environmental factors, there would be the advantage of other social benefits. 

·         Cheltenham Energy.  Cheltenham already had about 20MW of installed renewable capacity and there was potential for far more, as had been done in other areas around Gloucestershire.  This would be an entity that would enable businesses and residents to purchase zero carbon energy, primarily from local sources. 

·         Did the council want to prioritise new build or retrofit.  Given the investment in new build this would be sensible, but Cheltenham had a large number of properties from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, which would require retrofit.  Simon had met with CBH and they had said that they would welcome guidance from CBC on this matter.   

·         With a target of 2030, he’d welcome steer on what level the interim (5 year) target should be, 50% or 75%.  He suggested that larger reductions would be achieved early on and it would get harder as time went on. 

Simon gave the following responses to member questions:

·         Measurements would be taken each year and he would consider it sensible to have revisit at appropriate times.

·         A demographically elected ‘Citizens Assembly’ would undoubtedly make it easier to defend the hard decisions that would need to be taken.

·         Behavioural changes were harder to influence and would therefore take longer to bear results.

·         GCC were inviting applications to a Climate Youth Assembly, with a deadline of midnight (19 Sept).  He felt that this was an important part of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The scrutiny annual report 2018-19 had been circulated with the agenda.  The report summarised the work that had been undertaken by the committee from April 2018 to March 2019 and this would be tabled at Council on the 14 October. 

There were no comments or questions.

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 work plan 

The Leader hadn’t produced a written update as there was little to add to the update he had provided for the August meeting.  He was attending the Publica AGM this evening. 

Events Scrutiny Task Group – verbal update from the Democracy Officer

The Democracy Officer advised that only four people had volunteered for the Events Task Group.  She would send another invitation to members and start looking at dates for the first meeting, where the group would decide how they wanted to approach the review.

The agenda for the October meeting had been agreed earlier in the day and the Health and Wellbeing Strategy had been added. 

The Democracy Officer advised the committee that the plan was for feedback from Campbell Tickell, who were undertaking the scrutiny review, to report back to the November meeting. 

21 October 2019

The next meeting was scheduled for the 21 October 2019.