Issue - meetings

Report of Assistant Director – Transformational Governance

Purpose of report

To give an update on the Overview and Scrutiny work programme for 2017-2018

Recommendations

The meeting is recommended to:

1.1         To review the draft work programme (Appendix 1).

1.2         To identify any items from the Executive Work Programme to form part of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme for 2017/18

1.3         To identify any other possible future topics for scrutiny and consider whether these topics should have scoping documents produced, based on the considerations of risk and what value scrutiny can add through considering the issue.

Resolved

(1)       That the work programme be noted

(2)       The officers from Housing be invited to attend the November meeting of the Committee to discuss the Homelessness Reduction Act

(3)       That the parish liaison meeting be used as an opportunity to engage with parishes regarding possible items for Scrutiny review

The Committee considered the work programme for the Municipal Year.

The Democratic and Elections Officer advised the Committee that officers from the Housing team had requested to attend a future meeting of the Committee, to make Members aware of the Homelessness Reduction Act that was due to come into force in April 2018. The Committee agreed that this would be useful and agreed to add to their work programme.  

With regard to the A361 review, the working group had attended a meeting at South Newington Parish Council, to hear about a consultation from Oxfordshire County Council regarding a proposed 7.5 tonne weight limit through Burford. If implemented, the limit would help to reduce LGV traffic through South Newington. 

In relation to adding items to the work programme, the Chairman suggested contacting parish councils to ask if there were any issues that they would like the Committee to investigate. The information could be requested via the parish liaison meetings and/or when Councillors attend parish council meetings in their wards.

Following the discussion earlier in the meeting regarding anti-social behaviour, the Chairman mentioned ‘The Arson Project’, which had been created by Community Albums in conjunction with North Oxfordshire Academy and Banbury Police. The project was created due to an increase in arson incidents next to North Oxfordshire Academy, and the group produced a video that helped reduce incidents by 63%. It was agreed that partners involved in the production of the video should be contacted and invited to attend a future meeting.

With regard to the Mobile Phone Signal review, Councillor McHugh explained about a short online survey that had been put together to gather information relating to signal in Epwell Parish. The format had been very useful and would be easy to circulate to a larger number of respondents. The Committee agreed that it would be a useful survey to include in the mobile signal review.

The Committee agreed that it would be a useful survey to include in the mobile signal review.

In relation to the Executive Forward Plan, the Chairman commented that it wasn’t very helpful for the Committee and the public as it did not contain a lot of information, and it was difficult to know exactly what an item related to and what decision Executive would be taking. The Democratic and Elections Officer advised the Committee that if there were any items they wanted to know more about, they should contact the team and ask for further information.

Resolved

(1)       That the work programme be noted

(2)       The officers from Housing be invited to attend the November meeting of the Committee to discuss the Homelessness Reduction Act

(3)       That the parish liaison meeting be used as an opportunity to engage with parishes regarding possible items for Scrutiny review