Meeting documents

An apology for absence was submitted on behalf of Councillor Coulton.

Councillor Martin declared a personal interest in items 4, 5, 6 and 7 on any matters relating to Lancashire County Council.

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED:
That the minutes of the meeting held on 9 December 2015 be approved as a correct record and signed by the chairman.

The committee considered the list of matters arising from the last and earlier meetings. It was agreed to remove all the matters from the list, with the exception of the following:

9/12/14 ? Minute 35 ? Member Development ? E-Learning ? In addition to this item being removed it was agreed that the new committee considers this as part of the next Member Development Plan re-fresh.

28/10/14 ? Minute 29 ? City Deal - In addition to this item being removed it was agreed that a general update should be included on the Scrutiny Committee Forward Plan for Autumn 2015.

9/12/14 ? Minute 35 ? Health Strategy Document ? The Cabinet Member was asked about the status of this document within minute 51.

The chairman welcomed to the meeting Councillor P Smith (Cabinet member for Regeneration, Leisure and Healthy Communities) and Mark Gaffney (Director of Neighbourhoods, Environmental Health & Assets).

Following a question from Councillor Ogilvie, the Cabinet Member indicated that the Council did not have a Health Strategy as such. He expanded by stating that there was a Health Framework document which was put together by the Health and Wellbeing Partnership. The document was a strategy produced by the Clinical Commissioning Group but items within it applied to South Ribble. The Chairman commented that if there wasn?t a Health Strategy then it shouldn?t be included within the Performance, Budget and Risk Monitoring Report.

A discussion took place on why there had been a delay in providing a response to the Scrutiny Committee about the Health Strategy recommendation. The Chairman pointed out that following council on 20 November 2013 Cabinet should have then considered the recommendations but that this had not taken place. At the Scrutiny Committee held on 28 January 2014, the committee was informed that the recommendations had been accepted and that further consideration would be given to this by the Cabinet Member later in the year. On 12 August 2014 the committee received a similar response stating that further consideration would be given to this by the Cabinet Member. At this meeting the Leader had addressed the committee from the audience and following an update the committee looked forward to a written response regarding the recommendation. As no written response had been received, the committee made several attempts to arrange a meeting with the Cabinet Member without success which had led to this item being on the agenda.

Councillor P Smith stated that Cabinet had decided not to adopt the recommendation and once the Health Impact Assessment had been completed by Lancashire County Council the recommendations would be reconsidered.

The Leader, who was in the audience, confirmed that this was the case and that Cabinet had agreed not to accept the recommendations and that she felt this had been explained at a previous meeting of the committee. She added that Preston City Council had now withdrawn from the Healthy City Project and Chorley Borough Council was likely to withdraw as well.

Councillor M Tomlinson commented that the principle was how Cabinet interacted with Scrutiny and that it appeared that there had been no official response from Cabinet indicating why the recommendations had been rejected. The Chairman agreed stating that a written response should be provided to recommendations in-line with the constitution and statutory requirements.

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED:
1. That the committee notes that despite being advised to the contrary, the council does not currently have a health strategy;
2. That the Cabinet be asked to provide more timely and robust responses to the Scrutiny Committee recommendations in the future; and
3. That in future a written response be provided to the recommendations.

Councillor P Smith (Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Leisure and Healthy Communities) was joined by Rebecca Heap (Senior Community Works Officer) and the Chairman also welcomed Rebecca to the meeting.

Councillor P Smith introduced the report stating that it was positive and contained glowing achievements which were a testament to the members involved and the excellent work of the Community Works Team.

Councillor Tomlinson agreed that the report contained lots of good achievements but enquired how much the My Neighbourhood approach had cost and how the success had been measured. The Cabinet Member was unsure how much it had cost but agreed to find out. In respect of measuring the success this was difficult to know. He referred to a number of events/schemes including Leyland Festival, Gregson Lane Community Centre and Moss Side Playing Fields and that he was not sure if they would have happened or been as successful without the contribution of My Neighbourhoods.

Councillor Mrs Jones asked if there could be more flexibility given to My Neighbourhood forums to decide the number of projects undertaken as some of the Chairmen wanted to undertake more. Councillor P Smith didn?t think they should be any flexibility as ten projects was already quite testing and it was important that all these were delivered.

Following a question from Councillor Otter, the Cabinet Member stated that the council?s partners such as the county council, the police, health services and leisure and community organisations were very engaged. In particular, he thought that parish councils had seen the benefit of My Neighbourhoods.

Councillor P Smith was then asked about councillors and did he feel they were engaged with My Neighbourhoods. He responded that more and more councillors were appreciating the benefits and becoming more engaged. However, there were still some members that were not engaged at all and agreed that the attendance of these meetings should be recorded and published on the council?s website.

The committee had been made aware of comments from residents that they don?t always receive feedback on issues raised. The Cabinet Member was unsure why this was the case as he was not aware of any concerns and all comments and/or issues submitted were dealt with by Gateway the following day.

The committee was also aware of comments from other councillors that the informality of the meetings with no agenda or record of outcomes reduced transparency and accountability. The Cabinet Member disagreed stating that it was open and transparent and that progress against all projects were displayed giving them an opportunity to comment or ask questions. The Leader, who was in the audience, agreed that the meetings were transparent. She stated that when making the decision to move from Area Committees to My Neighbourhood Forums the recommendation was that they should be informal and flexible. She added that the only way of costing area committees identified that area committees cost ?300,000 more than My Neighbourhoods.

In response to a question concerning public attendance, Councillor P Smith responded that unfortunately there wasn?t a magic formula for getting people to attend. He stated that a Member Working Group looked at this issue a couple of years ago and the attendance did increase slightly for a short period. However, he added that today people communicate and receive information in many different ways such as Forward, Facebook, e-mails and Twitter.

Following a question concerning the effectiveness of the My Neighbourhood Facebook pages, the Cabinet Member indicated that he regularly discussed the analysis of this with officers. Rebecca Heap agreed, but hoped that once the desktop replacement had been completed she would be able to obtain more information to enable them to analyse the effectiveness in more detail. However, she did state that she received very good feedback from the public, particularly from those people who are too busy to attend meetings.

The committee thought that the process for agreeing expenditure was very complex especially for relatively small amounts of money and enquired if the process could be streamlined. Councillor P Smith stated that Governance Committee had previously looked at the process and indicated that the process needed to remain the same. The Leader confirmed this and added that the process provided accountability. However, she suggested that it may be time to ask Governance Committee the question again.

The committee expressed concern that there appeared to some confusion as to the My Neighbourhood role in the Section 106. The Cabinet Member was asked how the role could be shared more widely with members. He responded by saying that the process was important and that the schemes should be identified first before establishing if there are section 106 monies available. It was suggested that further information on the amount, purpose and timing of the Section 106 funding should be made available to the My Neighbourhood Chairmen and Forums.

Following a concern from Councillor Mrs Woollard, Councillor P Smith explained that some meetings previously held in December and January had been cancelled due to the weather and those which had taken place the attendance had lower than normal. If those months were taken out of the equation it was very difficult to fit four meetings into an already very busy timetable. He added that Western Parishes had produced a newsletter and distributed it throughout the area instead of holding a meeting. This had also been more cost effective as the money saved from not holding a meeting more than covered the cost of the newsletter. The chairman welcomed the suggestion of a newsletter but suggested that My Neighbourhood Chairman should have the flexibility to choose. The Cabinet Member agreed but that he would not like to see the frequency below three meetings a year.

In summing up Councillor P Smith said that the My Neighbourhood Forums were heading in the right direction. He hoped more councillors continue to get involved as My Neighbourhood Forums were something to be proud of.

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED:
1. That the cost of the My Neighbourhoods be provided to the committee;
2. That ward councillors attendance at My Neighbourhood Forums be recorded and included in the member attendance figures on the council?s website;
3. That the Governance Committee be asked again to review the process for agreeing My Neighbourhood expenditure and give discretion and flexibility to the number of projects; and
4. That further information on the amount, purpose and timing of the Section 106 funding be provided to the My Neighbourhood Chairmen and Forums.

(a) Update on Scrutiny Review of Drainage and Flooding ? Councillor M Gardner indicated there would be a further meeting on 4 February 2015.
(b) Update on Scrutiny Review of Ageing Population ? Councillor Mrs Jones indicated that the task group had met on a regular basis and had been in discussion with a wide variety of organisations. There would be a Member Learning Hour on 2 February specifically to explore the isolation and loneliness facing the ageing population. A stakeholder workshop would also be held on 24 February 2015.
(c) Update on Scrutiny Review of Road Casualties & Deaths ? The date of the first meeting would be confirmed in the near future.
(d) Verbal update on Lancashire County Council's Health Scrutiny Committee ? Councillor Mrs Jones confirmed she had attended the meeting on 13 January 2015 on behalf of the Chairman. The main part of the meeting was an overview of self-care, particularly concentrating on asset based approaches and health literacy.
(e) Member feedback on meeting and training attended on behalf of the committee ?
i) Councillor Mrs Jones along with other members of the committee had attended the North West Scrutiny Support Network on 19 January 2015 where the topic discussed was the proposed new HS2 rail link and the impact and the advantages it would bring.
ii) Councillor M Tomlinson had attended a parliamentary seminar on 16 December 2014 where he had be able to observe a Select Committee. The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was present and answered questions relating to the breadth of departmental business, with issues relating to housing and planning usually coming under particularly close scrutiny. Councillor Tomlinson was disappointed with this part of the seminar as the majority of the questions had been tweeted and he thought the responses were superficial.
(f) Cabinet and Scrutiny Forward Plans - the committee noted the Forward Plans.