Agenda item

A review of the summary produced by the Democratic Services Manger.

An update from the chair of the budget scrutiny working group, Councillor Andrew Wall.

The chairman referred members to the summary of scrutiny task groups which had been circulated with the agenda. The following points were noted.

Deprivation- This task group is about to start its work and this begins at its first meeting on the 22 May 2013.

Sex trade in Cheltenham- Cabinet considered the report by O&S on 16 April 2013 but decided to refer the report to the Cheltenham Safeguarding Forum and Positive Lives Partnership. A report to Cabinet is expected in July. Following a recommendation from the task group,  this report was sent to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and a letter has been received back from the commissioner, Mr Martin Surl.  The letter stated the PCC’s gratitude in investigating this matter and he encouraged members to revisit the matter in further detail. The report has now been taken to the Chief Police Constable in order to discuss this matter further.

Events Submissions task group- Cabinet received the report from O&S and decided they needed more time to consider its findings. A report back to Cabinet on implementing the recommendations Is expected in July.

Youth Provision- This was discussed at the O&S chair’s briefing. This has become more of a Cabinet working group and so will be closed down as a scrutiny task group. Scrutiny members will continue to be invited to attend the ‘Activities and facilities for young people partnership group’ and advise the Cabinet member on future funding bids. 

Community Governance review-  This will be referenced in the report to Council in July on council size and electoral cycle.  It was mentioned that it has been difficult to populate this working group and therefore members should be asked again if they want to be on the task group. The chair suggested a paper be brought back to this committee after the Council meeting when the terms of reference should then be refreshed. There should be an aim to restart this process in September. The chair stated that there was clearly a need for fresh ideas.

Budget scrutiny – Councillor Wall gave a brief update on the role of the standing budget scrutiny working group.  He mentioned that the committee were not there to look at the minutiae of the budget. It is not an ideas generating working group, but it is instead there to hold the council to account. The numbers at the meetings have been quite small and meetings have been difficult to arrange, but the group has fed back comments on ICT and Leisure and Culture. The task group have had presentations from the county budget scrutiny working group and at the next meeting they will receive a presentation from Andrew North, Chief Executive, and Councillor Jordan as the Leader of the council, on their vision for the council’s trajectory. Questions were raised as to whether the council should still shave money off individual budgets and it was stated that there are still big things that impact on the council budget that the working group could examine more closely.

Councillor Sudbury as a member of the budget scrutiny working group said it was a shame that meetings had to be cancelled.  The Democratic Services Manager reminded members that all dates for future meetings of this group were fixed in the council diary so members of the working group were encouraged to keep those dates free.

A member questioned where any reports from the budget scrutiny task group should go to. In reply, it was stated that where the task group had examined an issue, their views should be incorporated into the  relevant reports to Cabinet or Council. Their responses should be updated at O&S, but the committee don’t want to hold things up. The working group should formally report back to O&S in January each year as part of the budget cycle.