Agenda item

OVERVIEW OF SERVICE PRIORITIES

The Panel will receive an overview of service priorities from the Directors of Place, People and Corporate Services and the relevant Cabinet Members.

Minutes:

The panel considered the following proposals for scrutiny as presented by the Deputy Leader, Cabinet Member for Cooperatives and Community Development, Director for Corporate Services and Assistant Director for Environmental Services -

 

Deputy Leader:

 

·        Library Service Review;

·        Completion of the Life Centre – contract monitoring;

·        Leisure Management Contract;

 

Cabinet Member for Cooperatives and Community Development:

 

·        Anti Social Behaviour;

·        Police and Community Safety Partnership (monitoring of crime statistics);

·        Establishment of Police and Crime Commissioner Panel;

·        Community Cohesion and Equalities;

·        Community Covenant;

·        Localities and Neighbourhood Working;

·        Housing (Tenancy Strategy and Homelessness Policy);

·        Welfare Reform (estimated between £13m and £27m of benefits will be lost to the City);

·        Impact of changes on Council Tax;

·        Social Fund Replacement;

·        Voluntary and Community Sector Compact;

 

Director for Corporate Services:

 

·        ICT/Customer Services Improvement (subject to completion and submission of business case);

 

Assistant Director for Environmental Services:

 

·        Licensing Review – Gambling Act Policy;

·        Late Night Levy Legislation;

·        Recycling Rates.

 

Members of the panel put forward a number of questions to which the following responses were provided –

 

(a)

 

plans for the establishment of a history centre were still in place and whilst there was no objection to the issue being considered by scrutiny it would be best left until later in the year;

 

(b)

 

demolition of the Mayflower Centre had been delayed and it was understood that this was due to nesting birds;

 

(c)

 

the contract completion deadline in respect of the central park site would be reported back to panel members;

(d)

 

in terms of reported crime statistics, missed targets had been identified in the following four areas –

 

·        Serious acquisitive crime

·        Criminal damage

·        Violence with injury

·        Closing the gap

 

(e)

 

 

the estimated loss in benefits to the City of between £13m and £27m had been jointly identified by Plymouth City Council officers working with staff from the Department for Work and Pensions.  Information on welfare reform had been presented to both political groups in the last municipal year and more work was currently being undertaken on this;

 

(f)

 

a review of the Council’s Taxi Licensing Policy was due, however, the Government was currently consulting on changes to how the hackney carriage and private hire trades should be regulated and it would therefore be sensible to consolidate the two once the outcome of the consultation was known and then look at it as a whole towards the end of this financial year;

 

(g)

 

recycling and waste minimisation targets were regularly monitored through the Performance and Finance Report.

 

With regard to (g) above, Members stressed the importance of panels’ having access to the data within the Performance and Finance Report particularly relating to their terms of reference. 

 

Agreed that the panel’s work programme for 2012/13 is recommended to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board for approval as follows –

 

·        Library Modernisation - Task and Finish

·        Welfare Reform - Task and Finish

·        Social Fund replacement - Task and Finish

·        Compact - Task and Finish

·        Life Centre/Leisure Management Contract - regular updates

·        ICT/Customer Services Improvement - regular updates

·        Police Crime Panels/Commissioner - regular updates

 

In addition, the panel would expect to receive performance reports on its sphere of influence to enable them to react accordingly should performance cause concern.

 

(Councillors Damarell, Haydon, Jordan and Michael Leaves declared personal interests in respect of the above item).