Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Finance

Forward Plan Ref: 2020/118

Contact: Louise Tustian, Head of Insight & Corporate Programmes Tel: 07741 607452/Hannah Doney, Head of Corporate Finance Tel: 07584 174654

Report by Corporate Director Customers & Organisational Development and Director of Finance (CA6).

This report sets out Oxfordshire County Council’s (OCC’s) progress towards Corporate Plan priorities for 2020/21 – November 2020.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to note this month’s business management and monitoring report.

Recommendations Agreed

Cabinet considered a report which set out Oxfordshire County Council's progress towards Corporate Plan priorities and provided an update on the delivery of the Medium-Term Financial Plan, at 30 November 2020. The monthly business management reports were part of a suite of performance, leadership risk and budget documents which set out the Council’s ambitions, priorities and financial performance. The Corporate Plan set out the Council’s ambitions for the next two years, under the vision for Thriving Communities. It further set out the priority activities for the current business year.

Councillor Liz Brighouse, Chairman of the Performance Scrutiny Committee highlighted issues from the Performance Scrutiny Committee.  She reported that the Committee had felt that it was vital that the Council set more serious targets for carbon reduction in line with the long-term ambition of being carbon neutral by 2030 because the current indicator of Green hardly reflected the amount of work that needs to be done to achieve that.

It was noted that the indicator for air quality was Amber in a year which has seen a large reduction in road traffic.  The Committee indicated that it would like more information on why that was the case.  There was a need to push more quickly for the installation of LED street lighting as part of our commitment to reduce carbon emissions and save money.

Regarding the new Home First programme, the Committee questioned whether care workers who are going into people’s homes were being prioritised for COVID-19 vaccines?

Members wondered if the Click and Collect service was regarded as an essential service given that other similar services have been halted due to COVID.

Finally, the Committee looked forward to discussing the Outcomes Framework in the new financial year and reviewing the targets and tolerances.

In relation to the points from the Performance Scrutiny Committee around their Zero Carbon targets, Councillor Constance commented that they were doubling the target previously set and were expecting their own estate to be net zero by 2030, it was a very significant target and she did not understand the comments from the Performance Scrutiny Committee.  In relation to air quality in the Risk Register being amber, despite the reduction in traffic last year, she reported that it had been noted by officers, and thought that perhaps it showed that the air quality in Oxford had already improved.  The LED street lighting project was well underway with over 3,000 streetlights already replaced and there was negotiation underway for a new contractor.  She undertook to go back to Councillor Brighouse on the non-reduction of air quality in the City.

Councillor Brighouse commented that their issue on the green indicator for zero carbon was that if you already had a green indicator, there wasn’t much room for pushing further.

Councillor Constance gave an assurance that the green indicator did not mean that they would reduce the target and that OCC was the only Council to have set action in place.

Councillor Grey noted the Performance Scrutiny Committees comments around  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4