Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1 - Wallasey Town Hall

Contact: Lyndzay Roberts  Principal Committee Officer

Items
No. Item

1.

Members' Code of Conduct - Declarations of Interest/Party Whip

Members of the Committee are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non pecuniary interests, in connection with any item(s) on the agenda and state the nature of the interest.

 

Members are reminded that they should also declare, pursuant to paragraph 18 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules, whether they are subject to a party whip in connection with any item(s) to be considered and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of the whipping arrangement.

 

Minutes:

Members were asked to consider whether they had personal or prejudicial interests in connection with the item on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state what they were.

 

Members were reminded that they should also declare, pursuant to paragraph 18 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules, whether they were subject to a party whip in connection with the item to be considered and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of the whipping arrangement.

 

Councillor Hale declared a personal interest by virtue of him being a member of a sports club

 

2.

CONSULTATION FINDINGS : WHAT REALLY MATTERS STAGE 2 pdf icon PDF 360 KB

The report of the Chief Executive in relation to the What Really Matters Stage 2 Consultation, to be considered by the Cabinet on 7 February 2012, is attached.

 

The Committee is requested to give consideration to the consultation feedback in relation to matters which fall within its remit.

 

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

 Further to minutes 29 (6 November 2012), 40 (5 December 2012) and 44 (16 January 2013), the Committee considered the report of the Chief Executive upon the outcome of the What Really Matters Stage 2 Consultation, which had been considered by the Cabinet at its meeting held on 7 February 2013 (minute 184 refers).

 

The comprehensive programme of consultation and engagement had been undertaken to inform the development of the Council’s Corporate and Financial Plan for 2013-2016 and further to inform the decision making process surrounding significant budget savings. The Cabinet had noted the consultation process and implementation described within the report, and thanked Wirral residents, staff and other stakeholders for their input. Cabinet had also noted the detailed consultation findings in relation to each budget option as contained within Appendices 1, 2 and 3.

 

The report detailed the consultation findings and provided information in relation to targeted engagement and the methodology for the geographic and demographic analysis that had been undertaken. Key messages were that the Council should protect the vulnerable, retain responsibility for quality and look to raise income and eliminate waste. The Chief Executive had responded personally to all direct communication from members of staff and a team was in place to ensure Equality Impact Assessments, continued engagement and consultation and to show due regard to concerns raised.

 

Individual views expressed by many Members in relation to the general analysis of consultation responses were that, in many instances, the answers were described as strongly supporting whereas each of the three possible answers indicated a reluctance culminating in the third being strongly against and it was difficult to see how a conclusion of strong support could be justified.

 

The Chair indicated his understanding that the Council had to make savings in order to make a legal budget but that did not mean that support for individual proposals should  be exaggerated when there was such obvious reluctance in supporting such proposals.

 

Mr McCallum indicated that the option summaries were included to provide Members with a snapshot of the proposals. These would not be used by Cabinet to form the basis of their decision making.

 

The Chair, supported by the Committee suggested that future questionnaire questions be circulated to each Committee to allow Members to comment and give their feedback prior to publication. Mr McCallum agreed to feed this back to the Policy Department.

 

The Committee was requested to give consideration to the consultation feedback in relation to the following specific items, which fell within its remit and the Chair proposed that individual views expressed by Members could form the basis of feedback to Budget Cabinet –

 

 

 

  1. Reducing Council Management

 

The Committee indicated that they had no further comments and noted this option

 

  1. Workforce Conditions of Service

 

The Committee indicated that they had no further comments and noted this option

 

  1. Procurement

 

The Committee indicated that they had no further comments and noted this option

 

  1. Treasury Management

 

The Committee indicated that they had no further comments and noted this option

 

  1. Rationalisation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.