Return to AgendaITEM CM3
COMMUNITY SAFETY SCRUTINY committee
MINUTES of the meeting held on 27 October 2008 commencing at 10.00 am and finishing at 2.30 pm.
Present:
Voting Members: Councillor Rodney Rose - in the chair
Councillor M. Altaf-Khan Councillor John Farrow Councillor Jenny Hannaby Councillor Olive McIntosh-Stedman Councillor Charles Mathew Councillor Carol Viney
Other Members in Cabinet Member for Community Safety: Attendance: Councillor Mrs J Heathcoat.
Officers:
Whole of meeting: K. Coldwell (Corporate Core) and C. Thomas (Community Safety & Shared Services)
Part of meeting: D. Etheridge (Community Safety & Shared Services)
The Scrutiny Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in the agenda for the meeting, together with the following additional documents:
and agreed as set out below. Copies of the agenda, reports and schedule are attached to the signed Minutes.
44/08 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS
Apologies for absence and temporary appointments were received as follows:
45/08 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Councillor Rose declared a personal interest at Agenda Item 2 in relation to Agenda Item 7 by virtue of being the Director of the South East Fire & Rescue Service Control Centre Ltd (SEFRCC Ltd).
46/08 MINUTES
The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 15 September 2008 were approved and signed.
47/08 SECOND FLU PANDEMIC SELECT COMMITTEE: PROGRESS MONITORING (Agenda Item 5)
On 7 July members of this Committee had conducted a select committee investigation in order to ascertain whether the County Council was making sufficient and appropriate progress in preparing for a flu pandemic. Following the select committee a number of recommendations for improvement had been drawn up and sent to the County Council Management Team and the lead officers in each Directorate (who had been tasked with taking forward the planning and ensuring that the plan for their Directorate/service was kept up to date). Members formed the view that, whilst planning was moving in the right direction and a lot of good work had been done, there was a need for greater urgency in some areas if the target of having good quality plans in place by the end of this year was to be achieved.
This item had been brought back to committee to enable members to monitor progress in relation to their previous recommendations.
Directors or their nominated representatives, together with the lead officers for flu pandemic planning and other officers as appropriate, had been invited before the Committee in order to answer the Committee’s questions on progress to date.
Members’ had before them a progress document and other paperwork detailing responses in relation to its previous recommendations and general progress, which had been circulated to them outside of this meeting and had been given limited distribution. The Committee also had before it two different versions of the staff survey, as the survey would be tailored to each Directorate’s requirements.
The Committee questioned the following witnesses in turn, drawing on its key lines of enquiry: Mr Dave Rudd (ICT Project Manager - Corporate Core); Mr John Mitchell (Education Officer and Assistant to the Director for Children, Young People & Familes); Mr David Etheridge (Deputy Chief Fire Officer and Flu Pandemic Lead) and Ms Sue Hunt (Quality & Customer Service Manager – Shared Services), accompanied by Mr Rob Macdougall (Planning & Performance Officer – Community Safety – Fire & Rescue Service) and Mr Ian Marriott (Group Manager – Trading Standards – Community Development - Community Safety & Shared Services); Mr Michael Rolton (Finance Control & Risk Manager – Social & Community Services); Mr Steve Howell (Head of Transport and Flu Pandemic Lead – Environment & Economy) and Ms Susan Roberts (Business Improvement Manager - Environment & Economy); and Ms Sue Corrigan (County HR Manager - Corporate Core).
The Committee conducted its second select committee investigation and AGREED to:
· request Mr Edwards and Ms Coldwell to draw up a report setting out its findings and recommendations (appended at Annex 1 (download as .doc file):
- this would be sent to the Chairman and Deputy Chairman then to the Committee and the Cabinet Member for Community Safety, to agree via email with final circulation to be determined;
· revisit progress at its 6 July 2009 meeting if necessary;
· request Mr Travers Smith to send a report to members of this committee on progress in relation to the flu pandemic preparation templates (which indicate progress against red, amber or green indicators on a number of targets) every quarter in advance of the scrutiny meeting, with a copy to the Cabinet Member for Community Safety, to enable members to determine whether they have any concerns about progress which they wish to address in committee and if so that the chairman should decide whether they wish individual officers to attend before the committee.
Ms Coldwell undertook to give the future committee dates and deadlines to Mr Travers Smith to enable him to provide her with the progress update ideally before the agenda planning meeting and no later than two weeks prior to agenda despatch.
Mr Mitchell undertook to check if there was an existing database of young carers (who would be particularly vulnerable in the event of a flu pandemic) and to provide information on plans for the county's Looked After children to the committee.
Ms Corrigan undertook to provide the general trends arising from the staff survey to members of this committee.
48/08 SCOPING TEMPLATE: DEBT AND MONEY ADVICE (Agenda Item 6)
In July this Committee agreed to undertake a scrutiny review into debt and money advice, which would look at:
· the range of voluntary organisations in Oxfordshire delivering debt and money management advice; · the quality and effectiveness of this advice; · the extent to which these organisations could attract qualified advisors; · if the County Council needed to do more in terms of signposting people to services or providing advice; · whether the County Council was suitably resourced to signpost people to these services; and · what services nationally the County Council could tap into.
The Committee was asked to comment on the draft template and agree a version to be submitted to the Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group, which would meet on 17 November 2008.
Following discussion, the Committee AGREED to submit the draft template as it stood to the Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group for consideration on 17 November, with the caveat that the review group might change focus as the review proceeded and would provide a brief report of its findings to its December meeting, when the Committee would be asked to determine what further action it wished it to take. It did not wish a question and answer session/select committee to take place at its December meeting.
49/08 FIRE SERVICE COMMAND AND CONTROL ROOM – THE FiReControl AND FireLink PROJECTS (Agenda Item 7)
Mr Colin Thomas (Assistant Chief Fire Officer) had provided a written update on the progress of the project which was before the Committee (CM7).
The Committee noted the update and thanked Mr Thomas for his continued efforts with regard to working on behalf of the Control Room staff.
50/08 UPDATE ON CORONER’S BILL/CORONER’S CASELOAD AND INTERACTION WITH OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL SCRUTINY REVIEW (Agenda item 8)
This item had been included on the agenda to inform the Committee of current progress on the review and to enable Councillors to ask questions on areas of interest.
The Committee noted that there was nothing to report to this meeting.
51/08 SCRUTINY WORK PROGRAMME (Agenda Item 9)
The Committee noted its current work programme.
52/08 TRACKING SCRUTINY ITEMS (Agenda Item 10)
Report back on advice by this Committee to the Cabinet or Council.
The Committee noted that no items had been identified for tracking at this meeting.
53/08 FORWARD PLAN (Agenda Item 11)
The Committee was asked to suggest items from the current Forward Plan on which it might have wished to have an opportunity to offer advice to the Cabinet before any decision was taken.
No items had been identified for consideration at this meeting.
................................................................................... in the Chair
Date of signing.................................................................. 2008
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