29.1           The evacuation procedure, as noted on the Agenda, was taken as read.  

29.2           The Chairman welcomed Inspector Dave Goga, from Gloucestershire Police Service to the meeting and advised that he was in attendance for Agenda Item 8, Scrutiny of the Community Safety Partnership. In addition, Councillor R E Garnham, the Council’s representative on the Gloucestershire Police and Crime Panel, would be providing an update on the last meeting of the Panel at Agenda Item 7. Bearing in mind the attendance of the Police, the Chairman announced his intention to vary the order of the Agenda so that Item 8, Scrutiny of the Community Safety Partnership, was taken at Item 6 after the consideration of the Executive Committee Forward Plan. This would enable the Police representative to leave the meeting in a timely fashion.

30.1           Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Mrs G F Blackwell (Vice-Chairman) and D T Foyle. Councillor K J Cromwell had indicated that he would be late.  There were no substitutions for the meeting.

31.1           The Committee’s attention was drawn to the Tewkesbury Borough Council Code of Conduct which was adopted by the Council on 26 June 2012 and took effect from 1 July 2012.

31.2           There were no declarations made on this occasion.

To approve the Minutes of the meeting held on 21 July 2015.

32.1           The Minutes of the meeting held on 21 July 2015, copies of which had been circulated, were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.  

To determine whether there are any questions for the relevant Lead Members and what support the Overview and Scrutiny Committee can give to work contained within the Plan.

33.1           Attention was drawn to the Executive Committee Forward Plan, circulated at Pages No. 14-17. Members were asked to determine whether there were any questions for the relevant Lead Members and what support the Overview and Scrutiny Committee could give to the work contained within the Plan.

33.2           A Member questioned what the Executive Committee would be considering in terms of the lease of facilities at Cold Pool Lane. In response, he was advised that the Council was due to take over the facilities. There was a longstanding action to lease the facilities from Bloor Homes and this needed to be agreed by the Executive Committee in order to commence the tender process.

33.3           In respect of the ‘Review of the Safeguarding Children Policy’, the Environmental and Housing Services Group Manager indicated that, due to potential changes at a County level, there may be a need to change the date that this was considered by the Executive Committee. She would know more in due course. In addition, she indicated that she had recently organised some Safeguarding Training which was provided by an external trainer. She had been disappointed with the level of interest shown by Members through the attendance numbers. She hoped in future Members would be more willing to engage.

33.4           Accordingly, it was

                  RESOLVED          That the Executive Committee Forward Plan be NOTED.

To receive a presentation on the new policing review. 

34.1           The Environmental and Housing Services Group Manager introduced a presentation which set out details about the Borough’s Community Safety Partnership. The key points were provided as follows:

·         Current Model – This was not working very well and had not done for some time. It had been agreed by the previous Chairman that things needed to change to ensure the Partnership was more effective and the current Chairman had indicated that she was happy to continue this work and explore the changes. Currently the Neighbourhood Watch organisations received information but there was no particular involvement with the Community Safety Partnership. There was an Anti-Social Behaviour meeting every six weeks at which operational issues were discussed and shared by a number of agencies that were in attendance; this was a particularly successful meeting that worked really well and was a model that Officers would like to replicate if possible.

·         Proposed Structure – The same groups would be involved (Neighbourhood Watch Coordinators; Neighbourhood Coordination Group Chairs; Anti-Social Behaviour Meeting; Statutory Members; and Registered Providers) but they would all link into the Community Safety Partnership rather than only to each other. The Community Safety Partnership would work in partnership with all agencies for projects to be delivered on the ground to address emerging issues of anti-social behaviour in an effort to increase public perception.

·         Involving Communities – Help to relaunch Neighbourhood Coordination Groups; encourage attendance and community leadership; better advertising; and use available money to tackle issues in communities. Local area contact through Community Development Officers. Address emerging issues through Anti-Social Behaviour Meetings; there was money available to tackle issues in communities. Use the Neighbourhood Watch Coordinators; the eyes and ears ‘on the ground’. 

·         Funding – Bid submitted to Police Crime Commissioner which targeted six priorities (Accessibility and Accountability; Older but not Overlooked; Young People becoming Adults; Safe Days and Nights for All; Safe and Social Driving; and Safer Cyber), currently had £20,000 to spend on four of those priorities (Older but Not Overlooked; Young People becoming Adults; Safe Days and Nights for All; and Safer Cyber).

·         What’s Next – Arrange workshop to share the structure and receive feedback from partners; understand the new policing model and impact; and decide launch date.

34.2           In making his presentation, Inspector Goga explained that he had been in Tewkesbury since May 2014. A new Police operating model had been in place since July with most Officers now working in a pattern of two early shifts; two late shifts and two night shifts. This ensured everyone was doing their fair share of working during peak demand times. Over 100 shift patterns had been in place prior to the reorganisation. For Tewkesbury there had been a big impact in two ways, firstly there were more Officers available to meet demand and, secondly, Tewkesbury was quite unique as it touched every other local policing area in the County. Prior to July, Cheltenham and Gloucester had its own incident response teams but now they were all working out of Bamfurlong  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

To consider the forthcoming work of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

35.1           Attention was draw to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme for 2015/16, circulated at Pages No.18-19, which Members were asked to consider.  

35.2           The Corporate Services Group Manager took the opportunity to remind Members of the training which was being facilitated by South West Councils the following Monday and he indicated that he hoped as many Members of the Committee would be able to attend as possible.

35.3           Accordingly, it was

                  RESOLVED          That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme                               for 2015/16 be NOTED.

To receive feedback from the last meeting of the Gloucestershire Police and Crime Panel. 

36.1           Members received an update from Councillor R E Garnham, the Council’s representative on the Gloucestershire Police and Crime Panel, on matters discussed at the last meeting of the Panel held on 8 September 2015.

36.2           Councillor Garnham advised that the Police and Crime Commissioner had indicated that he would be happy to come and talk to the Committee rather than just providing written answers to the questions posed by the Committee at its last meeting. However, Councillor Garnham had felt that written responses were important and as such he had pushed for them. They had now been circulated by Democratic Services. In terms of the meeting on 8 September, he advised that the main agenda items had focussed around a presentation from the Chief Constable on the Constabulary’s “New Operating Model”.  There had also been a presentation regarding various schemes that were aimed at meeting the Commissioner’s Safe and Social Driving objective. Although the “Finance Update” had appeared as Agenda Item 8 this had been a verbal report only as the Commissioner had stated that the papers were still confidential until the Constabulary had met later that week. Therefore no finance data was actually tabled. It had been highlighted that the minutes of the meeting on 16 July had included a recommendation from the Police and Crime Panel to the Police and Crime Commissioner that he redraft his Annual Report to include “relevant statistics” and reissue the report.  The statistics that had been requested were around the levels of crime in the County.  The Commissioner had stated that he was not prepared to include this data and therefore the Annual Report would remain unchanged.

36.3              The meeting had received a short report from the Chief Executive and it was clear that the Constabulary was still awaiting various reports from the Inspector of Constabularies on Effectiveness and Legitimacy, Custody Centre Operations and the Constabulary’s approach to Domestic Violence, Child Exploitation and Safeguarding. In terms of the new operating model, the Chief Constable, and Superintendent Richard Cooper, had given a very informative presentation.  The slides were available on the County Council’s Police and Crime Panel website and he urged Members to read them -http://glostext.gloucestershire.gov.uk/documents/b11117/New%20Operating%20Model%20presentation%20Tuesday%2001-Sep-2015%2010.00%20Police%20and%20Crime%20Panel.pdf?T=9 Reassurances had been provided over the importance the Constabulary attached to maintaining neighbourhood policing and the number of Officers devoted to this task had increased from 84 to 95.  The main focus of neighbourhood policing would be “tackling harm and vulnerability”. Local Policing Officers would be assigned to one of three core roles: Incident Resolution (IR - previously known as “Response”); Local Investigation; and Neighbourhood Policing. It was stressed that flexibility was inherent in those roles as Officers may perform all three roles depending on local and County priorities. Incident Response Officers for Gloucester and Cheltenham would be based in Bamfurlong, whilst for rural areas including the Forest of Dean, the Cotswolds, Stroud and Tewkesbury, Incident Response would remain local to those areas. Whilst named local Neighbourhood Policing Officers would remain it was expected that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36.

To review and scrutinise the performance management information and, where appropriate, to require response or action from the Executive Committee.

37.1           The report of the Corporate Services Group Manager, circulated at Pages No. 20-73, attached performance management information for quarter 1 of 2015/16.  The Overview and Scrutiny Committee was asked to review and scrutinise performance information and, where appropriate, identify any issues to refer to the Executive Committee for clarification or further action to be taken.

37.2           The performance management report comprised the Council Plan Performance Tracker, the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) set, the Revenue Budget Summary Statement, the Capital Monitoring Statement and the Reserves Position Summary.  The majority of information within the Performance Tracker, attached at Appendix 1, reflected the progress of Council Plan actions as at the time of writing the report. Paragraph 2.3 of the report highlighted a number of achievements since the last update.  Members were informed that business transformation savings of £171,000 had been included within the 2015/16 budget and a total of 2016m² office space had been made available for rental. In terms of service reviews, the Customer Service review was now complete; the review of Development and Environmental Health had commenced and, following the success of the Revenues and Benefits review, the team had successfully been shortlisted for the prestigious Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation (IRRV) award. Ongoing partnership work was taking place with Cotswold Tourism, which was now a standalone company, which was excellent news for the Borough. Development of projects such as the Heritage Walks and Interpretation was taking place with the Tewkesbury Town Centre Partnership and this was working well. The governance arrangements to support the £1.4million LEADER project were being formalised and a Tewkesbury Borough Local Action Group had been formed. The client monitoring framework for the Ubico contract had been implemented and a monitoring report was due to be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee. In terms of the Volunteer Litter Pickers Scheme, an additional 26 people had now joined which took the total to 180. The Repair and Renew Grant Scheme had closed at the end of June and a total of £572,000 had been awarded to residents with flood affected properties. A new Community Funding Officer had been appointed and she would be able to signpost communities to funding sources other than the Borough Council. In addition, the new leisure centre remained on target for completion by July 2016 and a new Tewkesbury Parkrun had been established which attracted over 100 weekly runners and 30 volunteers.

37.3           The Corporate Services Group Manager advised that the complex nature of the actions being delivered meant that some may not progress as smoothly or quickly as envisaged and those were set out in the table at Paragraph 2.3. Particular attention was drawn to the fact that a partner to rent the vacant top floor of the Council Offices building had not been confirmed; this meant that the target of £75,000 income in 2015/16 was unlikely to be achieved. The Internal Audit report on the handling and learning from complaints had not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.