Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 3 November 2020.

The minutes of the meeting held on 3 November 2020 were approved and authorised to be signed by the Chair. Cllrs Smedley and Evans abstained as they were not present at the meeting.

Members to declare any interest as appropriate in respect of items to be considered at this meeting.

There were no Declarations of Interest.

To consider the Forward Plan and identify any relevant items for

inclusion in the Scrutiny work plan, or to request further information.

Copies of the latest Forward Plan will be available at the meeting. It

can be found on the website using the following link:-

Forward Plan

Councillor Cumbers introduced the Scrutiny Workplan and the  Cabinet Forward Plan and reminded Members that it lists the key decisions due to be discussed at Cabinet over the next three months.

During the discussion the following points were noted:

·         The Democratic Services Manager advised members that the Scrutiny workshop indicates the format of the different reports brought to Scrutiny:

Ø  a one off report is an initial report where members may just offer recommendations to Council and take no further action or may agree to investigate further and it would be included on the plan for a later date.

Ø  Task and Finish Group reports are more in depth and could be short or long term items

Ø  Scrutiny may ask to review and comment on Cabinet reports before they are presented to Cabinet

Ø  The Report may be in the form of  a presentation.

·         Councillor Cumbers advised that following Cabinet on 16 December 2020 approving the recommendations in respect to the Council Asset Development Programme, she would be proposing to add the Asset Development Programme to the Workplan to consider the following:

Ø  Review of the options and what the committee feel is the best fit for Melton. This can include: do nothing; sell as it is or develop.

Ø  From the capital receipts raised, after costs, what objectives would be recommended to Cabinet to fund? Such as the Housing Company.

Ø  Review the social and economic benefits/impacts of any change (if there were any).

·         The Monitoring Officer advised Members that reports would be provided to Cabinet and Council by May 2021 appraising all the options including  the possible relocation of Me and My Learning, The Venue, Enterprise Cars and other tenants currently occupying Phoenix House. Members were at liberty to make comments through the process and were not restricted to wait until reports were presented.  Each option would provide a full report of the logistics and would take into account grant funding conditions, costings, design of other locations and refurbishment costs. Should Council agree any of these options to be taken forward then Scrutiny would be presented with the reports and invited to provide feedback and comments.

·         The Director for Growth and Regeneration would provide clarity to the staff at Phoenix House that there would be no relocation taking place during 2021.

·         Members were invited to provide feedback for any valid suggestions to officers for consideration for including in the proposals.  Members would be kept updated of the process.

·         The Director for Growth and Regeneration advised members that redevelopment of the any site would be a long term process. The Council had approved the disposal of Cattle Market North in December 2020. She advised that there the business case for Phoenix House will evolve in following costed design options considered for reconfiguration of  Parkside and the Cove to allow for relocation from Phoenix House. consultations would be taking place over the coming months and year regarding the same. The Council is yet to explore the options for the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 79.

To receive the Quarter 2 Performance Report from the Director for Corporate Services.

•      Cabinet considered the report on 16 December 2020

•      Scrutiny have requested the report in order to provide feedback to Cabinet and/or identify topics which may be added to the Scrutiny Work Plan.

The Director for Corporate Services introduced a report advising that having established a new Corporate Strategy in September 2020 the purpose of this report was to update Cabinet on progress in relation to delivery of the Council’s Corporate priorities under the new Corporate strategy, providing both a set of Corporate Performance Measures alongside key project updates under each priority theme. The report provided details relating to the first and second quarters of the financial year 2020-21.

This was the first corporate performance report measuring performance against the new Corporate Strategy 2020-24 and included new and refreshed measures.

It is important the Council regularly receives and considers performance information to evaluate progress.

The Council’s Corporate Performance Measures are used to focus on key priority services and projects as set out in the corporate plan and seek to help inform the Cabinet, Members and Officers with regard to the formation of policy and oversight of delivery.

In addition information on complaints had been incorporated so these could be considered alongside performance data.

This information had been provided to the scrutiny committee for the committee to consider so that it could be used to inform the development of the scrutiny plan moving forward.

Note: The committee was not being asked to scrutinise the performance framework – this was an information report any questions about the performance indicators would be posed to the relevant Directors after the meeting.

Moving forward:

The performance framework is being developed and would be made available in the New Year to members. This would set out the context for each of the elements that are being pulled together. In addition to the these performance indicators we are also looking to develop a “State of Melton” report which would also set out those indicators that the council does not directly control but give the context within which we are operating and would be used to develop policy eg. demographics, economy etc.

Indicators were also being developed, which may be useful to ward members relevant to their ward and the directors for Housing and Communities and Growth and Regeneration would be sending out some initial indicators in the new year which would be developed and expanded into further Ward level data where possible.

During the discussion the following points were noted:

·         The Monitoring Officer advised that corporate complaints had now been incorporated into the performance measures, this was also being fed back at service level. There had been a lot work done on service improvements which was overseen at Senior Leadership level and trends were being identified back to the root causes. Further information regarding these findings would be brought back to Scrutiny through these performance reports.

·         The Monitoring Officer advised that customers were able to come to the website to provide positive feedback as well as make complaints. In addition, there was now an inbox compliments@melton.gov.uk which was monitored and recorded accordingly. Members agreed to promote this to the public.

·         Cllr Browne asked for recognition to be passed to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80.

The Director for Growth and Regeneration to submit a report on establishing task and finish groups to review the Melton Business Improvement District.

The Director for Growth and Regeneration submitted a report to members in respect of establishing a Task and Finish Group to review the Melton Business Improvement District (BID) in advance of a report going to Council to showing how Melton Borough Council (MBC) can support the BID going forward and share a business plan for the next term of work.

During the discussion the following points were made:

·         The aim of the Task & Finish Group would be to obtain information from other BID companies on how they operate and what works for them and to compare these findings with the Melton BID’s business plan. A report would go to Cabinet to offer recommendations on suggested areas for improvement.

·         The report would be presented to the Chair of BID following approval from Cabinet for consideration and comment.

·         The aim of the report would be to work together collaboratively to make the town a better place for businesses and to increase footfall.

·         Cllrs Cumbers, Child and Browne would be members of the Task and Finish Group for the review of the Melton BID.

·         Members were invited to provide feedback and suggestions.

RESOLVED

(1)  The Committee ESTABLISHED a Task and Finish Group

(2)  The Committee APPROVED the Terms of Reference for the Task and Finish Group as at Appendix A

(3)  The Committee NOTED the Scoping Documents for the Task and Finish Group would be drafted by the Group at the first meeting and circulated to the Scrutiny Committee for information.

The Portfolio Holder for Climate, Access and Engagement, Cllr Freer-Jones, provided the annual presentation to the Committee and provided updates to Priorities 1, 4 and 6.

During the discussion the following points were noted:

·         In the last 9 months the time spent on community projects had been affected due to the Covid 19 response as staff had been deployed to work supporting local businesses and the community where assistance was needed most.

·         An update of the portfolio had last been sent to members at the end of October 2020 and there would be monthly updates provided to members going forward from 2021.

·         There had been over 12,780 registered online accounts since June 2020 over half of which were created by people at home with 2,000 linked to the Council Tax page. 

·         All the forms that are used online by members of the public would be replaced during phase 2 of the implementation of the IEG4 system. Services would be working with customer services to identify and add forms to the platforms ahead of the system going live.

·         The focus on complex people activities ie. anti-social behaviour and case management and the supporting people work had been put on hold due to the housing management restructure and this would resume when the new team was in place, work was underway to recruit new posts following approval from Council on 25 November 2020. Customer services were at the forefront of demand and work was underway to track and record the demands and how the demands were being dealt with.

·         There would be a big focus ensuring that demands that were received by customer services were passed to the most effective service area possible as some complaints/demands could be covered by more than one service area.

·         The new phone software tracked all calls to customer services, advised the customer their position in the queue and offered a call back facility. Customer services had a screen in their area which showed the number of calls waiting, the number of calls that had been answered and the length of time each call was waiting before being answered.

·         Customer services had received 67,079 contacts from the public from all channels (face to face, telephone and emails) in the last 11 months with the top demands being council tax, repairs, housing options and waste. Since March 2020 there had been 4,300 demands in relation to Covid-19.

·         Cllr Freer-Jones would provide Members with a report showing the breakdown of calls to customer services for the last 11 months.

·         Members would be updated when further information was available regarding the possibility of a joint bid with other Councils for the funding for carbon neutral retro-fitting to our housing stock.

·         Environmental Health Officers were out in the communities checking that establishments were following the current Covid-19 guidelines and were there in an advisory capacity not just prosecuting at the first offence.

·         The current Audio Visual  equipment in the council chambers needed to be updated to allow hybrid meetings to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 82.

To consider any other items that the Chair considers urgent

There was no urgent business for discussion.