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ITEM CG3
CORPORATE
GOVERNANCE SCRUTINY committee
MINUTES of the meeting
held on
Present:
Voting Members: Councillor Alan Armitage
Councillor Alan Bryden
Councillor Nick Carter
Councillor Timothy Hallchurch MBE
Councillor Bob Johnston
Councillor Lawrie Stratford
Councillor
Melinda Tilley
Councillor
David Wilmshurst
Other Members in Councillor
Keith R. Mitchell (for Agenda Item 7)
Attendance: Councillor John Howell (for Agenda Item 8)
Officers:
Whole of meeting: G.
Malcolm (Corporate Core).
The
Scrutiny Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations
contained or referred to in the agenda for the meeting, together with a
schedule of addenda tabled at the meeting and agreed as set out below. Copies of the agenda, reports and schedule
are attached to the signed Minutes.
20/07
ELECTION OF
CHAIRMAN FOR THE 2007/08 COUNCIL YEAR
Councillor Wilmshurst moved and Councillor Hallchurch seconded that Councillor Stratford be elected
Chairman for 2007/08.
Councillor Armitage then moved and Councillor Bryden seconded that Councillor Johnston be elected
Chairman for 2007/08.
RESOLVED: (Councillor Stratford having received
5 votes and Councillor Bryden 3 votes) that Councillor Stratford be elected Chairman of the Committee for the 2007/08 Council
Year.
21/07
ELECTION OF DEPUTY
CHAIRMAN FOR THE 2007/08 COUNCIL YEAR
RESOLVED: (on a
motion by Councillor Hallchurch seconded by
Councillor Wilmshurst and carried nem. con.) that Councillor Tilley be elected
Deputy Chairman of the Committee for the 2007/08 Council Year.
22/07
APOLOGIES FOR
ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS
Apologies for
absence and temporary appointments were received as follows:
23/07
DECLARATIONS OF
INTEREST
Councillor Hallchurch declared a personal interest in item 9 as a member of the Institute of
Directors.
24/07
MINUTES
The Minutes of
the meeting of the Committee held on 1 March and 27 March 2007 were approved
and signed subject in both meetings to the addition under ‘Other Members in
Attendance’ of Councillor Bryden for items 4 (1 March) & 5 (27 March)).
Minute 15/07(a)
– Work Programme: the Committee noted
the statement in the Addenda and that the Charter Mark Programme Board’s
initial response to the Customer Focus Scrutiny Review recommendations would come
to the Committee on 26 July 2007.
25/07
OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
ANNUAL REPORT
(Agenda Item 7)
Councillor
Mitchell introduced the Annual Report which was one of the strategic plans
requiring approval by Council The Annual Report aimed to provide an overview of the previous
year, highlighting the Council's achievements and successes. It complemented
the forward-looking Corporate Plan 2007-11 which had been approved by the
Council on 13 February 2007. It was also designed to fulfil the
requirement to produce a Best Value Performance Plan, which Government guidance
required to be published by the end of June. It was intended to issue the
Annual Report with the annual Statement of Accounts, also required to be
published by the end of June 2007. A
final draft, incorporating any comments from this meeting, would be submitted
to the Council on 19 June 2007. Detailed appendices would be added, including
outturn performance data for the year, as required for the Best Value
Performance Plan element of the document.
The Cabinet had considered a working
draft of the Annual Report text (CG7) on 15 May 2007 and agreed, subject to
consideration of any comment from this Scrutiny Committee, to approve the draft
Annual Report as the basis for submission to the Council on 19 June 2007 for
approval, incorporating the necessary detailed appendices and any
presentational and editorial changes agreed by the Leader of the Council and
the Chief Executive.
Councillor Mitchell and Ms Noctor then responded to questions and comments from the
Committee following which the Committee
AGREED to comment to the Leader of the Council
as shown at Annex 1 (download as .doc file) to these Minutes.
26/07
SHARED SERVICES CENTRE
(Agenda Item 8)
On 1 March 2007 the Committee decided to review at this meeting
its process for scrutinising this topic, including the possibility of arranging
a visit to the Shared Services Centre, Chiltern House
Prior to the commencement of the meeting members had
received a presentation by Hedra, the consultants who
had been carrying out the fundamental service review of ICT, on their findings
and recommendations from the review.
Mr Sweetman,
Head of Shared Services circulated a report (a copy of which is attached to the
signed Minutes) outlining progress with moves into the new office, Chiltern
House, the project budget position and the future timetable.
Following
discussion on the presentation and report, the Committee thanked Councillor
Howell and Mr Sweetman and colleagues for their report and work and AGREED to ask:
(a) that the Hedra presentation to members prior to the commencement of
the meeting be circulated to all councillors;
(b)
whether HR teams had ensured that there would be cover over
the summer holiday period;
(Note: this was
subsequently confirmed);
(c) officers to make arrangements for all
councillors to have the opportunity to visit Chiltern House, preferably in
small groups, via the Shuttle Bus from County Hall.
27/07
PARTNERSHIP IN OXFORDSHIRE
(Agenda Item 9)
(a) Report: ‘Transforming a
Cacophony into a Symphony’
On 27 March 2007 the Scrutiny Committee had met in a ‘select
committee’ style question & answer session to hear evidence for the
production, via its Task Group (Councillors Bryden, Brighouse & Wilmshurst)
of a report on what made Partnership successful.
The Committee considered the Group’s report (CG9(a))
in order either to adopt the Review report or to make any additional points or
comments before the final report was submitted to the Cabinet.
Any additional points would be included in the final report to the
Cabinet.
The Committee AGREED to:
(a)
adopt the Review report with amended recommendations, as
shown at Annex 2 (download as .doc file) to these Minutes and with any minor textual corrections, for
submission to the Cabinet; and
(b) thank the Task
Group and in particular Mr. Bramall, Scrutiny Review Officer for their work in
drafting the Report.
(b)
Evaluation
The feedback forms from the 27 March meeting had been summarised (CG9(b)) for information and consideration by the
Committee.
The Committee
found the feedback from its first ‘select committee’ style scrutiny committee
very useful for future work style planning. It also concluded that there were
points in the summary which could be of benefit to other scrutiny committees
and accordingly
AGREED to forward the
feedback summary to the Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group to consider what action,
if any, it wished to take in respect of the evaluation.
28/07
WORK PROGRAMME
(Agenda Item 10)
The Committee updated its Work Programme (CG10).
The addenda included a general note by the Corporate Performance
Manager on the development of the scrutiny work programme and the proposed
timeline for the pilot Fundamental Review of ICT. (The process adopted by the Committee on 5
October 2006 for the involvement of scrutiny committees in fundamental reviews
had been circulated (CG10 - supplement)).
Following the conclusion of this pilot a review of the process of
scrutiny involvement in fundamental reviews would be undertaken and included as
part of the annual review of the Council’s Constitution.
The Committee AGREED:
(a) to note that the Scrutiny Co-ordinating
Group on 4 June 2007 would be considering the process for the future
development of scrutiny work programmes; and
(b) in relation to
items in its own Work Programme, as follows:
‘Government
White Paper ‘Strong & Prosperous Communities and Bill’’: committee officer to ascertain the current
position/progress for the Committee on
‘Fundamental
Review of ICT Services’:
Consultants Hedra’s executive summary to be included in the Committee’s
26 July meeting;
Customer Focus:
the Charter Mark
Programme Board’s initial response to Committee on
‘Shared
Services Centre’:
scrutiny completed: to
be deleted from the Work Programme.
29/07
FORWARD PLAN
The Committee considered if there were items in the current
Forward Plan on which it wished to have an opportunity to offer advice to the
Cabinet before any decision was taken.
Items identified
for Committee consideration on
Local Area
Agreements (ref:2006/182) (unless raised at Council
on
Better Offices
Programme-Northern & Southern Areas and
................................................................................... in the Chair
Date of signing.................................................................. 2007
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