MEMORANDUMDate: 8 August 2006
To:All Members of the County CouncilFromCOUNTY SECRETARY’S
All Chief OfficersDEPARTMENT
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RESOURCES SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
THURSDAY 22JUNE 2006
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE
MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE
C L Berry, N K Brook, M D Colne (Chairman), G R Churchard, G M Cook,
S M Holmes, I H Laidlaw – Dickson, D B Lloyd, A Mitchell (Vice - Chairman), P A Ruffles.
EXECUTIVE MEMBER
R I N Gordon (Resources)
PART I ('OPEN') BUSINESS
MEMBERSHIP
It was noted that P A Rufffles had been appointed to replace A M R Searing and
C L Berry had been appointed to replace H M Saunders as members of the Committee for this meeting only.
APOLOGIESFOR ABSENCE
Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of A Oaten, H M Saunders and
A M R Searing.
MINUTES
That the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 23March 2006 were
confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.
a)b)
c)
d) / MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES
Income – Possible Imposition of Charges for Discretionary Services
In response to a question, David Moses stated that the Finance Director’s report on the current use of the Council’s framework to consider using new powers to impose charges for discretionary services had been deferred pending the proposed review of the Committee’s work programme in the Autumn of 2006.
Scrutiny Arrangements for 2012 Olympics
The Head of Scrutiny stated that due to work commitments he had yet to send to send an E mail to all Resources Scrutiny Committee members outlining the scrutiny arrangements for the 2012 Olympics.
Budget Monitoring
David Moses advised of the new arrangements for scrutiny which would be considered by the County Council at its meeting on 27 June 2006. He stated that the new arrangements proposed would involve budget monitoring reports being submitted to Scrutiny Committees in the next round of meetings.
It was felt that as part of the process of monitoring the budget more upto date information needed to be considered.
Adequacy of Hearing systems in Meeting Rooms
D B Lloyd referred to the hearing difficulties he had experienced in hearing some of the speeches made at today’s meeting due to the noise reactive system cutting out and wondered what progress had been made in acquiring new equipment and whether any action had been taken to organise another demonstration of the push button system for Committee Members.
David Moses stated that he understood that new hearing equipment for the Committee Rooms including Committee Room B had now been ordered and he would ask Facilities Managementto send a briefing note to Committee Members on the arrangements for installing the new equipment.
PUBLIC PETITIONS
NoneQUESTIONS
None. / Andrew Nightingale
David Moses
David Moses
Tony Comer
1.
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.6.1
1.6.2
1.6.3
1.6.4
1.6.5
1.6.6 / HANDLING OF COMPLAINTS TOPIC GROUP
[Officer contact:Adrian Service Tel: 01992 555564]
The Committee received the final report of the Handling of Complaints Topic Group, which was presented by G M Cook, the Chairman of the Topic Group.
Training
He stated that the Topic Group had emphasised in particular that improvements in handling of complaints could be achieved by enhanced training for staff.
School based complaints
The Topic Group considered that specific attention should be given to complaints made against schools which schools themselves handled and were not all by a matter of course forwarded to the Council. It was felt that receipt of all complaints made against schools would assist the Council as local education authority to know what concerns Hertfordshire residents were raising,how many in total were being received. Through such knowledge it was possible that assistance could be given to schools on common solutions etc.
Residential Crossovers Appeals system introduction
David Moses advised that as a consequence of the findings of the Residential Crossings Topic Group,a recommendation had been agreed by the Overview & Scrutiny Committee that an appeals process be established to consider applications for crossovers which had been refused rather than applicants having to register complaints to get their applications reconsidered.
MORI Survey
Jonathan Brown drew attention to Ben Page’s presentation on the public views on the handling of complaints by the Council expressed as part of the 2005 MORI Survey. The Council had been seen to be doing well in handling complaints and that many of the complaints made were in fact concerning services being performed / provided by Hertfordshire District / Borough Councils.
Conclusions :
The Committee welcomes the report submitted and commends the Topic Group for producing a thorough and detailed report.
The Committee in endorsing the report and commending the Topic Group’s recommendations to the County Council draws specific attention to recommendations 1, 8 and 14.
That staff through Team Talks be commended on their overall high standard in handling complaints and advised of the desire to continue and if possible improvestandards to that of excellence.
That recommendation 15 be commended to the Director of Children, Schools & Families and that he be asked to determine the best way of achieving the objective in line with the spirit of the Topic Group’s recommendation.
That the Overview & Scrutiny Committee be urged to issue a press release outlining the Council’s complaints and compliments system and how it can be used by the public to advise of the dis - satisfaction or otherwise of the performance of the Council’s services which in turn could assist improved service performance.
That the Topic Group be reconvened in six months time to review the effectiveness of the recommendations implemented.
2.
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.2
2.3
2.3.1 / UPDATE ON WORK OF EXISTING RESOURCES SCRUTINY COMMITTEE TOPIC GROUPS
[Officer contact:David Moses Tel: 01992 555300]
Updates on the work of the following Topic Groups that were currently in operation were given:
Business Continuity Management Topic Group
The Topic Group Chairman, A Mitchell advised that the Topic Group held its first formal meeting on 15 May 2006 at which it had agreed the start of its Work Programme and to initially concentrate on contingency planning for a flu pandemic. Presentations were given by Earl Dutton, Jenny Hambrook, Mike Collier, Dave Mansfield, Phil Sharkey and John Boulter outlining the contingency plans being made by their respective departments. It was hoped that the Council’s partner organisations would give presentations to future Topic Group meetings.
The next meeting was due to be held on 23 June 2006 with a presentation due to be given by Manpower.
Further meetings are planned for 17 July, 11 September and
13 October 2006.
Reference was made to the recovery plan produced by Northgate as part of the Buncefield fire incident review and it was suggested that the possibility of engaging Northgate to make a presentation to the BCM Topic Group on contingency planning should be considered.
David Moses stated that John Boulter was due to give a presentation
on the debriefing arrangements for the Buncefield fire incident to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 29 June 2006.
The Way We Work With IT Topic Group
David Moses advised of the work undertaken by the Way We Work With IT Topic Group since the last Committee meeting in March 2006. He stated that the Topic Group were drawing to the end of its work and should consider its conclusions at its next meeting on 26 June 2006.
He stated that there were still some outstanding issues concerning the IRIS system, in particular specialist staff training, which needed further investigation which may require a further meeting of the Topic Group to be held.
Conclusion
The Committee noted the progress of the Way We Work with IT and the Business Continuity Management Topic Groups.
3.
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.5.1 / OTHER BUSINESS - COUNTY COUNCIL BUDGET MONITOR SCRUTINY ARRANGEMENTS
In response to a request the Finance Director outlined the arrangements proposed for the next Budget to be put forward for scrutiny of the base budget in January / February 2007. He stated that as in previous years there would be limited time to scrutinise the Budget once HM Government had announced Councils settlements and the Cabinet had initially considered the Budget to be put forward for approval which would then be considered by Scrutiny Committees.
The Committee expressed the desire to scrutinise the Council’s centralised services budget plus the overall budget of the Council.
The Committee Vice - Chairman felt that the Committee should receive financial data that would assist it in comparing expenditure headings of the proposed forthcoming Budget with those of the previous year.
The Committee felt that it should also receive budget monitor reports at each of its meetings.
Conclusion :
That the Chairman and Vice – Chairman of the Committee together with the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Overview & Scrutiny Committeemeet with the Finance Director to discuss the budget monitor information to be contained in future reports to the Committee.
4. / ITEM REFERRED TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL
The Committee requested that the conclusions of the Handling of Complaints Topic Group contained in its Final Report should be included in the Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s report to the County Council meeting on 28 November 2006. / Emma Lund
Andrew Laycock
CountySecretary
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