Agenda and minutes

The minutes of the Meeting held on 21 June 2018 were accepted as a true and accurate record, subject the following amendments:

o      Item 2, Minutes of the Meetings held on 26 April 2018 - “Councillor C Evans queried the recording of him his abstentions during the voting of the meeting.”

o       “The Committee agreed to forward these comments to the Cabinet Member for information clarification.”

Regarding Item 5, Draft Annual Forward Work Programme, the Committee requested that the update on Decriminalised Parking be on the Committee’s work programme for half way through the implementation, to ensure that the process was on track to complete within the 18 month timescale.

Attendees:

-          Rhys Cornwall (Head of People and Business Change)

-          Meirion Rushworth (Head of Finance)

The Head of People and Business Change presented an overview of the report providing an update on the recommendations made by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee on Budget Process and Engagement in January 2018. This update included the progress had been made and the current plan for the consultation and engagement of this Year’s budget proposals. 

The Officer then discussed the Hierarchy of Engagement and the examples within the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (Wales) gave examples of how to move from Informing to Empowering citizens. The Council were at the consult phase, and on occasions had moved towards involving citizens. Empowering citizens to be decision makers was a longer process, but the Council was in a similar position to other organisations.

Additionally, the Officer discussed online surveys and advised Social media online surveys (SNAP) were being developed. The Newport Youth Council aimed to involve young people in the engagement process.

The Members asked the following:

·         The Committee had previously been told that a review of Public Engagement would be brought back to the Committee in November. The Committee raised concerns that this would be too late to impact upon the process for this year’s budget, and as such were concerned that the timescale meant that the Council would not have sufficient time to properly engage on this year’s budget. The Officer acknowledged that an earlier start to the public consultation, or a  year round process of consultation would be preferable, however the decisions on the timing of the budget process was a corporate decision based on a number of factors, and had to be met from within its resources. The Officers team resources this year had focused on the implementation of the Wellbeing Assessment.

The Officer advised the Committee that the concerns raised at last year’s budget Consultation by Scrutiny were being addressed and that a review of Public Engagement was being undertaken. This full review was being reported to the Scrutiny Committee at its meeting on 15 November to look at the longer term approach to consultation.

The Committee were offered more frequent progress updates every meeting until November to keep them informed.

·         The Members commented that the reasons why public consultation had not progressed from last year then this needed to be understood, whether it be staff resources within the team, or part of a more strategic decision.  Some Committee Members noted that the Committee could make recommendations to the Cabinet to start the consultation process earlier.

·         Members commented on how it was disappointed that the Council had not improved in the Hierarchy of Engagement. The Involve stage needed to be reached and it had been thought consulting on the Budget would be a good opportunity. The public consultation could not be restricted by the budget cycle, but there were issues that can be consulted throughout the year. The Belle Vue Park Car Parking was given as an example by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Attendees:

·         Eleanor Mulligan (Democracy and Communications Manager)

The Democracy and Communications Manager presented the Annual Report on behalf of the Scrutiny and Governance Manager. The Committee were advised that it was a constitutional requirement for Scrutiny to report to Council on its activity throughout the year. The report was designed to be a performance management tool, establishing the intended actions for the upcoming year, and to look back at last year’s progress and achievements. The Officer advised it was important to note that this was the first report since the Election, in which time there had been significant changes to Scrutiny. These changes included more focussed work programmes, change of the Committee structure, and sharper focus on recommendations monitoring within the work programme.  All of these changes were areas that previous Annual Reports had been identified as requiring improvement previously.

The Committee asked the following:

·         Members made comment that Scrutiny has made significant progress, however there was still an issue with automatically getting updates, such as Decriminalised Parking. The suggestion was made that there be regular updates on the progress.

·         Members queried Action 9, on page 69 and asked for clarification of the update, as it stated the changes proposed within the Public Engagement Strategy were not possible within the current format of the website. Members were advised that the department would like the public to go onto the Scrutiny website and be able to leave feedback on Scrutiny’s topics and agenda items. However the website does not have that functionality, so alternate ways were being looked into, such as using social media. When asked whether this was a technology or funding issue, it was advised that it was due to the technology; however the Democracy and Communications Manager is part of the Web Development Group and were looking at other technologies.

Members commented that they thought more of a history of each item should be included, to track where it had originated from.  For example, Decriminalised Parking / Civil Parking Enforcement had originated from Members discussion of illegal parking in Stow Hill, which had been brought to the attention of the Cabinet Members, and Council which had led to the discussion regarding the Council taking over the parking function.  The Scrutiny Adviser outlined the purpose of the Annual Report, to summarise the work of the Committee at its Scrutiny Committee meetings, rather than to track individual issues.

Regarding the Civic Centre Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO), the Committee asked for the first and second Consideration to be labelled Stage 1 and Stage 2 to make the role of Scrutiny clear. The Officer advised it could be looked into to include additional comments.

The Committee thanked the Democracy and Communications Manager for attending.

The Committee approved the Annual report for submission to the Council.

a)       Forward Work Programme Update (Appendix 1)

b)       Actions Arising (Appendix 2)

c)       Information Reports (Appendix 3)

Attendees:

·         Daniel Cooke (Scrutiny Adviser)

a)    Forward Work Programme Update

The Scrutiny Advisor presented the Forward Work Programme, and informed the Committee of the topics being discussed at the next two committee meetings:

Thursday 20 September 2018

The agenda item included;

·         Pill PSPO – Recommendations Monitoring

·         Annual Information Risk Report

Thursday 15 November 2018

The agenda item included;

·         Corporate Plan – Recommendations Monitoring

·         Performance Management Strategy – Recommendations Monitoring

·         Consultation and Public Engagement Review

The Committee requested that the Pill Ward Councillors and a community representative be invited to attend the meeting to provide additional viewpoints on how effective the PSPO had been.

b)    Actions Arising

The Scrutiny Adviser explained to the Committee that there were three responses outstanding from the previous meetings actions, and that these would remain on the action sheet until they have been reported on to the Committee.

Members queried when the responses would be received by Members, noting that the Committees next meeting was not until September. Members were advised responses were emailed to Committee members as soon as they were received, these were then reported back to the next Committee meeting as part of the action sheet.

Regarding the Committee’s recommendations to the Cabinet on Safeguarding, the recommendations were to ‘inform’ the Cabinet Member of the Committees recommendation. The Committee felt that this was not clear enough as a response back was needed from the Cabinet Member. The Scrutiny Adviser agreed to follow up with the Cabinet Member and ask for a response to the Committees point.

c)    Information Reports

There were no information reports to be presented to the Committee.