Report of the Chair of the Policy and Performance Co-ordinating Committee.

A report by the Chair of the Committee updated Members on progress made in delivering its Work Programme and the wider Scrutiny Work Programme including the activities of the other three Policy and Performance Committees. 

Members were reminded that at its meeting held on 2 July 2014 the Committee had agreed that the Chair, Vice- Chair and Group Spokespersons would meet to discuss potential items for its Work Programme.  (Minute No. 4 refers.)  This approach had also been adopted by the other three Policy and Performance Committees.  It had also been acknowledged that, in the short term, Member and officer capacity should be retained for the scrutiny of the Council’s budget options arising from the Future Council Programme.  Following this Members should consider reviews around Constituency Committee Decision Making (elsewhere on the agenda) and Cumulative Impact Policy.

The Committee was informed that this meeting had taken place on 17 July 2014 and as well as discussing potential items for its Work Programme had reviewed items that were proposed/outstanding from the previous Municipal Year.  A summary of the main points arising from the discussion was set out in the report.

Subsequently, it had been proposed that the following items outstanding from last year could be covered either at Committee meetings or through a single ‘workshop’ session later in the Municipal Year:

·  Review the content of the wider Scrutiny Work Programme;

·  Quality Assurance of previous Scrutiny Reviews to promote good practice; and

·  Review the consistency of developing recommendations arising from Reviews.

It had also been proposed that a further outstanding item from last year, to review the implementation and impact of Universal Credit should be deferred in line with the implementation timetable.  It had been suggested that any review under this heading might better come under the remit of the Transformation and Resources Committee.

Further Work Programme meetings had been scheduled with the Chairs, Vice-Chairs and Group Spokespersons of the other three Policy and Performance Committees and it was intended that the feedback from these meetings would be reported to each Committee in the next cycle of meetings in order that Work Programmes could be approved. As these meetings were after this Committee’s meeting it was not possible to take a collective overview of the wider Work Programme now.  It was, therefore, proposed that this review be undertaken by the Chair, Vice-Chair and Group Spokespersons of this Committee at their next meeting.

To ensure that the Committee was able to reflect on any emerging topics or activity proposed by the other Policy and Performance Committees, it was further proposed that the remaining two Committee meetings of the Municipal Year (in January and April) be re-scheduled to come last in those two cycles of Policy and Performance meetings.  It was anticipated that this would allow the Committee to take a more reflective overview in co-ordinating the wider scrutiny programme.

The Committee noted that outstanding recommendations from its previous scrutiny reviews were limited to those from the review into the Council’s preparation for Individual Electoral Registration (IER) reported to it in January.  The transfer to IER had been included on the agendas of the recent cycle of Constituency Committee meetings to ensure borough wide promotion of this change to arrangements for electoral registration. Also, in line with a further recommendation of that Scrutiny Review, a report on progress implementing IER was included as an item elsewhere on this agenda.  (Minute No. 17 refers.)

RESOLVED: That

(1)  the proposals set out above in respect of the Committee’s Work Programme be agreed;

(2)  the proposal to re-schedule the Committee’s meetings later in the Municipal Year to follow the meetings of the other three Policy and Performance Committee meetings be agreed; and

(3)  the Committee notes the progress made to date on the development of the Council’s Constituency Committees but would like to examine the issue of decision-making and future planning in more detail and will, therefore, add it to its Work Programme for consideration by a Task and Finish Group.