Agenda item

A written 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 Chairman thanked the Leader for having produced a written briefing, which had been circulated with the agenda.

Further to the briefing on Devolution, the Leader updated that he would be attending a meeting with GCC the following day to discuss a local devolution deal.  He suggested that public realm works to the High Street could be used as a test case for any such deal.

Following on from the discussion on A&E, he confirmed that Cabinet had planned to raise this very issue at their next meeting (7 November) at which point it was likely they would have asked O&S to decide how they felt this issue should be taken forward.  He felt that the motion debate at Council had been useful in as much as it had resulted in an agreed position; with a letter having been sent calling on the Chair of the Trust to confirm that any proposals in relation to the future of Cheltenham’s A&E would be discussed with the council and shared with the people of Cheltenham, but now members needed to decide how Cheltenham could be best represented as part of future discussions.       

The Leader referred members to the briefing note on deprivation at the back of their agenda packs and suggested that the committee might want to consider how it could get a better understanding of the impact of this issue.   

The Leader gave the following responses to member questions:

·         All districts were consulted on what kind of local devolution deal they would be interested in and Cheltenham responded by asking for maximum involvement.  However, other districts had different views.  As stated in the written briefing, there had been no formal response to these proposals since May 2017, tomorrow represented the first opportunity to discuss the matter further.  Informally, there had been a suggestion that the High Street could be used as a test case, but there were some finer details to resolve before this could be taken forward.

·         The Leader did not feel that a devolution deal (for Gloucestershire) from central government was now likely.  However, Gloucestershire had expressed an interest in the 100% Business rate Retention pilot since Government had agreed to the continuation of the ‘no detriment clause’ which guaranteed that selected areas would not be worse off as a result of having participated in the pilot.  If accepted as a pilot, Council approval would be required.  The local devolution deal was separate.  

·         He would feedback the outcome of the 2050 discussions as part of future Cabinet Briefings. 

·         His suggestion was that the Trust should be invited to present their plans to the committee, allowing members to ask questions.

·         He confirmed that Alex Chalk, MP, had been included in communications about A&E.

A member felt that the committee should establish a task group to look at the issue of deprivation.  A number of organisations had done a lot of work and spent a lot of money over the last 20 years and it was possible that the figures weren’t improving as people were getting jobs and moving out of these areas and others were moving in.  He felt that the group should revaluate what worked and ultimately, the real measure of success.  The lead members would discuss this further at a later date.

The Chairman accepted that the Health and Wellbeing Board (which leads on improving the co-ordination of commissioning across Health, Social Care and Public Health services and brings together elected members, leaders from the NHS, social care, Police and the voluntary and community sector to work together and support one another to improve the health and wellbeing of the local population and reduce health inequalities) was seen by some as little more than a sounding board rather than providing the level of challenge that it should.  He reminded members that the Gloucestershire Health and Care O&S Committee, on which Cheltenham had an elected representative (Councillor Harvey), held the statutory responsibility for scrutinising the NHS Trust.  In view of this, he suggested that at this stage, rather than establishing a task group, the NHS Trust instead, be invited to present their proposals to all CBC elected members as part of a member seminar.  Members of the committee agreed with the proposal to arrange a member seminar.   Officers would contact the relevant people at the NHS Trust and Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group and extend an invitation accordingly.