To note the appointment of Chair and Vice-Chair as confirmed at the Annual General Meeting.

The panel noted the appointment of Councillors Kate Taylor as Chair and Sam Leaves as Vice-Chair for the municipal year 2014/15.

Members will be asked to make any declarations of interest in respect of items on this agenda.

In accordance with the constitution, there were no declarations of interest made by members in respect of items being considered at this meeting.

To receive reports on business which, in the opinion of the Chair, should be brought forward for urgent consideration.

There were no items of Chair’s urgent business.

The panel will note its terms of reference.

The panel received its terms of reference for information and noted that its areas of responsibility fell within the portfolios of the following Cabinet members –

·         Deputy Leader

·         Environment

·         Co-operatives, Housing and Community Safety

The panel will consider the appointment of co-opted representatives and/or confirm

existing co-opted representatives.

Members were advised that although Steve Meakin had been unable to attend today’s meeting he had indicated his willingness to continue working with the panel as a co-opted representative.

The panel recommends that Steve Meakin, Money Advice Co-ordinator, Devon and Cornwall, is appointed as its co-opted representative for the municipal year 2014/15.

The panel will receive for consideration a Framework for Working with Citizens and Communities.

The panel received a report setting out a proposal for a new framework for working with citizens and communities.  In attendance to present the report were Councillor Peter Smith, Deputy Leader, Stuart Palmer, Assistant Director for Homes and Communities, and Hannah Daw, Policy and Business Planning Officer.

The report informed members that a need had been identified for Plymouth to create a new relationship with its citizens who felt removed from the decision making process and faced barriers to community involvement.  This went against the Council’s vision for the City to be a place where ‘people could have a say about what is important to them and where they could change what happened in their area’.

By working with partners such as the Police, Health, Plymouth Community Homes, and the voluntary sector and sharing resources and responsibilities, the Council hoped to be able to respond to customers and communities in a more flexible way and the framework was the start of a journey towards empowering communities to take control.

In addition, the report looked at the role of local councillors and how support would be needed in order to help members ‘channel shift’ towards becoming local leaders in their communities and set out a series of work streams for when the framework was agreed in order to move forward.

In response to questions raised, Members were advised that –

Members were concerned that the framework was lacking in detail and felt that it would benefit from pre-decision scrutiny in the form of a co-operative review. 

The panel therefore recommends that –

Members will receive a presentation on the Transformation Programme with a particular focus on the Customer and Service area proposals.

Further to minute 43, the panel received a brief re-run of the presentation on the Customer and Service Transformation Programme.  In attendance for this item and the next were Peter Honeywell, Transformation Programme Manager, and Dave Saunders, Project Executive.

In summary, the presentation –

·         identified the problems that the programme was addressing;

·         set out the overall aims of the programme;

·         detailed the specific projects included in / excluded from the programme;

·         highlighted the costs and financial benefits anticipated overall and in    2014/15;

·         indicated how key partners were being engaged in developing the programme;

·         identified the main risks and how they were being addressed;

·         suggested how scrutiny could get involved and add value to the process.

In response to concerns raised about the ability of the council’s IT services to support the transformation of customer services, members were advised that external advice had been sought and a different perspective provided on how the council should be designing and building services fit for purpose.  Assurances were given that IT would be embedded throughout the process.

The panel will be invited to consider how scrutiny can engage in development of the Customer Access Strategy.

Further to minute 7 above, the panel heard more detail on proposals to create a Customer Access Strategy.  Members were advised that –

In response to questions raised, Members heard that –

Members welcomed the presentation and were supportive of the proposals.

The panel recommends that a cross-panel and transformation focussed co-operative review is undertaken into the Customer Access Strategy.

To review the Your Plymouth work programme 2014/2015.

The panel considered its draft work programme for 2014/15.  The Vice-Chair raised concerns about increasing levels of anti-social behaviour in relation to the evening and night-time economy and proposed that a co-operative review into the matter may be appropriate.  It was suggested that information relating to anti-social behaviour and incidents of hate crime be included in the Crime Update report due to panel in September and that, should levels be of concern to the panel, the request for a co-operative review be reconsidered then.

The panel recommends approval of its draft work programme for 2014/15, subject to the following –

·         the Safer Plymouth Partnership : Crime Figures Update scheduled for September to include details of incidents of anti-social behaviour and hate crime;

·         a further update in respect of Safer Plymouth Partnership : Crime Figures to be scheduled for consideration by the panel at its meeting on 16 March 2015.

To note the Your Plymouth meeting dates for 2014/15 as follows –

·         8 September 2014

·         15 December 2014

·         16 March 2015

Future meeting dates for the Your Plymouth scrutiny panel in 2014/15 were noted as follows –

·      8 September 2014

·      15 December 2014

·      16 March 2015

To consider passing a resolution under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 to exclude the press and public from the meeting for the following item(s) of business on the grounds that it (they) involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph(s)   of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended by the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

There were no items of exempt business.