The Leader and the Chief Executive have been invited to attend the Management Board at 2.10pm to discuss Council issues affecting the scrutiny work programme.

The O & S Management Board heard from the Leader and the Chief Executive on Council issues relating to the overview and scrutiny work programme, who advised that impending important issues included –

• Building Schools for the Future
• Waste
• Job evaluation
• CityBus Ltd.
• Stock transfer
• Eastern corridor – Sherford
• Northern corridor
• City bid for the World Cup
• Life Centre.

Responses to Members’ questions included –

• in their view, scrutiny had substantially improved, had developed a more mature approach and was succeeding in providing effective challenge to officers;

·        it was understood that a report from the Independent Remuneration Panel regarding allowances for O & S Management Board Members would be submitted to City Council in February 2010;

·        waste, Children’s Services and the Council’s budget had been major issues to address over recent years;

·        Cabinet would bear in mind scrutiny’s wish to have involvement in the development of policies and strategies at an early stage, and there were examples of this happening, e.g. Sports Facility Strategy;

·        regarding the Life Centre and business plan information requested by scrutiny Members, the Chair of the Customers & Communities OSP and the lead officer should follow this up to ensure information required was provided;

·        the Council acknowledged that scrutiny was essential in order achieve an excellently performing Council and the new Assistant Director for Democracy and Governance, together with the new Assistant Director for Human Resources, would be asked to consider how to achieve dedicated support for scrutiny;

·        scrutiny had grown and health scrutiny was a good example of this;  support should be sought from the service department as they received benefit from scrutiny and also partners, e.g. health, should be encouraged to provide support to scrutiny; 

·        engagement with partners was improving and partners were aware that they would be assessed under the Local Area Agreement;  it was suggested that Council strategies should be presented to the partners’ Boards so that it could be assessed whether partners were signed up to them;

·        as community leader, the Council must ensure that good scrutiny focus on health’s key objectives was achieved, concentrating on only four or five as a maximum;

·        regarding Building Schools for the Future, this was not Private Finance Initiative money but Government money which could only be achieved by the Council funding the necessary bid;

·        the issue of schools charging prices too high for the community to pay might be a subject for scrutiny, it was suggested;

·        it would be helpful if Members could encourage these new schools to share their facilities as it was intended that they should be at the heart of the community, which could not be achieved if schools closed their doors at 3.30pm;

·        the relevant Cabinet Member and the new Assistant Director for Democracy and Governance would be asked to address Member Development issues;

·        officers would ensure that the forthcoming finance training event had a revised approach;

·        the Council wanted officers lower down the organisation to be accountable and scrutiny could help in this ambition by challenging in an appropriate way.

Resolved that the Leader and the Chief Executive be thanked for their attendance.