The Briefing Note is attached for ease of reference.

For ease of reference, the Director of Public Health/Head of Policy and Performance presented the comprehensive Scrutiny Briefing Pack, which had been prepared for the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee and had previously been circulated to Members. It provided a summary of the purpose of overview and scrutiny and contained detail in relation to the relevant service areas.

The document provided an outline of the outstanding items from previous scrutiny committees and indicated the key plans and strategies and key policy drivers of relevance to the work of the Committees.

Resolved – That the Briefing Pack be noted.

The Briefing Note is attached for ease of reference.

The Committee considered a Scrutiny Briefing document prepared by the scrutiny support team that contained the following information:

1.  The purpose of overview and scrutiny

2.  Service areas relevant to this committee

3.  Dates of meetings

4.  Committee Membership

5.  Outstanding items from previous scrutiny committees

6.  Key Internal Plan & Strategies

7.  Key local and national policy drivers

8.  The role of the Chair

9.  Officer support arrangements

10.  Key contacts

A Member queried the Committee’s support arrangements.  The Director of Public Health/Head of Policy and Performance informed that she and the Programme Manager (Michele Duerden) would be supporting the Committee for the time being.  Currently there was only one Scrutiny Support Officer (Alan Veitch) in the employment of the Council.  He was supporting the Policy and Performance Families and Wellbeing Committee.  There were two vacant posts and a recruitment exercise was under way.

In the meantime, Members were advised to channel any requests for support through the Director of Public Health/Head of Policy and Performance and the Programme Manager and they would provide the name of a link person who would be allocated to the piece of work required.  Their aim was to create a flexible scrutiny support arrangement.

RESOLVED:

That the content of the Scrutiny Briefing document be noted.