Agenda and draft minutes
Venue: The Council Chamber, Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BG
Contact: Simone Scott-Sawyer, Democratic Services Tel: 020 7364 4120; E-mail: simone.scott-sawyer@towerhamlets.gov.uk
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APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE To receive any apologies for absence. Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Amy Whitelock and from the co-opted Member, Memory Kampiyawo.
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DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST To note any declarations of interest made by Members, including those restricting Members from voting on the questions detailed in Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act, 1992. See attached note from the Chief Executive.
Minutes: Councillor Stephanie Eaton declared a personal interest in respect of agenda item 10 as a leaseholder of Island Homes;
Councillor Rachael Saunders declared a personal interest in respect of agenda item 7.3 as she worked for a business in the community.
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UNRESTRICTED MINUTES To confirm as a correct record of the proceedings the unrestricted minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 19th June 2012. Minutes: The Chair Moved and it was:-
RESOLVED
That the unrestricted minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 19th June 2012 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record of the proceedings.
Matters arising
The Chair referred to the agenda on 19th June, item 9.1, “Strategic Performance and Corporate Revenue …” with regards to the Carer’s report and requested an update on the outcomes as promised by Councillor Alibor Choudhury.
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REQUESTS TO SUBMIT PETITIONS To be notified at the meeting. Minutes: There were no petitions. |
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REQUESTS FOR DEPUTATIONS To be notified at the meeting. Minutes: There were no deputations. |
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SECTION ONE REPORTS 'CALLED IN' There were no Section One reports ‘callled in’ from the meeting of Cabinet held on 20th June 2012. Minutes: There were none. |
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REPORTS FOR CONSIDERATION Minutes: VARIATION OF ORDER OF BUSINESS
The Chair Moved that the order of business be varied. Accordingly, item 7.3 was taken first, followed by items 7.2 and 7.1.
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OUTLINE OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE WORK PROGRAMME Minutes: The Chair highlighted the following areas to be reviewed:
· Youth unemployment; · Post-16 educational attainment; · Co-regulation and accountability of registered housing providers Supporting the third sector – transparency and value for money in allocation of mainstream grants The Chair also highlighted a number of proposed Challenge Sessions which were intended to provide an opportunity to bring relevant stakeholders together to focus on issues of interest to the Committee, including mental ill health & housing need and crime & enforcement.
In addition, the Chair stated that members of the Committee remained concerned about the impact of welfare reform on local residents and would work with officers to understand the impact of these changes and develop an appropriate approach to scrutiny of the Council and partners’ responses to these changes. It was agreed that this would begin with an initial meeting to be held in September during which members would be briefed on work to date on assessing the impact of changes to welfare benefits.
The following topics would be addressed through spotlight sessions within the Committee’s scheduled meetings:
· Local democracy; · Street cleanliness. Cllr Saunders relayed some comments from Cllr Whitelock in her absence. She had requested that the focus for the review on post 16 attainment be on educational attainment rather attempting to cover wider associated issues about careers advice. Cllr Saunders also requested that an initial session on the local impact of changes to welfare benefits be scheduled for the early autumn and be advertised to all councillors.
Sarah Barr, Senior Strategy Policy and Performance Officer had agreed at a previous meeting to look into this issue.
RESOLVED:
That the Work Programme be noted.
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SPOTLIGHT ON EMPLOYMENT & ENTERPRISE There will be a Power point presentation for Members by Chris Holme. Minutes: Chris Holme, Service Head Resources and Councillor Shafiqul Haque, Cabinet Member for Jobs and Skills were both in attendance.
Cllr Haque referred to The Employment Strategy’s five key aims and highlighted the Council’s main goals:
1. Making the main employment agencies work together better for local residents; 2. Ensuring the money that was invested in employment was done in a smarter way; 3. Finding ways to engage better with residents who found it difficult to access the mainstream services; 4. Promoting the benefits of work – particularly amongst inactive groups; 5. Doing everything possible to capture as many employment opportunities as possible for local residents.
There were agreed objectives in the Enterprise Strategy that provided an environment for business to flourish including:
This was one of longest and deepest recessions in living memory, which therefore meant that officers worked in the most challenging of environments. However, the challenge was to make every penny count to deliver jobs for local people and business for local suppliers.
Better relations must be forged with Job Centre Plus and the Council was delivering real, sustainable jobs for local people.
Some of the barriers residents faced were language barriers for which there was now additional funding for “English as a Second Language” in this year’s budget.
Action points
Chris Holme endeavoured to report back to the Committee on the following:
There was a request that the Council look further at what work could be done to encourage employers to offer greater opportunities for flexible working, including part time work. The Chair welcomed Mr Holme’s comments on the importance of supporting social enterprise and the third sector as key sectors of the local economy and sought Mr Holme’s views on the Council's current approach and whether there was room to further strengthen this work. She highlighted the success which Hackney had had in reducing unemployment despite it having a highly transient population, similar to Tower Hamlets and ... view the full minutes text for item 7.2 |
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ELECTORAL SERVICES - REGISTRATION OF ELECTORS & CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS There will be a Power point presentation for Members by Isabella Freeman and Louise Stamp.
Minutes: Isabella Freeman, Assistant Chief Executive, Legal Services and Louise Stamp, Electoral Services Manager, were both in attendance. Louise Stamp gave a PowerPoint presentation for Members on Electoral Services and its role in voter registration. In response to some Members’ questions, the following points were outlined:
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VERBAL UPDATES FROM SCRUTINY LEADS (Time allocated – 5 minutes each) Minutes: Councillor Helal Uddin, Scrutiny Lead Member for Resources
A meeting had been held with Chris Holme, Service Head for Resources, Development and Renewal Directorate, on the scope and timing of the Scrutiny Review on Mainstream Grants. The following points were clarified:
· The process for reviewing and making recommendations on allocation of Mainstream Grants had been revised; · The new process was approved by Cabinet in March 2012; · The process for the allocation of grants for 2012 – 15 was due to conclude by the end of September 2012. With regards to the Review scope and timing, the following points were outlined:
· The Service was committed to ensuring that a transparent process welcomed the engagement of Scrutiny Members in ensuring that transparency was achieved; · October was considered a suitable time for the Review meetings to take place when the process had been completed, but the issue was still “live”; · It was suggested that the Council engaged with the Third Sector Advisory Board to identify voluntary organisations to involve in the Review group. It was anticipated that a more detailed scope for the Review would be developed over the summer.
Councillor Sirajul Islam, Scrutiny Lead Member for Development and Renewal
Cllr Islam had had an introductory meeting with the Corporate Director, Development and Renewal to discuss the work programme. He would be meeting Jackie Odunoye to take the scrutiny review work forward.
RESOLVED:
That the verbal updates be noted.
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PRE-DECISION SCRUTINY OF SECTION ONE (UNRESTRICTED) CABINET PAPERS (Time allocated – 30 minutes). Minutes: Nil items. |
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ANY OTHER SECTION ONE (UNRESTRICTED) BUSINESS WHICH THE CHAIR CONSIDERS TO BE URGENT Minutes: The Chair referred to a late Cabinet report tabled for the Committee titled “One Housing Group – integration of Island Homes” requiring an urgent decision by Cabinet on 25th July.
Members were apprehensive about the hasty request for the OSC to agree to the report and questioned why it had not been placed on the Forward Plan and submitted to the Committee through the normal channels. The financial implications were also of concern to some Members. The Chair therefore proposed querying the following points at the Cabinet meeting on 25th July:
· The lack of accounts for 2011 – 12 and whether or not the Housing Group was still viable; · The lack of a credible explanation as to the tardiness of the report; · Was the variation to the pension bid as expected – was the Council liable? · With reference to part three of the appendix, were there any performance issues to take into account? · Local labour clause – this should be mandatory. Parent Governor and Co-optee vacancies
Regrettably, the Parent Governor nomination was still outstanding due to a delay with the completion of the elections for Parent Governor representatives. Similarly, the Co-optee vacancies were still unfilled and it was anticipated that these would be resolved by the next meeting in September.
The meeting ended at 7.35 p.m.
Chair, Ann Jackson Overview & Scrutiny Committee
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