Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Head of Legal Services.

Arising from the committee’s review of the performance dashboard at the last meeting, a report was provided by the Head of Legal Services in respect of the current position with the Local Land Charges Service.

The Corporate Director, Legal and Democratic, thanked the committee for bringing the item for discussion in a public meeting.  He also thanked officers in the team and colleagues in other services for the work undertaken to address the challenges in the service.  He apologised to those people whose searches had been delayed and confirmed his commitment to bring about improvement and to bring the service back to where it was hoped it would be.

In presenting the report, the Head of Legal Services provided the current response times and an update on staffing issues.

The Portfolio Holder for Corporate Development and Change apologised for the delays in the service and noted the reasons for the delays.  He paid tribute to the hard work of staff in legal and planning and noted that, although not short-term fixes, the reasons behind the delays were being addressed.

Councillors considered the issues arising from the report and during discussion the following points were raised:

·               The Portfolio Holder for Planning highlighted the key role of land charges and both thanked and supported staff for their work in this area.  In addition he indicated that he would bring a quarterly planning performance report to the committee at future meetings

·               Support and thanks were expressed for the work being undertaken by officers in both land charges and planning.  The duty of care for staff was recognised

·               It was agreed that councillors would be kept better informed, in order to be able to respond to questions and comments from the public

·               Representations had been made to MPs in respect of the pressures put on local councils during this time

·               As the service migrated to a single register, the level of manual checking would be reduced

·               The Head of Legal Services provided an overview of staffing and budget issues in the area

In accordance with the Constitution, at this point in the meeting it was proposed by J Andrews seconded by D Shortell that the meeting continue beyond 3 hours.  This was supported by the committee.

·               The Head of Legal Services provided information on the project plan for migration of the service to a single IT system

·               There was a need for timely and effective communications with the public and the Head of Legal Services would discuss this with the Communications Team

·               The Chairman requested that a further report be brought to the next meeting of the committee to provide an update on performance and response times

·               The Chairman also requested a further report to a future meeting of the committee about project governance and arrangements for the convergence of the land charges registers.