Agenda item

A review of former scrutiny working groups and appointments to new scrutiny task groups including budget scrutiny working group and appointment to Gloucestershire scrutiny group.

The Democratic Services Manager referred members to the summary which had been circulated with the agenda. This listed all the potential scrutiny task groups as well as other bodies where O&S was required to make a nomination or have some input. It was emphasised that some of the scrutiny task groups were just ideas at this stage and terms of reference would need to be drafted and resources assessed before they were added to the scrutiny work plan. The list of potential topics had been circulated and a number of members had expressed an interest in being on one of the Scrutiny Tasks Groups should they be set up..

Regarding the Gloucestershire Scrutiny Group, Councillor Hall highlighted the value of the group and the benefit she had got from attending. After some discussion, Councillor Hall agreed to continue to represent the O&S committee and she would attend the chair's briefing of this committee to give feedback.

Regarding the Joint Planning Liaison Group, the Chief Executive explained that the member steering group for the Joint Core Strategy across the three councils had decided that they needed to liaise with a wider group of members.  This had resulted in a request to each of the three councils to set up an ad hoc group of members to understand and give feedback on the specific issues for their area. Originally the Leader had sent a request to group leaders to set up this joint core strategy working group but the Chair of O&S had suggested that this should be a scrutiny task group and as Chief Executive he supported this view. The chair added that this particular working group could be in operation for as long as two years.

Regarding the Event Submission Working group, Councillor Hall, as a member of the group, reported that it had met several times and was due to meet again soon to review the final draft of an event submission form it had been developing. She highlighted that this STG was not looking at specific events but it was noted that there may be a need in the future to set up a scrutiny review to look at a particular event if there were concerns.

The vice-chair raised concerns about the proposed Expo event and suggested that it should be scrutinised as there was a general lack of information for members about it.  The Chief Executive explained that specific applications for the Expo event would be dealt with by the Licensing and Planning Committees when appropriate and regarding the Bill in Parliament for road closures this would  come back to the Cabinet for an Executive decision. He suggested that the vice-chair should liaise with the Cabinet Member to establish a timetable for these decisions.

Regarding climate change, members acknowledged that the working group had done some valuable work.  However if this was to become a STG, it would need to have specific terms of reference. This will be discussed with the officers responsible for the group.

Regarding the proposed ICT review, the Chief Executive indicated that a commissioning review of ICT was due to be set up later in the year. It may be appropriate for the committee to set up a STG which could give some direction to the commissioning review.

Regarding Gloucestershire Airport, the suggestion was that the Cheltenham members of the Joint Airport Working Group could pick up on any issues requiring further investigation. A member suggested that there had been a significant injection of finance for the airport safety project with the objective of increasing passenger numbers and it may be appropriate for this committee to set up a STG to review whether those benefits have been achieved.

The chair suggested that it may be appropriate for the September meeting of this committee to look at setting up a STG to review the success of money spent on flood alleviation schemes in Cheltenham.

It was noted that the times of meetings for scrutiny task groups needed to be set so that all members have the potential to attend. STGs should also consider relevant co-optees and if they were having a presentation as part of their work they should consider inviting other members.

Members welcomed the workplan and felt it was also important that at each meeting they had some information regarding the scrutiny task groups and the timescales they were working to.

The list circulated at the meeting would be updated.
 

Resolved that actions set out in the summary attached to these minutes are progressed and interests in potential scrutiny task groups be noted.