Agenda and minutes

Councillor Kate Thomas declared an interest in item 3, Public Engagement Review, as an employee of GAVO.

The minutes of the meeting held on 20/09/2018 were approved as a true and accurate record.

 Attendee:

·                Rhys Cornwall – Head of People and Business Change

·                Tracey McKim – Policy Partnership and Involvement Manager

The Head of People & Business Change presented a brief overview to the Committee and highlighted the key areas for consideration.

Members asked the following:

·                Members asked about the short and long term approach to Public Engagement, highlighting the need to be proactive rather than reactive in the Council’s approach. The Officer explained that a SWOT analysis had been carried out with groups outside of the Council and with Stakeholders to establish what facilities Newport currently had.  Other methods of engagement could be unpredictable, however Newport had Bus WIFI which reached around 8000 citizens, and there had been an online survey. The Authority needed to be more intelligent with the questions asked so as to ensure it was not overlapping with what it asked, and that the data collected was being used effectively and reused for appropriate purposes. The statutory duties on Public Bodies under the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (WFG) meant that there was now statutory obligation to work in accordance with the 5 ways of working within the act, including involving its citizens in its decision making. The uncertainty around Budget and Brexit impacted the Council’s ability to do this and cause barriers for the Authority.

·                The Annual Budget cycle was discussed, and Members reiterated its comments made previously that the process needed to start early to enable more meaningful consultation on the budget. Officers noted that the timescales of the annual budget process were set by the Welsh Assembly when they released the settlement, and the development and engagement of budget proposals earlier was a matter for Cabinet to determine.

·                When asked about engagement methods, The Officer explained that the Authority currently had a well-established Engagement Group which included Police, Health and Housing and were often able to collaborate with other organisations such as Newport City Homes, receiving feedback and views from residents, but that going forward more work was needed to be done on shared intelligence.

·                Members discussed how to target hard to reach groups, particularly to reflect the diverse community in Newport, and what the authority was doing to improve this and empower citizens in its decision making. The Officers replied to members explaining ways in which the Authority empower citizens of Newport, this includes:- Online Surveys, a Citizen Panel, Events, Ward Meetings and a Youth Panel – Where young people plan 100% of the project, an example of this was St Pauls Walk.

·                Members discussed good practices how the Council was ensuring it was consistent in how it approached public engagement. The Committee were advised that the Council had offered training on fairness to all staff including senior management; it was also providing training about the implications of Future Generations Act.

·                Members commented on the younger generation being technology lead, and asked if there would improvements necessary in this area to continue and develop engagement with this group. It was explained that the use of digital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Attendee:

·                Rhys Cornwall – Head of People and Business Change

The Head of People and Business Change presented a brief overview to the Committee and highlighted the key areas for consideration. This included the completion of the 6^th Annual Information Risk Report. This report was not a statutory requirement but was best practice for accountability to ensure that the Authority had assurance of data and is managed across the Authority.

Members asked the following:

·                Members asked what the Authority was doing in the long term to keep ahead of emerging developments and trends that would affect information security. The Officer explained that New Data Protection Act came into effect this year. The Council holds highly sensitive data, and that the Authority was effective at holding and managing that data. Officers explained that new regulations were not a fundamentally different to what was in place and was in line with how the Council was operating.

·                Members commented that Newport was the first Authority to issue its Members with computers, more recently Members participated in a survey regarding the use of tablets. Members felt that this was a positive way forward. The Officer explained the background to this; a previous scheme in operation allowed Members to opt to use their own devices and use this with the Council system. However at the time, this was deemed to be a security risk. The Council was currently looking at other options, such as tablets for Members. The benefit of providing a tablet was that it was linked to a secure network, the data was encrypted, it could be remotely wiped of data if it were stolen.  Another benefit was it was more sustainable as it could reduce the need for paper copies. There was no cost to the purchase of the tablets as it had been funding by a Tec fund made available through a renegotiation of a contract, and there was a minimal ongoing cost of the 4G provision.

The Chair thanked the officers for attending, and thanked the Officers for the detailed and comprehensive report.

The Committee were reminded that Information Security Training was being provided to Members over the coming weeks, to update the Members on their obligations with the new General Data Protection Regulations. Members were encouraged to attend this session, a reminder would be sent to all Members.

Conclusion

The Committee commended the Officers for a comprehensive report and provided the Committee assurance of the comprehensive management of data within the Council.

a)      Forward Work Programme Update (Appendix 1)

b)      Actions Arising (Appendix 2)

c)      Scrutiny letters and response (Appendix 3)

Attendees:

·                Elizabeth Blayney - Scrutiny and Governance Manager

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:

31 January 2019, the agenda items;

·           Draft Budget Proposals 2019/20

7 March 2019, the agenda item;

·           Corporate Safeguarding Report;

·           Performance Management Strategy.

The Committee were advised that following their request for the Leader to be invited to attend for the recommendations monitoring of the Corporate Plan, an additional meeting had been arranged for 10am on Thursdays 20 December. The Leader and the Chief Executive had confirmed their attendance for this meeting.

b)        Action Arising

The Committee noted the action sheet provided from the last meeting, and asked for an update on how the recommendations would be reported back to the Committee relating to the Wales Audit Officer Report. The Scrutiny and Governance Manager advised the Committee that the Committee comments would be reported on as part of the update on the Scrutiny Annual report next year.

c)         Information Reports

          There were no information reports.

d)        Scrutiny Letters

The Committee noted the letter attached from the Leader in response to the Committee’s comments. The Committee commented that the response was useful the new approach being taken with the Scrutiny Letters was welcomed to facilitate feedback from the Cabinet on the comments and recommendations from Scrutiny.