Agenda and minutes

To confirm the minutes from the previous meeting

The minutes of the Finance and Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 6 September 2016 were agreed by the Members present and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received on behalf of Councillor Tindall and Councillor Elliot.

To receive any declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)           may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct For Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

None

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements or ask questions in accordance with the rules as to public participation

Wendy Conian and John Higgins.

Wendy Conian spoke on item 11. See details in minutes.

None

It was moved by the Chairman that Item 11, Berkhamsted multi-story car park petition review would be the next item on the agenda and this was agreed by Members.

Wendy Conian was given an opportunity by the Chairman to express her concerns.

I’m Wendy Conian, the petition organiser.

I requested this review because I didn’t think the Council had fully engaged with or meaningfully responded to the requests contained within the petition.  Nor did I think the Council had complied with the terms of its own petition scheme.

Elliott Brooks’ report finds that the Council did comply with its scheme and acted appropriately.

I disagree with his findings and could provide a detailed commentary on his report but feel there is little point rehearsing those disagreements here, as I think it highly likely you will accept his recommendation. 

Notwithstanding this, I want to say that if I had written this report to you my recommendations would have been:

·         If you have a process, comply with it – work within the designated time frames, be clear about the roles and responsibilities of those tasked with enacting the policy, communicate these things to the person bringing the petition or complaint or whatever it is.

·         Don’t make it incumbent on the petition organiser to be the one continually chasing progress and pushing the process along.

·         The scheme provides for early resolution of the petition concerns through discussion – use that provision and…

·         Try actually talking to the people raising the concerns.  Instead of putting obstacles in the way to dialogue, instead of expending your energy in shutting down discussion and creating intimidating and alienating processes, why not find ways to establish meaningful dialogue.  You never know, it might result in something positive and better solutions to some of the challenges our communities face.

If your purpose in the petition scheme is to allow communities to make representations to the Council about important issues and fully and productively engage with them in discussion of those issues, then I believe you are failing.

If it is an exercise in ticking boxes to somehow being seen to demonstrate engagement with the community, maybe you are doing that, albeit even then not very well.

Even if one accepts Mr Brooks’ analysis that the Council complied with its scheme, I would say that that compliance has merely been with the ‘letter of the law’, not at all with its spirit.  You may possibly have ticked your boxes, but you have not seen fit to engage in good faith with the community who had and still have huge concerns about your plans to build this car park in their town. 

The petition was a measure of last resort by a community who desperately wanted to talk about this issue but had been stonewalled time and again from doing so.

We were treated as supplicants to the Council, not as citizens with an intelligent interest and concern about plans which will affect our community and with serious reservations about the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

D Skinner introduced the report giving details on the projected outturn for 2016/17. He highlighted the positive trends and elaborated on the pressure with repairs and maintenance.

D Skinner was happy to take questions on the report.

Cllr Douris referred to 4.2 pages 7 of 99 1^st paragraph, stating that he had seen this information before so asked why information was being repeated, and is it being acted on.

D Skinner confirmed that they had the same pressures as before, options are being looked at and they are working on different options.

J Deane added to that, they currently have a plan, the forecast is that it’s not going to get worse but there not currently gear up to do it.

Cllr Chapman referred to page 7 4.2, seventy thousand on waste services what’s the increase.

J Deane said that the pot is distributed there is no clear answer to that. Ours improved therefore some of the other districts lose out on money.

Cllr Chapman referred to paragraph 2 on 7.2.

R Baker stated that this is now the end of it.

Cllr Adeleke referred to 4.1, the pressure of fifty thousand, are they new roads where we invest it? And were they not taken into consideration?

J Deane believes that the wording is misleading, there not new roads, they can’t get big truck up these roads.

Actions: None

Outcome: The report was noted.

Cllr Harden introduced the report explaining there are a few updates in the report.

M Brookes highlighted that there were a lot of ‘’activates in Court’’ which are set out in the report. The Electoral Registration Team has been running their annual canvas which has had a high response and is going to plan.

M Brookes was happy to take questions on the report.

Cllr Chapman referred to page 20 there has been lots of success in Court; were there any items that we weren’t successful on?

M Brookes said there is nothing to report, we are successful in all because all cases are fully assessed carefully before they go to Court.

Actions: None

Outcome: Report was noted.

The report was introduced by D Skinner highlighting the following.

The green indicators, the majority of the amber indicators are being covered by the finance forecast outturn. The success of the revenues benefits team in terms of achieving targets. This year there has been a significant improvement.

The risk score has gone down from 5 to 4 in terms of slippage.

D Skinner was happy to take questions on the report.

Cllr Douris referred to page 27 he had difficulty in reading this, it’s small and faint. He asked if this can be taken on board for future.

Cllr Harden stated that the KPI’s are normally done on a larger sheet so it’s a case of trying to fit all the information on, he understands but is not sure how this can be adapted but he will take it on board.

J Doyle confirmed that his understanding was that it’s a PDF created in corvu.

Actions: R Smyth to look at the corvu reports on changing the format.

Outcome: The report was noted.

Cllr Harden introduced the report stating that all was positive and green except one amber on sickness, the report will follow later this evening.

M Rawdon, R Smyth and Ben Trueman are happy to take questions on the report.

Cllr Douris stared that it’s very frustrating having lack of consistency, previously there were trend arrows on this report we don’t have trend arrows. Can we please have consistency so we know where we are going?

R Smyth confirmed he will ensure all reports have the same format.

Actions: R Smyth to ensure all reports have the same format.

Outcome: The report was noted.

An update presentation will be given by Matt Rawdon on sickness.

Cllr Harden introduced the report updating the committee on sickness. Last financial year there has been a long term and short term issue with sickness and the presentation explains what we are doing to address this.

M Rawdon gave a presentation giving an overview of what the corporate sickness project is doing to address sickness and the positive impact this has made so far.  The sickness statistics after 7 months is the lowest sickness statistics for many years.

M Rawdon was happy to take questions on the report.

Cllr Taylor, has this new approach to managing sickness been included into sickness procedure?

M Rawdon said yes, the sickness policy and procedure was approved in April 2016 and this enables the option to fast track cases to a sickness capability hearing if the manager has concerns over staff attendance. 

J Deane said this gives managers more discretion that they previously had we and this is why we are seeing lots of results.

Cllr Taylor wanted to ensure we were protecting DBC by having the new process and whether Legal had approved it?

M Rawdon said absolutely, at the time of drafting Steve Baker was heavily involved and we ensured that he and his legal team supported the approach.

Cllr Adeleke said that you state there are no successful appeals, how many did we have last year and this year.

M Rawdon couldn’t give figures off the top of his head, in terms of dismissal appeals we had one, which went to members and it wasn’t upheld.

Cllr Adeleke said with Cupid Green you have identified some serious cases where attendance was particularly poor, what measures have you taken? The chart also shows in June, without being specific are these down to constant individuals or general across the board.

M Rawdon stated that it’s an average figure so individuals will affect the overall figure and with Cupid Green they are being treated the same as everyone else.

The monthly sickness report incorporates every member of staff off sick, and then the sickness scrutiny panel analyses each case looking at overall sickness records and concerning trends.

Cllr Adeleke asked if it included agency staff.

J Deane stated it doesn’t include agency staff. We have noticed a reduction of agency staff as a result of this project.

Cllr Fethney said that medical democratic like this is quite crucial he knows that around July time there were strains due to the flu virus. His suggestion is that if you talk to Public Health and they can warn you when things like this are going to happen.

Cllr Harden added that this is a valued point and that M Rawdon’s Team have a good working relationship with Public Health and they will look at getting data.

E Collins asked the question if people have to notify their employer of their absence and provide an explanation.

M Rawdon said that they have had cases where people didn’t want to reveal the nature. We can’t force someone but  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58.

The have all been answered with the acceptation of the last one from Dave Skinner

D Skinner to confirm figure for total loss of contracts in commercial waste services (paragraph 7.2).