The Committee received and considered a report that outlined a series of provisions relating to the coming municipal year that needed to be agreed, including:

1.    Agreeing the Scrutiny Lead Member portfolios and appointing OSC members to those roles.

2.    The establishment of scrutiny sub committees, approval of their terms of reference, and the appointment of scrutiny members.

3.    The appointment of co-opted members of the scrutiny sub - committees; and

4.    Noting the dates of OSC and Sub-Committee meetings in 2022/23.

Accordingly, the Committee:

In addition, the Committee:

v  Asked for clarification on the voting rights of the Muslim representative on the Children & Education Sub-Committee.  (Subsequent to the meeting it was confirmed that the Councils Constitution states in the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules Section 18 that the Sub-Committee may also include a Muslim representative who can also vote in respect of education matters).

v  Agreed that scrutiny meetings (i.e. formal meetings of overview and scrutiny committees) need to be focused, effective, and secure with meaningful outcomes for local people. However, noted that whilst any increase in the number of committees could potentially (a) allow more members to be involved in Overview and Scrutiny and to develop specialisms; (b) encourage members to concentrate on key cross cutting issues; (c) spread the potential high workload of scrutiny; (d) help in relating to cabinet remits if mirroring cabinet portfolios; (e) allow Committees to experiment with different approaches; and (f) facilitate the exchange of information and gaining knowledge of the various service areas. It was nevertheless was recognised that scrutiny committee meetings can take considerable effort to resource (e.g. physical attendance at a meeting of members and officers, the time spent by officers in preparing reports and collating agendas, and other ancillary activity) and requires that time spent at committee meetings must be well used. This means that they should add value, through securing tangible outcomes that have a positive impact on the lives of local people.  Accordingly, it was agreed that any increase in the number of committees would be subject to consideration at a future meeting.