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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Virtual Meeting

Contact: Carole Oliphant  Member Services Officer

Note: audiorecording@https://soundcloud.com/mid-devon/scrutiny-18052020 

Items
No. Item

1.

ELECTION OF VICE CHAIRMAN (00.03)

To elect a Vice Chairman for the Municipal Year 2020-2021.

Minutes:

Cllr B A Moore was duly elected Vice Chairman of Scrutiny Committee for the municipal year 2020-2021

 

 (Proposed by Cllr B G J Warren and seconded by Cllr J Downes)

2.

VIRTUAL MEETING PROTOCOL (00.04) pdf icon PDF 76 KB

Committee to note the virtual meeting protocol.

Minutes:

The Committee NOTED the Virtual Meeting Protocol

3.

APOLOGIES AND SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS (00.05)

To receive any apologies for absence and notices of appointment of substitute Members (if any).

Minutes:

There were no apologies or substitute Members

4.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST UNDER THE CODE OF CONDUCT (01.32)

Councillors are reminded of the requirement to declare any interest, including the type of interest, and reason for that interest, either at this stage of the meeting or as soon as they become aware of that interest.

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations made at this stage of the meeting

5.

PUBLIC QUESTION TIME (01.44)

To receive any questions relating to items on the Agenda from members of the public and replies thereto.

 

Note:   A maximum of 30 minutes is allowed for this item.

Minutes:

There were no members of the public present.

6.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING (01.48) pdf icon PDF 76 KB

Members to consider whether to approve the minutes as a correct record of the meeting held on 24th February 2020.

 

The Committee is reminded that only those members of the Committee present at the previous meeting should vote and, in doing so, should be influenced only by seeking to ensure that the minutes are an accurate record.

 

Minutes:

Subject to an amendment to minute 130 (Paragraph 4) to include ‘The Head of Planning, Economy and Regeneration was unable to provide costs of employing consultants and offered to respond to the questioner in writing.  The Chairman asked that the response be sent to all members of the committee’

 

The minutes of the meeting held on 24th February 2020 were approved as a true record and SIGNED by the Chairman.

7.

DECISIONS OF THE CABINET (05.48)

To consider any decisions made by the Cabinet at its last meeting that have been called-in.

Minutes:

The Committee NOTED that none of the decisions made by the Cabinet on 7th May 2020 had been called in.

8.

CABINET MEMBER FOR WORKING ENVIRONMENT AND SUPPORT SERVICES (06.02) pdf icon PDF 110 KB

To receive a report from the Cabinet Member for Working Environment and Support Services on area’s within their portfolio.

Minutes:

The Committee NOTED the *report from the Cabinet Member for Working Environment and Support Services which provided an overview of area’s within her portfolio.

 

She explained that this was her first report as Cabinet Member for Working Environment and Support Services.

 

In response to a question asked about staff wellbeing, mental issues and increased anxiety due to the current crisis the Cabinet Member informed Members that both Members and staff had access to confidential counselling services and the details had been widely circulated.

 

The Group Manager for Human Resources confirmed that managers had been talking frequently to staff and that there were a mixture of opinions with some staff coping well with working from home arrangements and others not so well. He stated that a staff survey was about to be launched about the current arrangements to gather information on how staff felt about the current situation and what was working for them and what was not. He envisaged that staff would be working from home for some time.

 

The Cabinet Member confirmed that the completion dates for the coaching and training plan to upskill managers had been moved to October because of the current crisis.

 

She also confirmed that there was no longer a requirement for staff to complete paper timesheets as the outward facing MyView had been extended which meant that all timesheets could be completed electronically.

 

In answer to a question about the capacity of the Legal Services team to support issues such as planning enforcement, the Legal Services Team Leader explained that the team prioritised their work on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and that more serious issues would take priority such as injunctions. She explained that if additional support was required then the team may look at additional support from external suppliers but this would come at a cost to the department instructing Legal Services.

 

The Legal Services Team Leader further explained that not every breach of planning enforcement would require legal enforcement action as many of the issues could be solved by negotiation. Also, any prosecution would need to meet the public interest and evidential test before proceeding. Serious cases such as anti-social behaviour injunctions or other injunctions for example would take priority.

 

Asked to further explain the correlation between the new Sickness Policy and management intervention, the Group Manager for Human Resources explained that the policy outlined what was expected of employees and managers (e.g. that staff had to report their sickness promptly to their line manager) and that these measures needed to be applied to incidents of both short and long term sickness.

 

He explained that the feedback from employment engagement was logged through the impact group and the results were circulated to all staff.

 

There was a general discussion about the support front line staff working on the call centre were receiving and the Group Manager for Business Transformation and Customer Engagement confirmed that the reception opening times had been drastically reduced and staff were having regular 1-2-1 support from  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

9.

CHAIRMANS ANNUAL REPORT (37.27) pdf icon PDF 76 KB

To receive the Chairman’s Annual report on the Scrutiny Committee for 2019-2020.

Minutes:

The Committee NOTED the Chairman’s Annual *Report which outlined the achievements of the Scrutiny Committee for the Municipal year 2019-2020.

 

Reference was made to the Customer Experience Working Group and that a final report was being worked on to be brought back to Committee with recommendations.

 

Note: *Report previously circulated and attached to the minutes