Agenda and minutes
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Contact: Lindsey Watson 01305 252209 / Email: lindsey.watson@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
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Minutes of former scrutiny committees - for information only To note the minutes of the Place Scrutiny Committee held on 23 July 2020 and Resources Scrutiny Committee held on 19 August 2020. Place Scrutiny Committee 23 July 2020 Resources Scrutiny Committee 19 August 2020 Please note that links to these minutes are included for information only and not for the purpose of confirming as a correct record. Minutes: Councillors noted the minutes of the former Place Scrutiny Committee held on 23 July 2020 and Resources Scrutiny Committee held on 19 August 2020, which had been included on the agenda for information only. |
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Declarations of interest To receive any declarations of interest. Minutes: There were no declarations of interest. |
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Chairman's Update To receive any updates from the Chairman of the Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee and to note the committee’s terms of reference as set out below: The Scrutiny Committees shall: (i)
Challenge, review or scrutinise the decisions or
actions taken by the Cabinet. (ii)
Through the Call to Account process:- -
Scrutinize and review
decisions made or actions taken in connection with the discharge of any of the
executive functions of the Council. -
Consider petitions
made in accordance with the Council’s Petitions Scheme requiring senior
officers to be called to account at a public meeting of the Council. (iii)
Through the Call-In
process consider executive decisions. (iv)
Provide clear focus
upon the scrutiny of matters in relation to:- ·
The Council’s
strategic approach to Dorset-wide objectives and the Corporate Plan ·
Budget plans ·
Transformation plans ·
The effectiveness of
partnership arrangements (v)
Consider matters
referred through the Councillor Call for Action. Minutes: Councillors noted
the terms of reference of the committee. The Vice-chairman
read out a statement relating to a report on Dinah’s Hollow slope stabilisation,
that was to be considered at Cabinet on 6 October 2020. The full text of the statement is included at
appendix 1 to these minutes. |
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Public Participation To receive questions or statements on the business of the committee from town and parish councils and members of the public. Public speaking has been suspended for virtual committee meetings
during the Covid-19 crisis and public participation will be dealt with through
written submissions only. Members of the public who live, work or represent an organisation within the Dorset Council area, may submit up to two questions or a statement of up to a maximum of 450 words. All submissions must be sent electronically to lindsey.watson@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk by the deadline set out below. When submitting a question please indicate who the question is for and include your name, address and contact details. Questions and statements received in line with the council’s rules for public participation will be published as a supplement to the agenda. Questions will be read out by an officer of the council and a response given by the appropriate Portfolio Holder or officer at the meeting. All questions, statements and responses will be published in full within the minutes of the meeting. The deadline for submission of the full text of a question or statement is 8.30am on Thursday 24 September 2020. Minutes: There were no submissions from town or parish councils or from members of the public. |
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Property Strategy and Asset Management Methodology Report PDF 331 KB To consider a report of the Corporate Director for Property and Assets. The committee have the opportunity to raise any comments which will be forwarded to Cabinet for their information. Minutes: The committee
received and considered a report of the Corporate Director of Property and
Assets which set out the approach and methodology to be used as the basis for
the review of the council’s assets and the basis for determining the future
shape and size of the estate. In
addition to the report, the committee received a presentation in order to
provide further detail on the key issues which included the impact of the
current situation with Covid-19 in this area. The Chairman
highlighted to the committee that this report was in relation to the
methodology around the council’s asset management plan and did not go into
detail of specific assets held by the council. The committee
considered the issues arising from the report and presentation and during
discussion, the following points were raised: ·
In
response to a question, the Corporate Director noted that local access was an
important element in the service strategy and that this needed to be reflected
in the council’s property portfolio. The
example of Children’s Services was provided where the service was looking for a
more local presence ·
A
recent review of leisure services and subsequent report to Cabinet included
work with the service to understand the best way to utilise assets in this area ·
Reference
was made to county farms which were a valuable, revenue generating asset for
the council. All assets would be
reviewed but as a general rule there would be a wish to continue where assets
were generating revenue ·
An
example was provided of a third party lease where there would be a choice as to
whether this was reviewed or exited and other elements which were driven by the
ability to vacate a premise. There was a
need to prioritise where the council could achieve the greatest value ·
The council’s
office estate would be included in the review ·
A point
was made that there needed to be a clear timetable for this work with targets
as to when reports would be made and decisions taken. The Corporate Director confirmed that there
needed to be a timeframe to be agreed by the appropriate portfolio holder and
Cabinet to move the work forward ·
A
discussion was held in respect of issues around school assets and academisation ·
The
link between the sale of assets and the council’s role as a planning authority
was considered. The Corporate Director
provided an overview of the number of ways that an asset could be disposed of
ranging from no consideration of planning issues, some level of planning
consideration through a pre-planning process through to a full planning process
in respect of an asset ·
In
response to a concern raised with regard to governance issues in this area, the
Corporate Director (Legal and Democratic Services) assured councillors that the
council had arrangements in place that were legally compliant and which
maintained a clear separation between the executive and planning functions · A point was noted that reference to climate change/energy costs did not cover one off costs of things ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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Review of Cabinet report - Approach to Value for Money PDF 70 KB The Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee is invited to review the report, ‘Approach to Value for Money’, which will be considered by Cabinet on 6 October 2020. Comments made by the committee will be fed through to Cabinet A copy of the report which will be considered by Cabinet on 6 October 2020 is included on this agenda. Minutes: The committee
considered the report, ‘Approach to Value for Money’, which was to be discussed
by Cabinet at their meeting on 6 October 2020.
Cabinet would be considering the development of a value for money
framework and timeline, which would set out how it would implement value for
money benchmarking of all services to feed into a prioritisation exercise for
conducting fundamental value for money reviews of all the council’s services. The Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee
had the opportunity to review the report and provide comments to Cabinet. It was noted that the report had also been
considered by the Audit and Governance Committee. In presenting the
report, the Head of Business Insight and Corporate Communications noted that
the former council’s had a range of approaches and this work would provide the
opportunity to agree the approach for Dorset Council moving forward. Benchmarking and customer consultation would
take place and the work would review what support the Local Government
Association (LGA) and the South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) might be able to
provide. The Portfolio
Holder for Corporate Development and Change welcomed comments from the committee
on the approach proposed and suggestions for how the work was progressed. He noted the difference between this area of
work and performance management. He
thanked officers for their work in this important area. Councillors
considered the issues arising from the report and during discussion the
following points were raised: ·
There
was a need to ensure value for money at all levels of government ·
The
work proposed represented a starting point and there were questions that needed
to be answered and links to be made to corporate priorities ·
In
response to a question, the role of allocated business partners within the
corporate services department was outlined.
The role of business partners, who were members of staff, was to work
with front line services to provide specialist support in areas such as human
resources, finance and procurement.
Information on business partners was available to councillors on the
council’s Intranet site. It was noted
that business partners would be key to taking this piece of work forward ·
The
council did not currently have all the information it needed in respect of
performance monitoring and the impact of the situation with Covid-19 was
recognised. Although the approach to
value for money was distinct, there was still a relationship with work being
progressed on performance monitoring.
Work on performance management had recently been restarted ·
A
request was made for detail of timescales associated with this work. The Head of Business Insight and Corporate
Communications noted that a timeline would be put in place once the approach
had been approved by Cabinet and some initial benchmarking had been undertaken · Reference was made to paragraph 9.2 of the report and the notion of ‘Equity: the extent to which services are available to and reach all people that they are intended to – spending fairly’, and whether equality impact assessments were undertaken? In response it was noted that sometimes ... view the full minutes text for item 6. |
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Corporate Complaints PDF 55 KB To note the complaints performance during 2019/20 and quarter one of 2020/21 and consider how the committee can use complaint data to assist in its scrutiny role. Additional documents:
Minutes: The committee
received a report from the Service Manager for Assurance, which noted the
complaints performance during 2019/20 and quarter one of 2020/21 and invited
councillors to consider how the committee could use complaint data to assist in
its scrutiny role. The appendices to the
report included the current complaints key performance indicators for the Place
Directorate. It was noted that complaint
numbers in respect of Corporate Services were low and not currently reported
separately, however this would be addressed moving forward. Other key points to note included work done
to manage complaints before they escalated in the process where possible,
fostering a culture of learning from complaints and a recent rise in the number
of compliments being received by the council. Councillors
considered the points arising from the report and the following points were
made: ·
Reference
was made to page 33 of the agenda which set out that 6 learning points and
actions had been identified from complaints.
Details of these had not been included in the report on this occasion
but could be included in future reports ·
In
response to a question, the Service Manager for Assurance confirmed that the
complaints team would get involved if there was an issue with how a child had
been classified under SEND provision ·
It was
noted that further work could be undertaken to see how the council compared
with other councils in this area ·
Reference
was made to page 33 of the agenda and the number of complaints associated with
neighbour disagreements and whether this data could be broken down into
geographical regions? It was agreed that
this would be investigated ·
The
number of compliments received by the council during quarter 1 2020/21 was
noted. Work on capturing compliments had
only recently started and more work was required in order to capture this
information. The Chairman
thanked officers for the report and their work in this area. Decision That the Place and
Resources Scrutiny Committee note the complaints performance during 2019/20 and
quarter one of 2020/21 and how the committee can use complaint data to assist
in its scrutiny role. |
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Draft Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee Forward Plan PDF 82 KB To review a
draft forward plan for the Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee. Minutes: The committee noted
the draft forward plan which incorporated items brought forward from the former
Place Scrutiny Committee and Resources Scrutiny Committee. The Chairman noted that the committee needed
to review the draft forward plan and prioritise items for consideration. A discussion was
held in respect of the list of Executive Advisory Panels (EAPs) included at the
end of the draft forward plan. The
Executive Director of Place noted that some EAPs would continue to conclusion,
however other work identified would be
transitioned over to the overview committees.
The overview committees would be taking a lead on the development of
policy moving forward although some areas may also require involvement from the
scrutiny committees. In respect of the
current list of EAPs, the Leader noted that he had asked all Cabinet members to
look at current EAPs in their area and to speak to the chairmen of the overview
committees in order to pass on work as appropriate. The exception to this was the Local Plan EAP
which would continue to conclusion. If the overview
committees set up working groups to look at issues in this area, they could
choose to include non-committee members on these groups, where particular
knowledge or expertise could be brought in. The Portfolio
Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment provided an update in respect of
the work of the Climate Change EAP which was soon to conclude. |
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Cabinet Forward Plan and decisions PDF 143 KB To review the Cabinet
Forward Plan and decisions taken at recent meetings. Additional documents:
Minutes: The committee noted
the Cabinet Forward Plan and decisions taken at recent meetings. The committee
considered how Cabinet decisions could be reviewed by the committee in order to
provide assurance that action had been taken following decisions being made and
whether further action was required. |
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Urgent items To consider any items of business which the Chairman has had prior notification and considers to be urgent pursuant to section 100B (4) b) of the Local Government Act 1972. The reason for the urgency shall be recorded in the minutes. Minutes: There were no urgent items. |
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Exempt Business To move the exclusion of the press and the public for the
following item in view of the likely disclosure of exempt information within
the meaning of paragraph x of schedule 12 A to the Local Government Act 1972
(as amended). The public and the press will be asked to leave the meeting
whilst the item of business is considered. There is no exempt business. Minutes: There was no exempt business. |
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Appendix 1 - Chairman's Update Dinah’s Hollow Slope Stabilisation – Statement made by the Chairman of
the committee The forward plan and the agenda for the Cabinet meeting on 6 October
include an item about proposals for a Major Highway Improvement Scheme on the
C13 road at Dinah’s Hollow, Melbury Abbas. The item is an important one because the C13 provides the only suitable
alternative north-south link to the A350 through Dorset and at Dinah’s Hollow
there is a longstanding identified risk of landslip throughout the hollow. Schemes have been designed to stabilise the slopes on both the east and
west sides of the Hollow and the Cabinet are being asked to consider two
recommendations: 1. That a scheme to
stabilise the slope on the east side of the Hollow should be progressed
immediately using an existing budget at a total cost of £130,000 and. 2. To consider
alongside other priorities as part of the 2021.22 budget setting process the
affordability of a £3.98M scheme to stabilise slopes throughout the hollow. If the Cabinet were being asked to make a definite decision about a £3.98 scheme in advance of considering the other budget pressures we face next year then I would have wanted the report to come to our meeting today for scrutiny. However, the Cabinet are not being asked to make a commitment on 6 October and instead we and the other committees will have an opportunity to look together at the proposals for Dinah’s Hollow alongside all of the other budget pressures before any decisions are made. On that basis I am satisfied that the Dinah’s Hollow report need not come to us today. |