The Scrutiny Officer presented the report. She advised that following the lockdown in March, Scrutiny Committees were initially postponed as the Council focused upon key priorities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A report to Cabinet in June requested that the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee consider the creation of a Cross-Party Recovery Panel, which, at their meeting in July, approved and established a panel with the aim of shaping, informing and advising Cabinet on the Council’s recovery planning to form the basis of the recovery phase of the pandemic. The Panel met six times in August and produced recommendations to the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee in September, which were reported to Cabinet a week later. A formal response from Cabinet was expected shortly. The Recovery Panel was now awaiting the Public Service Board’s Community Impact Assessment to consider the findings, before selecting its next area of focus to be examined in greater detail.

A combined meeting of Subject Overview and Scrutiny Committees 1 and 2 took place in July to consider reports on Post 16 Education and Learner Travel. This had been postponed from March. Recommendations for Post-16 Education were considered by Cabinet in July, who took a decision on the preferred option and then considered the recommendations upon Learner Travel in September, deferring the decision to amend the Local Authority’s Learner Travel Policy until after the review of the current statutory distances by Welsh Government in March 2021.

The Budget Research and Evaluation Panel meetings commenced in July. Four meetings had taken place to date, with the final meeting scheduled for December.

The Schedule of Meetings for the remaining municipal year had been  agreed at Annual Council in September and, as the Recovery Panel had now been established, it was recognised that, moving forward, meetings of Subject Overview and Scrutiny Committees would need to be focused and strategic to avoid a duplication of work. 

The Council had since been advised that the Local Government Financial Settlement from Welsh Government would be later than expected. This meant that scrutiny of the Medium Term Financial Strategy would need to be considered by Scrutiny Committees after Cabinet considered the draft proposals on 19January, and not in the December cycle of meetings as originally planned. Consequently, arrangements would be made to move the dates of the January meetings to facilitate this, and an announcement would be made at Council on 18 November.  

With these changes in mind, it was proposed that, at its next meeting on the 17 December, it would be timely that the Committee received a verbal update briefing from the Corporate Director upon the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic upon the Communities Service area, and the operational response.

With regards to the meetings of scrutiny after the MTFS, the Committee was asked to identify any further items for consideration on the interim Forward Work Programme for the remainder of the municipal calendar of meetings.  There needed to be an emphasis on consideration of issues such as impact, risk, performance, budget and community perception when identifying topics for investigation. The Committee would have the opportunity at each meeting to revisit its Forward Work Programme and the Scrutiny Officer suggested that Members may wish to wait until the next meeting of the Committee to set further topics, following the verbal update from the Corporate Director.

The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) Questioning Skills Training for Scrutiny Members and Training for Scrutiny Chairs had been postponed due to the national lockdown. The WLGA was now able to offer this training via Microsoft Teams. It was therefore proposed that two sessions be arranged: one session of Scrutiny Questioning Skills for all Scrutiny Members and One session of Scrutiny Chairs’ Training for all Committee and Panel Chairs. Dates were to be confirmed.

A Member asked that an update on Enforcement be included as part of the Verbal presentation, as he explained that it had been suspended at one point. It was about knowing where we are and when we get back to the new normal, or an improved enforcement in the future.

A Member asked what she would really like to understand is, as the teams are not working together, what controls have had to be relaxed or changed, and what has been newly embedded across all of the teams to ensure there is oversight of the actions that have been taken for the new ways of working.  In addition, what services have been most impacted through Covid-19, e.g. scale and hotspots, and what pressures are we going to have and how long is it going to take to recover from the delays we have already had.

There were no further items identified for consideration on the Forward Work Programme for the remainder of the municipal calendar of meetings using the agreed form, and this could be revisited at the next meeting.

RESOLVED:                      That the Committee confirmed the proposed initial items for the Committee’s Forward Work Programme set out in paragraphs 4.3 and 4.4 of the report.                                                                                                                     

That the Committee requested that the above specific information be included in the item for the next meeting; the verbal update briefing from the Corporate Director.