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

62.1           Attention was drawn to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 2017/18, circulated at Pages No. 16-20, which Members were asked to consider.

62.2           The Chief Executive indicated that most Members would be aware of the serious disruption to water supplies to a large part of the borough which had occurred on 15 and 16 December 2017.  10,000 homes had been affected and there had been considerable disruption for businesses on a significant weekend in the run-up to Christmas.  Given the extent and seriousness of the event, as well as the fact that this had closely followed another event affecting the Mythe Waterworks, he had spoken with the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee about the possibility of undertaking a scrutiny review to assess the response to the event and the impacts.  The review could potentially involve calling in a number of witnesses and it would be a sizeable piece of work for both Officers and Members; however, the outcome would be a series of agreed recommendations for the various agencies concerned to ensure that any issues identified were rectified in future.  He stressed that there would be a review of the event by the agencies involved in any case but, given the impact on residents and businesses within the borough, it was felt that it would also be appropriate for the Council to ask questions if Members were supportive of undertaking a separate scrutiny review.  If the review itself was to be conducted in public, he suggested that it would be appropriate for the Committee to meet informally as a Working Group to scope the extent of the review, agree the process that would be followed and set the timescale for the work; alternatively, a smaller Working Group comprising a few Members of the Committee could be set-up for that purpose.  He confirmed that he had spoken with the Managing Director of Severn Trent Water Authority who was happy to take part and to make staff available from Severn Trent.  He had also written to the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Constabulary and the Chief Fire Officer from Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service in terms of the emergency response and both had indicated that they would make staff available via the resilience team that had dealt with the emergency. 

62.3           A Member welcomed the review and indicated that it was something he had been intending to raise in his role as a County Councillor depending on the outcome of the debriefing which was due to take place at the end of January.  The Chief Executive confirmed that there was a ‘wash-up’ meeting taking place shortly and he felt that the timing would work well in terms of feeding into the scrutiny review.  He explained that the water outage had not been declared as a major incident and therefore Severn Trent had been in control of the response; had it been declared a major incident, the civil authorities would have taken control.  In light of this, and given that only Tewkesbury Borough had been affected, it made sense for Tewkesbury Borough Council to lead the scrutiny review and for the County Council to participate.  The Member pointed out there had been other similar incidents within Gloucestershire including a recent water supply outage in Cheltenham.  A Member questioned whether the Flood Risk Management Group should undertake the review but was advised that this was not within its remit and it was important not to confuse this particular issue with flood risk. 

62.4           The Head of Democratic Services explained that it would be difficult for Members to participate fully in the review, ultimately to be undertaken in public, if they had not been involved in the Working Group discussions so it was her suggestion that the whole Committee meet as a Working Group to agree the Terms of Reference, receive detailed briefings and prepare questions in order for all Members to be able to participate in the public scrutiny with an equal knowledge base.  A Member indicated that he fully supported scrutiny of the water outage and shared the view that the Working Group should include all Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  The Chief Executive clarified that it was not necessary to set a date for the review at this stage; however, when the time came, he suggested that a special meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee should be called for this purpose.  The Chair questioned whether it would be possible for the draft Terms of Reference to be brought back to the next meeting of the Committee and the Chief Executive suggested that the Committee could meet as a Working Group prior to that.

62.5           A Member noted that the Risk Management Strategy Review and the Absence Management Policy Review had been in the pending items section of the Work Programme since June 2016 and she felt that it was necessary to bring those items forward.  The Head of Corporate Services advised that it was intended to run a workshop for the Committee on the Absence Management Policy during February and a date would be discussed with the Chair in due course.  In terms of the Risk Management Strategy, training was being arranged for Members in order to put together the new risk register and this would also be imminent.

62.6           It was

RESOLVED          1.   That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 2017/18 be NOTED.

2.   That the Terms of Reference for a scrutiny review of the water supply outage be brought back to the next meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and that the Committee meet as a Working Group prior to that meeting.