The Committee is asked to review the OSC work programme for 2021/22

The Committee’s received and noted the Draft Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme.  The main points of the discussions on the Work Programme is summarised below:

The Committee:

v  Was informed that prior to tonight’s meeting, all members of the scrutiny sub-committees had been able to use part of their first committee meetings to feed in their suggestions for the work programme.

v  Was reminded that there had been a scrutiny awayday on the 16^th July to develop the scrutiny work programme and consider how Members might best align the work programme with the Council’s strategic priorities, resident’s concerns, and key policy issues.

v  Agreed that the goal was to produce a co-ordinated and tight work programme between all committees, which would look at fewer issues in more depth to ensure OSC and its sub-committees are adding value and supporting the Council to deliver service improvements.

v  Noted that the work programme is intended be robust and covers key areas that will both impact and benefit to residents including:

1.    waste and recycling and public realm issues.

2.    housing regeneration and support to homeless applications. 

3.    youth justice, youth provision, young people’s education children social care and SEND.

4.    access to GP services, tackling obesity, mental health provision and ICS delivery

5.    customer service strategy and climate emergency; and

6.    food poverty and women’s safety

v  Noted that the draft scrutiny work programme would be shared with Members over the next few weeks as part of the development of the Committees plans.

v  Noted that the officers supporting the committee will also be engaging officers, services, and partners to help them better understand the Committee’s expectations over the course of the year.  With the final programme to be signed off at the Committees meeting in September.

·         In Paragraph 4 the Public Sector Equality Duty (as set out in the Equality Act 2010) aims to embed equality considerations into the day to day work of public bodies, so that they tackle discrimination and inequality and contribute to making society fairer;

·         The Overview and Scrutiny Committee and scrutiny sub-committee work programmes include key equality considerations of the Strategic Plan, including reducing inequality, promoting community cohesion and enabling community engagement. Identifying and prioritising issues, which are important to local residents, will play an important role in developing the work programme to drive service improvement. Specific items to be covered by the Committee in 2018/19 in this area include: reviewing the borough’s approach to supporting education and employment aspirations, reviewing implementation of the challenge session recommendations on cohesion and the Social Value Act;

·         Key to addressing equalities issues, is making scrutiny more accessible to residents. Accordingly, the October meeting is planned to be held in the community to providing greater opportunities for residents to contribute during meetings.