Agenda and minutes

to approve as a correct record and authorise the Chairman to sign the minutes of the Panel held on 21 April 2016;

O&S.1/16      

The minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel held on 21 April 2016 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Members are invited to declare any personal or disclosable pecuniary interests, including the nature and extent of such interests they may have in any items to be considered at this meeting;

O&S.2/16      

Members and officers were invited to declare any interests in the items of business to be considered during the course of the meeting but none were made.

A period of up to 15 minutes is available to deal with issues raised by the public;

O&S.3/16      

In accordance with the Public Forum Procedure Rules, no items were raised at this meeting.

Note: If any Member seeks further clarity, or wishes to raise issues regarding any future Executive agenda item, please contact Member Services before 5.00pm on Tuesday 31 May 2016 to ensure that the lead Executive Member(s) and lead officer(s) are aware of this request in advance of the meeting.

O&S.4/16      

The Panel was presented with the most recently published Executive Forward Plan.  In so doing, Members acknowledged and noted the contents of the latest Plan and requested updates on items to be presented to the August meeting of the Panel on the Medium Term Financial Strategy, Homeless Strategy and Devon Home Choice and Allocations Policy. 

One Member noted that the Annual Report was on the Executive Forward Plan when previously this item was presented by the Leader directly to Council.  The Leader clarified that the item on the Forward Plan was a report of the Head of Paid Service and, in line with the Constitution, he could present a Leader’s Annual Report to a later Council meeting.

Case Management Manager to conduct a presentation to the Panel on the Case Management Function;

O&S.5/16      

At the start of this item, the Chairman advised that the Panel had been circulated with paper copies of the latest quarterly Performance Indicator report.  Whilst this had been received too late to be an agenda item at this meeting, Members could refer to specific PIs in relation to the presentation that they were about to receive.  Some Members expressed dissatisfaction with the format of the Performance Indicator report, however they were reminded that the format and content had previously been agreed following a review undertaken by a Member Task and Finish Group.

The Case Management Manager then gave a presentation to Members that outlined the Case Management function. 

In the discussion following the presentation, the following points were made in response to Members questions:

·      The Case Management Manager confirmed that, whilst staff in some areas undertook more focussed work as a result of their experience, departmental boundaries no longer existed;

·         The channel shift initiative was ongoing and the Online Account was still being developed.  There was felt to be huge potential in this area.  The Group Manager Support Services added that the two biggest areas of calls made to the Contact Centre were Housing Benefit and Planning and once their processes were included in the Online Account, then the pressure on the Contact Centre would ease;

·      The Case Management Manager stated that there were no backlogs of work in Case Management other than a small backlog in processing Disabled Facilities Grants, but a plan was in place to address this situation;

·      The Executive Director (SD & CD) explained that the Case Management function owned the throughput of work whilst Specialist officers owned the technical and professional aspect of the business.  She added that more detail could be added to the quarterly Performance Indicator report by way of explanation and narrative.  Members agreed that this would be helpful as currently the report seemed to indicate issues with the Contact Centre, when in actual fact this may not be a wholly accurate position and it merely reflected the problems across the whole organisation;

·      The issue of failure demand was raised. The Case Management Manager confirmed that figures for failure demand were captured in the Contact Centre, but not across the board.  In response, Members stated that capturing figures for failure demand was critical.  The Executive Director (SD & CD) agreed and advised that this was one of the key issues in the report to be presented to the Executive on 16 June 2016.  Currently however, it would not be effective for all officers to log when they were chased and it would place an additional burden on staff. The Group Manager Support Services advised that the new system, once fully in place, would enable the relevant data to be collected;

·      Finally, the Chairman sought clarification on whether or not there were backlogs of work within Case Management as the existence of failure demand would indicate that work was outstanding.  The Case Management Manager advised that her job was to monitor and  ...  view the full minutes text for item O&S.5/16

to consider a report that seeks to recommend approval of the proposed tariffs for Dartmouth Lower Ferry

O&S.6/16      

Members were presented with a report that sought approval to recommend revised tariffs for the Dartmouth Lower Ferry.  The Operations Manager Environment Services advised Members that the revised tariffs were in line with recommendations in the report from RPT Consulting, and had been considered by the Task and Finish Group.

During discussion, some Members felt that a small number of the charges could be increased so as to maximise income potential.  Other Members responded that conversely, reducing charges to attract local custom would be a better way of ensuring long term income potential for the Lower Ferry.

The Chairman confirmed that local Ward Members were in support of the proposals.

It was then:

O&S.7/16      

The Panel noted the latest log of Actions Arising and Decisions.

a) Dartmouth Lower Ferry

b) Partnerships;

c) Waste & Recycling; and

d) Events Policy

O&S.8/16      

The Panel was provided with the following updates:

a)           Dartmouth Lower Ferry – following the report presented earlier in the agenda on the tariff review, there was still a small amount of work for the Task and Finish Group to complete and this would be the subject of a further report to the Panel;

b)           Partnerships – the Task and Finish Group had narrowed the list of partners into classifications.  Two days had been set aside to meet with significant partners to discuss how the partnership could progress.  The outcome of these discussions would be the subject of a further report to the Panel;

c)            Waste and Recycling – whilst there was no specific update from the Task and Finish Group at this stage, the Executive Portfolio Holder asked that thanks be passed to all officers involved in putting recent changes to the waste and recycling collection system into practice.  The Chairman added that the Panel endorsed that message;

d)           Events Policy – Cllr Bramble advised that the Operations Manager Environment Services had undertaken a great deal of background work on the current process for events, and a message was being sent to all Town and Parish Councils to ask them to contribute their views.  The Leader asked that the Task and Finish Group look at how the Council can ensure that Council assets were left in an acceptable condition once events had concluded and he was advised that the Task and Finish Group would include this matter in its discussions.

to consider items for programming on to the annual work programme of the Panel, whilst having regard to the resources available, time constraints of Members and the interests of the local community

O&S.9/16      

The Chairman introduced this item and advised that the O&S Panel meeting scheduled for 29 June 2016 would be cancelled.  The meeting had been specifically scheduled to enable consideration of the Local Authority Controlled Company Business Case, however it had been agreed that an informal review meeting for all Members to be given the opportunity to discuss this matter should take place instead on 29 June 2016.

In light of this decision, it was noted that the other agenda items that had initially been scheduled for consideration on 29 June 2016 would now be presented to the next O&S Panel meeting on 4 August 2016.