Agenda item

Report attached.

Members considered a report of Councillor Stephen Button (Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee); Councillor Jodie Clements (Communities and Wellbeing Overview & Scrutiny Committee) and Councillor Bernard Dawson (Special Overview & Scrutiny Committee), seeking comments on the draft work programmes for Overview and Scrutiny for 2024/25.

In the absence of the overview and scrutiny committee chairs, The Leader of the Council introduced the report.  He indicated that a meeting had taken place last week involving relevant councillors to consider the draft the work programmes, which would set out the committees’ priorities for the next 12 months.

Councillor Khan asked about the selection process for co-optees.  The Leader responded that the previous appointments had been terminated and the overview and scrutiny chairs would establish a process for the recruitment of new co-optees   Councillor Aziz added that the intention was to select persons whose knowledge and experience more closely matched the each committee’s remit.

Approval of the report was not considered to be a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

At the beginning of each municipal year, the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committees each agreed a work programme for the year.

The process for agreeing the work programme was set out in Overview and Scrutiny procedure rule C6(a) as follows;

“The chair and vice chair of each overview and scrutiny committee will meet with the Cabinet within four weeks of each Annual Meeting to discuss the Cabinet’s policy priorities for the coming year.  The chairs and vice chairs will propose a draft work programme for their committee within two weeks of that meeting.  The draft work programmes will be submitted to the next following meeting of the Cabinet for comment and the draft work programme for each overview and scrutiny committee will then be submitted to the next following meeting of that committee (together with any comments or recommendations from the Cabinet) for approval.”

Any comments received from Cabinet would be considered at the next meetings of the Committees.

The work programmes had been developed following consideration of the Council’s guide for selecting items for scrutiny and consultation including:

• Multiple emails to all Councillors;
• Suggestions sought from all service managers;
• Social media coverage for public suggestions; and
• Informal meeting with Cabinet Members and the Chair and Vice-Chairs of the Scrutiny Committees.

Thirty-five requests for items to be considered for Scrutiny had been submitted by service heads, Councillors and members of the public.  There had been several requests of a similar nature so in some cases, requested items had been merged.  These items had been discussed in depth between the Scrutiny Chairs and Cabinet members before producing the work programmes.

Several items, including statutory items and previously agreed standing items had been included in the work programme.  However, not all suggested items were deemed suitable for Scrutiny, in which case these suggestions had not been included in the programme.

Officers had sought to provisionally allocate items to specific meetings.  These might be subject to change during the year.

As in previous years, additional items could be added to the work programmes as the year progressed following scrutiny procedure rules.

The three Overview and Scrutiny Work Programmes were included in the report as an Appendix and a second Appendix set out all suggested items (including those rejected and reasons for rejection).

There were no alternative options for consideration or reasons

Resolved                                 -      That Cabinet notes,without comment, the proposed Work Programmes for the Overview and Scrutiny Committees for 2024/25, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report.