Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies or substitutions for the meeting.

No apologies were received.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 5 July 2016.

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 July 2016 were presented for consideration. There were queries on the accuracy of Minute 70 in relation to the update from Children’s Select Committee, and it was agreed to delegate approval of the minutes to the Chairman subject to confirmation in relation to that minute.

Resolved

To approve and sign as a correct record, subject to amending Minute 70 from:

Details were provided on recent activities on topics as shown in the agenda, with further work on increased academisation to be undertaken at a special meeting on 21 July, with a focus on the council’s responsibilities and ability to mitigate any impacts.

To:

Details were provided on recent activities on topics as shown in the agenda, with further work on increased academisation, including a special briefing on 21 June which focused on the government white paper: Educational Excellence Everywhere

As approved by the Chairman with delegated authority from the Committee.

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations.

To receive any announcements through the Chair.

There were no announcements.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

Statements

If you would like to make a statement at this meeting on any item on this agenda, please register to do so at least 10 minutes prior to the meeting. Up to 3 speakers are permitted to speak for up to 3 minutes each on any agenda item.  Please contact the officer named above for any further clarification.

Questions

To receive any questions from members of the public or members of the Council received in accordance with the constitution. Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions in writing to the officer named above no later than 5pm on Tuesday 30 August in order to be guaranteed of a written response. The final deadline is 5pm on Thursday 1 September 2016.  Please contact the officer named on the first page of this agenda for further advice.  Questions may be asked without notice if the Chairman decides that the matter is urgent.

Details of any questions received will be circulated to Committee members prior to the meeting and made available at the meeting and on the Council’s website.

There were no questions or statements submitted.

To receive any available verbal or written updates on the following Management Committee Task Groups:

·         Financial Planning Task Group

·         Military-Civilian Integration Partnership Task Group

·         Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership Task Group

·         MyWiltshire System Task Group

Financial Planning Task Group

The task group has not met since the Committee’s last meeting, but its next meeting is scheduled for 8 September. The agenda will include the Revenue Budget Monitoring and Performance and Risk update reports, with comments referred to Cabinet, which will consider the report on 13 September. The task group will also be considering its role in early engagement in development of the 2017/18 budget proposals.

SWLEP

The task group last met on 6 July and received a verbal update on discussions and outcomes from the most recent LEP Board Meetings. It also consider the framework for how the LEP prioritises its schemes and how that framework compares with central government’s selection(s).

The task group’s next meeting is scheduled for 20 October, when it will consider:

·         Data from the Local Economic Assessment to ensure that the LEP is approaching the right sectors and in the right way; and

·         A report on “the life of the project”, following a project through the selection process, gaining funding, into delivery of project and monitoring / assessing of the project.

MCIP

The Task Group will be meeting on 20 September and will update fully at the next meeting.

MyWiltshire System Task Group

The task group has its first two meetings scheduled for 12 October and 16 November and the membership is confirmed as follows:

Bob Jones

Magnus MacDonald

Jon Hubbard

Roy While

Bridget Wayman

Howard Greenman

The first meeting will include an overview from officers on the System’s development so far and members will be invited to scope the task group’s review.

Financial Planning Task Group

Through the general update from the Chairman of the Financial Planning Task Group, the Committee were provided details of the proposed medium term financial framework intended to be approved by Council on 18 October. The government had agreed to provide an indicative 4-year budget rather than the current 1-year arrangement, enabling the council to better plan its finances in the coming years. This would require council to provide an efficiency statement to the government on how it would make necessary savings, by the end of October.

In order to ensure appropriately robust and transparent examination of the budget process, initial discussions had been held with the Chairman of the Financial Planning Task Group, Chairman and Vice Chairman of Overview and Scrutiny Management and the council’s Corporate Directors to agree a scrutiny process.

It was intended that the Task Group would receive a presentation on 8 September from the Associate Director, Finance, and would then meet several times in the coming weeks to assess the proposals that came forward. Chairmen of Select Committees would be invited to these meetings. Public meetings would also be held ahead of a special meeting of the Committee and Cabinet, then Council on 18 October.

The Committee discussed the proposed process, agreeing that it was important as much engagement as possible was undertaken. It was also clarified that council would still set yearly budgets in February, but this would be within a framework agreed for a number of years. Following discussion, it was,

Resolved:

To approve the proposed process to scrutinise the medium term financial framework.

SWLEP Task Group/ MCIP Task Group/MyWiltshire Task Group

The written updates were noted.

To receive updates from the Chairmen and/or Vice-Chairmen of the Select

Committees in respect of the topics under scrutiny in their areas, including any recommendations for endorsement by the Management Committee.

The Management Committee is asked to endorse the reports of the Chairmen of the Select Committee, report on meetings with the Executive and the updated work programme.

Details were provided on meetings between Select Committee Chairman and the Executive to discuss future topics for scrutiny involvement as well as other recommendations as detailed in the report. Committee Chairmen updated on their areas as well as other forward plan items including but not limited to the following:

Environment Select Committee

It was agreed if there was any review of the planning service operation including its committees should be scrutinised through the Environment Select Committee. The final report of the Waste Service Changes Task Group would also report at the next meeting and the Public Transport Review would receive an update at the October Cabinet. The Committee would also look into information on the housing strategy and investment team.

Health Select Committee

Details were provided on recent activities on topics as shown in the agenda, with further work on housing suitable for older people, help to live at home commissioning and closer work with the CCG.

Children’s Select Committee

Details were provided on recent activities on topics as shown in the agenda. It was stated the Wiltshire Safeguarding Children’s Board was under new chairmanship and its work would be more targeted as recommended following an Ofsted inspection. An update was provided on the creation of Adoptions West, a regional adoption agency as part of legislative changes, as well as intentions to focus on child and adult mental health, special educational needs strategies, academisation and final reports on positive leisure activities and child obesity task groups.

Resolved:

To note and approve the updates from the Select Committees.

To receive a presentation from the Head of Systems Thinking to provide an overview of the current systems thinking programme and discuss engagement on key projects.

John Rogers, Head of Systems Thinking, was in attendance to provide an overview of the function and work of the Systems Thinking team, which provided training for staff on improved, joined up working practices as well as undertaking reviews with teams to make council processes more efficient and effective through evidence based examination of current service operation from the perspective of the customer.

A presentation was received providing examples of council and partner bodies who had undertaken reviews of various processes through the systems thinking processes, including within children’s social care, identifying the purpose of the customer interaction, discovering the exact number of contacts, tracking every point of contact, recording and assessment and identifying overlaps, redundant steps and other stages which made the process less efficient.

Following the presentation the Committee discussed the update. It was noted the training offered to staff to help their teams undertake similar reviews was open to councillors, though it was felt the 3-day course might be too lengthy for many to attend. The work with partners such as Wiltshire Police was noted, and in response to queries it was stated the team had done some work at cost for other councils, although the Directors were keen to keep them focused within the council to benefit its own processes the most.

To confirm the date of the next scheduled meeting as 1 November 2016

The next meeting would be the special meeting to consider the medium term financial framework on 10 October 2016.

The next ordinary meeting would be 1 November 2016.

Any other items of business which the Chairman agrees to consider as a matter of urgency.

There were no urgent items.