Agenda item

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

59.1          Attention was drawn to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 2021/22, circulated at Pages No. 15-20, which Members were asked to consider.

59.2          A Member queried whether any additional items were likely to come forward for the meeting on 8 March 2022 as there were only two items currently due to be considered.  In response, the Head of Corporate Services explained that the two scheduled items – Council Plan Performance Tracker and COVID-19 Recovery Tracker and Update on Local Policing Arrangements – were expected to be sufficient for that meeting as the trackers tended to generate a lot of questions and the update on local policing arrangements would be a presentation so he would anticipate that the meeting would not be a short one.  The Council’s representative on the Gloucestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee pointed out that the next meeting of that Committee was due to take place on 30 November 2021 which now clashed with a Special meeting of the Planning Committee which she would be attending but she would circulate any important updates via Democratic Services.  

59.3          The Head of Corporate Services drew attention to the pending items, set out at Page No. 20.  He advised that the Active Gloucestershire ‘We Can Move’ progress report had now been added to the 2022/23 work programme following the signing of the agreement for the project in October and, as previously mentioned, the update on local policing arrangements was now scheduled for the meeting on 8 March 2022.  The Planning Services Review had been considered by the Executive Committee at its meeting the previous week and it had been agreed that the action plan for the review would be monitored by Transform Working Group on the basis that it was the appropriate mechanism for a transformational project of that nature and, in order to avoid duplication, it would be removed from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme.  He stressed that Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee would still receive progress updates via the performance tracker so would be able to see if actions were being delivered. A Member queried whether it would be better for the action plan to be brought to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee given that the Committee already examined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  In response, the Head of Development Services explained that the action plan was much broader than performance, for instance, it included actions on staff training and templates etc.  In addition, the Business Transformation team was looking at the processes within the Development Management service as part of the review, as such, it was considered that Transform Working Group was best placed to monitor progress.  The Member requested that a copy of the action plan be sent to him and the Head of Development Services undertook to email him the high level action plan which had been taken to the Executive Committee the previous week and was within the public domain.

59.4           It was

RESOLVED          That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 2021/22 be NOTED.