Agenda item

Review latest summary of scrutiny task groups.

Receive an update from the Scrutiny Task Group UBICO regarding a special meeting of the group held on Wednesday 6 February to consider suspension of waste and recycling collections 18 to 25 January 2013.

Receive an update from the Scrutiny Task Group regarding the provision of services for young people

The chair referred members to the summary of the scrutiny task groups which had been circulated with the papers and there were no further questions.

Members were asked to comment on the update from the scrutiny task group looking at the provision of services for young people.  The report provided an update for members on the progress made by this task group and asked them to consider whether they wanted the group to continue meeting or whether they were happy that scrutiny members could continue to attend the wider meetings and to fufil their scrutiny role in that way.

As a member of the working group, Councillor Driver fully supported the work of Cheltenham Community Projects CCP but had not found the task group particularly useful and felt it should not continue. Another member of the working group, Councillor Teakle, felt it had been worthwhile if slightly woolly at times but felt it had an important role in monitoring the the achievements of CCP in providing services for young people.

Resolved that the next meeting of the scrutiny task group should review whether or not their remit was complete or whether they should continue, and report back to O&S on their conclusions. 

The chair referred members to the update from the UBICO scrutiny task group who had met on the 18 February 2013 to review the suspension of refuse and recycling collections (18 January to 25 January) and invited the chair of the task group to speak to the committee.

Councillor Chard referred to the summary which he felt was very clear.  The task group had concluded that there were two major concerns.  Firstly whilst they agreed with the decision to stop collections due to the snow, they did not agree with the decision not to restart collections when the snow cleared. There also appeared to be a failure to communicate effectively with residents with an over reliance on the website and local press and failure to involve local radio stations.  This had resulted in many residents being very confused as to why their rubbish was not being collected even though their streets were clear of snow. They had carried out the review very quickly and looked forward to a full report being available next month. He warned that another period of heavy snow in March could not be ruled out hence the urgency to take some action.

A member raised a concern that this piece of work was not within the remit set for this task group by the O&S committee. He cited the example of the ICT scrutiny task group who had carried out their initial review and had then been asked by this committee to carry out a further piece of work regarding the virus outbreak. He also understood there had been some criticism by some members of the task group in the way the meeting had been conducted. He understood that the task group had only made suggestions in their report but he felt the timescales were unrealistic. It was necessary to have some contingency plans and smarter communications in place for the next winter season but it was important to allow the Cabinet Member Working group time to have a proper look at the issue and come up with their own recommendations.

The chair reminded the committee that the task group had been set up to look at the effectivness and performance of UBICO and therefore it was entirely appropriate for it to look at this particular issue. It would have been foolish to hold up matters by insisting it came back to this committee for authorisation. He confirmed that he had been made aware of the request for this meeting by members and it had been facilitated appropriately by the Democratic Services team.  He urged members to raise any complaints about the process being operated in task groups to himself or to the Democratic Services Manager.

Whilst acknowledging that the meeting may have been a knee-jerk reaction to a very topical issue, a member welcomed the information that had been made available in the report particularly the rules set out in appendix C where for the first time he was able to see the decision process that was applied when making decisions about whether to suspend services. As a councillor who had received many complaints from residents, he was concerned that under the new commissioning arrangements he appeared to have no influence over such important decisions and had not been in a position to advise the public when their bins would be collected. Considering UBICO was owned by the Council he questioned why the council seemed to have so little control and this was a general concern he had expressed before about the commissioning process.

Another member agreed that when setting up commission services there needed to be clear controls in place, particularly when commissioning services to a potential private company.

Members had some discussion about residents being prevented from organising their own black bin collections as the depot would not accept what would appear to be commercial waste vehicles. This was noted as a point that the Cabinet Member Working Group could consider. 

The chair considered that the report did not highlight sufficiently the reputational damage for the council arising from this issue and the inadequate communication to the public. He had received questions from members of the public who had asked why UBICO was not sending out vehicles when private companies were operating similar vehicles.

Members thanked the working group for their report and concluded that no councillors would feel comfortable about the events that had taken place and therefore it was important for the Cabinet Member Working group be given time to carry out a full review and put in place the necessary improvements.