Agenda and minutes

Councillor Bill Service had sent his apologies. Councillor Ian Hudspeth substituted for Councillor Anthony Gearing, Councillor Nicholas Turner for Councillor Alyas Ahmed and Councillor Patrick Greene for Councillor Carol Viney.

Councillor Turner declared an interest as the chairman of the Mill Arts Centre, representing the county council.

Councillor Stratford declared an interest in case of substantive discussions of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.

There were no requests to speak.

The report (which is to be considered by each of the Scrutiny Committees on 15 December) forms part of a series relating to the Service and Resource Planning process for 2012/13 to 2016/17.

Each Committee will meet in turn to consider the Business Strategies and savings proposed for their service areas. Comments from each Committee will then be considered by Strategy & Partnerships Scrutiny Committee on 12 January 2012 prior to being fed back to Cabinet in order that they can take the comments into consideration in proposing their budget and Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) in January 2012.

The following annexes are attached:

The Director for Environment & Economy, Chief Fire Officer and Head of Community Safety and Assistant Chief Executive & Chief Finance Officer will be available to respond to questions, together with the Cabinet Members for Police and Policy Co-ordination and Safer and Stronger Communities.

Lorna Baxter gave an overview of the report to the committee and responded to members’ questions for clarifications.

The discussion was then grouped by service area. Officers gave presentations containing an overview of proposals and responded to questions by members, as follows:

1. Fire & Rescue - Dave Etheridge, Nathan Travis
2. Community Safety – Dave Etheridge, Richard Webb
3. Community Services – Simon Kearey, Karen Warren
4. Adult Learning – Huw Jones, Vicky Field
5. Registration & Coroners – Peter Clarke, Jacquie Bugeja

Summary of discussion:

Members welcomed the focus on prevention within Fire & Rescue but were concerned that it would be difficult to deal with future pressures without affecting frontline services. Officers responded that they were looking to secure national funding to deal with specific pressures, such as upgrading the control room, and to continue making the most of being part of the council rather than stand-alone.

Members were reassured that in Community Safety changes to the service were being managed through smarter working, using intelligence to target investigations and clearer prioritisation.

Proposals for the Library Services had been discussed in detail at Monday’s scrutiny meeting. Further details relating to council support for arts organisations will be made available to interested members.

Adult Learning and the Registration Service are part self-funding services. Members commended Jacquie Bugeja, Head of Registration and Coroner's Service, for her work including delivering on the national “Tell us once” initiative as an early adopter. The joint effort made by officers and members in working with partners on repatriations was also recognized.

The committee agreed to support the proposals made for the services listed above in principle. In giving their support, members stated that:

• The committee wished to receive further information about the potential and experience of transferring council run Gypsy and Traveller sites to the private sector
• The proposed review of the mobile library service should be brought to scrutiny early next year
• The Library Service should continue to remain on the committee’s forward plan as proposals are implemented, as will Adult Learning
• They asked services to consider, and keep under review, whether there are any opportunities to generate income