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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1 - Civic Centre. View directions

Contact: Meryl Lawrence  Scrutiny Adviser

Items
No. Item

1.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

None.

 

2.

Minutes of the Meeting held on 8 April 2019 pdf icon PDF 91 KB

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 8 April 2019 were approved as a true and accurate record.

 

3.

2018-19 Service Plan Year-End Reviews pdf icon PDF 122 KB

a)     Law and Regulation

b)     Finance

c)     People and Business Change

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Law and Standards

 

 Attendees:

·        Councillor Ray Truman, Cabinet Member for Licensing and Regulation

·        Gareth Price , Head of Law and Regulation

 

The Cabinet Member presented a brief overview to the Committee and highlighted they key areas for consideration.  Members were advised that there had been a sustained level of performance throughout 2018/19 in achieving the Performance Measures and in delivering the key projects within the Service Plan, however the Performance Measures and objectives remained challenging, particularly in times of diminishing resources and increased demand. Performance in relation to issuing prosecution and resolution of Public Protection complaints had dipped slightly due to sickness absences in both teams, however this still reflected a good level of performance.

 

The service area was currently predicting an under-spend of £170,000 for 2018/19, against a net operational budget of £6.9 million. Despite budget pressures, good work was being delivered and Officers were doing their best to maintain high quality services. The Cabinet Member also advised the Committee that the Registration Service had been commended externally following their inspection by the General Register Officer as a “high performing service”, and the Newport Dog Kennels had been presented with the CAWF Gold Standard Community Animal Welfare Footprint Award for their work with stray dogs, which was really good for the Council.

 

 

 

Members asked the following:

 

·             (Objective 1) Members queried the statement in the End of Year Update on Page 24, “A more streamlined management structure will place increased pressure on management and supervisory staff and this has to be factored into future work planning” and asked would this be a concern to meet targets, and would there be more pressure on management?   Members were given context of the restructure of the Public Protection department, which started 18 months ago, when the management structure had been streamlined and the Public Protection Manager post had been deleted. This had worked, but in order to deliver a new structure the Section had to look at the ways that services were being delivered. There was a thematic approach to service delivery, and the Officer gave an example of the Community Safety Team working together with Environmental Health Officers for community safety.

 

Smaller teams working in budget pressures were still delivering statutory services and meeting targets in terms of the Service Plan objectives. The concerns were not happening currently, but possibly in the future with budget savings and increased demand for services.

 

·             (Objective 4) Members queried the end of year status on page 34 which shows as “In Progress” however on page 42 it shows as Amber – “Short of Target” and asked was this the same piece of work?  Members were advised that this performance measure would be ongoing as combating anti-social behaviour was a continual process and was not a finite project, so it would have been difficult to mark as Green – “On Target”. This performance pressure had only just dipped into Amber, and was almost in resolution, so the service area could justify raising the benchmark, however  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.

Scrutiny Adviser Reports pdf icon PDF 124 KB

a)       Forward Work Programme Update (Appendix 1)

b)       Actions Arising (Appendix 2)

 

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Attendee:

-      Daniel Cooke (Scrutiny Adviser)

 

a)           Forward Work Programme Update

 

The Scrutiny Adviser presented the Forward Work Programme, and informed the Committee of the topics due to be discussed at the next two Committee meetings:

 

·          Monday 24th June 2019:

 2018-2019 Service Plan Year End Review for:

-          Regeneration, Investment and Housing

-          City Services

 

·          Monday 2nd September 2019:

-          Waste Strategy Action Plan Monitoring

-          Recommendations Monitoring upon the implementation of the 2019-20 Cabinet Budget Proposals

 

         The Committee agreed the topics, as above.

 

 

b)           Action Plan

 

The Scrutiny Adviser presented the Action Sheet and advised the Committee that as indicated in the table the Draft Highway Asset Management Plan 2019-2024 – Conclusions and Comments would be formally forwarded to Cabinet Member and Officers following the approval of the Minutes.

 

c)           Information Reports

 

The Scrutiny Adviser informed the Committee that there were no Information Reports to bring to the Committee’s attention.

           

 

d)           Scrutiny Letters

 

The Scrutiny Adviser informed the Committee that there were no Scrutiny letters to report to the Committee.