Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Commission held on 29 June 2010.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 29 June 2010 were approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any Declarations of Interest from Members.

Councillor Tony Vickers declared an interest in Agenda Item 6, but reported that, as his interest was personal and not prejudicial, he determined to remain to take part in the debate.

Councillor David Rendel declared an interest in Agenda Items 6, 12 and 18, but reported that, as his interest was personal and not prejudicial, he determined to remain to take part in the debates and vote on the matters.

Councillor Carol Jackson-Doerge declared an interest in Agenda Items 12 and 18, but reported that, as her interest was personal and not prejudicial, she determined to remain to take part in the debates and vote on the matters.

To receive an update on actions following the previous Commission meeting.

The Commission received an update on actions following the previous meeting (Agenda Item 4). 

The proposal for the Commission to receive reports after they had been considered by Management Board but before they reached the Executive had not been approved by the Executive.  However, a review into the Council’s Performance Management framework was proposed and would be considered under Agenda Item 10. 

All 16 Section 106 accounts which dated back to Berkshire County Council had been fully spent.  It was agreed that a table would be provided to illustrate this together with some supporting text. 

RESOLVED that Stephen Chard would obtain the information requested in relation to Section 106 accounts which dated back to Berkshire County Council and circulate this to the Commission. 

To consider any items called-in by the requisite number of Members following the previous Executive meeting.

No items were called-in following the last Executive meeting.

Purpose: To review the Individual Decision relating to the Home to School Transport Policy 2011/12. 

(Councillor David Rendel declared a personal interest in Agenda item 6 by virtue of the fact that he was a member of a local cycling group (Spokes). As his interest was personal and not prejudicial he was permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

(Councillor Tony Vickers declared a personal interest in Agenda item 6 by virtue of the fact that he was a member of a local cycling group (Spokes). As his interest was personal and not prejudicial he was permitted to take part in the debate).

The Commission considered the call-in of the Individual Decision relating to the Home to School Transport Policy 2011/12 (Agenda Item 6).

Councillor Barbara Alexander opened the item by making the following points:

·                    Local Authorities were required to determine a Home to School Transport Policy on an annual basis as part of parents’ guides to admissions.

·                    The Children and Young People Policy Development Commission formed a task group to consider the Policy in detail in 2009 and their findings were endorsed by the Executive.  The Policy for the 2010/11 academic year reflected the findings of this work.  As the effect of these changes had yet to be felt, the decision was taken to not change the Policy for 2011/12 other than to apply an inflation factor of approximately 1.9% to the charges made for the fare paying scheme.

In addressing the reasons given for the call-in, Councillor Alexander advised that:

·                    A number of people were consulted as part of the production of the Policy.  This initially included all Members and appropriate Officers.  There was also a five day period prior to the Individual Decision being taken to allow for further responses.  This opportunity was taken up a year ago by the Shadow Portfolio Holder and a change was made as a result.  This had not occurred this year.  Comments were welcome, but it was disappointing that they were not made until this late stage.

·                    In relation to cycling, it was not felt that this technical document was the appropriate place to promote cycling and an alternative mechanism needed to be used for doing so.  This document was more concerned with legal requirements.  The benefits of promoting cycling were acknowledged and much work was done through the Sustainable Modes of Transport Strategy (SMOTs) to do this. 

Councillor Keith Woodhams, as one of the call-in Members, made the following points:

·                    The report stated there were no environmental implications to consider as a result of the Policy.  This statement was not concurred with.

·                    There were many areas of positive work being undertaken to encourage sustainable transport, this included through school travel plans, materials provided to schools and incentives offered to pupils to encourage their participation.  This was a key role undertaken by the School Travel Plan Advisor.  The recent announcement that this post would be lost due to the cessation of Government funding was a huge concern, as the good work undertaken could not continue and this could  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51.

Purpose: To consider any items proposed for a Councillor Call for Action.  

No new Councillor Call for Action (CCfA) items were raised for discussion. 

Purpose: To provide Members with the information requested at previous meetings on the upheld planning appeals performance indicator. 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 8) providing the information previously requested on the upheld planning appeals performance indicator.

Derek Carnegie referred Members to the additional information contained in the report on split planning appeal decisions.  No national guidance was set on how this should be reported, so a decision was made locally to report any split decision as an allowed appeal in favour of the developer.  This did not take into account any partial success for the Council within the appeal decision.  However, there were very few instances of this and the nationally accepted performance level of 35% had been achieved.  Derek Carnegie offered to provide the Government guidance on the performance level. 

Eight allowed planning appeals were as a result of Members deciding against an Officer recommendation.  This would have improved performance to 29%.  Although it was also pointed out that there were two cases where the Inspector agreed that Members were right in overturning Officers recommendation. 

RESOLVED that Derek Carnegie would provide the Commission with the Government guidance on the performance level of 35%. 

Purpose: To receive the additional information requested regarding performance within Customer Services.

(Councillor Carol Jackson-Doerge joined the meeting at 6.40pm). 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 9) providing the information previously requested on performance within Customer Services.

Sean Anderson circulated a slightly amended report which provided information on the average call duration and made the following points: 

·                    The length of time a caller waited for a response and the average call duration was noted as being highest for the Council Tax/Business Rates Service and for the Housing/Council Tax Benefits Service.  This was because of the nature of calls received to these services.  The length of wait was recorded from the first ring. 

·                    Performance since the previous report to the Commission had improved and much of this was owing to the newly installed telephony software.  This enabled incoming calls to be shared between a higher number of appropriately trained staff.

·                    An automatic call back system had also been installed and was offered to callers who were lower than fifth place in a call queue.  Callers were guaranteed a call back before the end of the day.  There was however little uptake of this service as people were willing to wait as they were seeking assurance. 

·                    Calls to the switchboard were not included in the performance reported.  Although 92% of the calls received by the switchboard were answered within 15 seconds. 

·                    Customers had the opportunity to provide feedback via the website and post face to face interviews.  A telephone survey was also being formed. 

·                    The number/percentage of abandoned calls was recorded and the target of no more than 4% of calls being abandoned had been achieved over recent years.  There had however been a recent issue with reporting this performance following a system update and this was being resolved with the provider.  The length of time a caller was waiting before they abandoned the call could not currently be recorded on the system.  

Some Members were of the view that the statistics were incomplete without this data and it was requested that the potential to incorporate this information be explored with the software provider. 

It was pointed out that no complaints had been received in this regard either by the service or corporately.  Sean Anderson went on to say that a high quality service was provided by well trained staff who had to deal with sometimes difficult callers.  An average of nearly 48,000 calls were answered in a matter of seconds. 

Sean Anderson agreed to explore with the software provider, Siemens, the potential for recording the length of time callers waited before they abandoned calls.  He did however point out that the most up to date software was already in use. 

The service provided was complimented by Members and particular mention was made that performance levels were maintained during the period of severe winter weather when an increased number of calls was received.  Sean Anderson agreed to pass on this praise to staff. 

RESOLVED that Sean Anderson would explore the potential for recording the length of time callers waited before they abandoned  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

Purpose: To outline the proposed Terms of Reference and scope for a review into the Council’s Performance Management framework. 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 10) proposing Terms of Reference and scope for a review into the Council’s Performance Management framework.

Jason Teal explained that this proposal was brought to the Commission to look broadly at how the Council defined, managed and monitored strategic performance which would be fed into the strategic planning round for 2011/12.   

This was considered to be timely due to the changes being made to the national performance framework, including the abolition of the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).  There was no firm guidance on how performance would be assessed in future.  Although there had been some indication that consideration needed to be given on how to report performance to local communities, in support of the government’s localism and transparency agendas. 

There was support among Members to conduct this work and it was felt that the opportunity should be taken to reduce the number of measures where appropriate. 

A request was made that reference to being in a time of austerity be removed from the terms of reference, as services still needed to be provided regardless of this. 

Greater clarity was then sought on the areas to be specifically covered within the review and these were confirmed as:

(1)       What should be measured, including the number of indicators, and the most appropriate mechanism for monitoring performance.  

(2)       The Commission’s role in monitoring progress. 

(3)       How to present performance reports so they made sense to people in the community.

A request was made that the timeliness of reporting needed to be included as part of the review, so that recommendations could be made by the Commission to the Executive to help improve performance.  There was however agreement that the subject needed to be scrutinised more broadly before timeliness of reporting could be considered further. 

RESOLVED that subject to minor amendments the Terms of Reference for the task group review would be approved.  This would be formed by two Conservative Members and one Liberal Democrat Member.  Councillor Quentin Webb volunteered to participate and two further Members would be sought.  Membership of the task group was not limited to Members of the Commission. 

Purpose: To provide an update on the work of the Select Committee.

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 11) on the work of the Greener Select Committee.

RESOLVED that the report be noted. 

Purpose: To provide an update on the work of the Select Committee and provide information on the meeting held on 6 July 2010. 

(Councillor David Rendel declared a personal interest in Agenda item 12 by virtue of the fact that his wife was a GP in West Berkshire. As his interest was personal and not prejudicial he was permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

(Councillor Carol Jackson-Doerge declared a personal interest in Agenda item 12 by virtue of the fact that she worked for NHS Berkshire West. As her interest was personal and not prejudicial she was permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 12) on the work of the Healthier Select Committee.

Councillor Geoff Findlay referred to work undertaken with other South Central Health Scrutiny Committees.  This covered trauma management and children’s cardiac and neurological services.  A report was recently provided to this group by the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) on changes to the way in which services were commissioned, as set down by Government. 

The financial pressures felt in Berkshire West were replicated across the south central area.  While funding had not been cut, there were increasing pressures on services causing a huge financial burden.  This was particularly due to the growing elderly population. 

A special meeting of the Select Committee was to be arranged with, among others, NHS Berkshire West as a result of the potential change to GP service provision at Underwood Road in Calcot.  There were plans to redevelop the GP surgery, but NHS Berkshire West had indicated that they were not planning to continue to offer services from that site.  This had led to a public consultation and the Select Committee meeting was to be called as part of that process. 

Reference was then made to the recently published White Paper ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’ which was out for consultation.  It was queried whether the potentially enormous implications this would bring was to be discussed by the Select Committee, the Portfolio Holder etc with GPs.  This included local authorities taking on the responsibility for public health and it was further queried whether consideration would be given to commissioning services more widely than West Berkshire and Berkshire West. 

Councillor Findlay reported that the advice of the SHA pointed to the possible creation of larger GP surgeries to replace PCTs.  However, no decisions had been taken and meetings with GPs had not been arranged by the Select Committee as this was still at a very early stage.

Nick Carter advised that Officer discussions had commenced in this regard at the Berkshire West Health and Wellbeing Partnership Board.  Local authorities were taking a lead on this work that also included PCTs and other key parties including GPs and the Director of Health.  It was likely that commissioning of services would extend beyond West Berkshire. 

This work was at an early stage and PCTs were to remain for a further 2.5 years, but consideration was being given to having a GP Consortium for each Local Authority.  These were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 57.

Purpose: To provide an update on the work of the Select Committee and provide information on the meeting held on 12 July 2010. 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 13) on the work of the Resource Management Select Committee.

Councillor Jeff Brooks advised that work commenced at the last meeting on both the Procurement processes in place across the Council and on the impact Timelord was having across Service Areas.  These would be continued at the next meeting. 

Feedback was awaited on the potential for the Select Committee to receive quarterly budget reports after Management Board but in advance of the Executive to enable recommendations and comments to be fed through. 

RESOLVED that the update would be noted. 

Purpose: To provide an update on the work of the Select Committee and provide information on the meeting held on 5 July 2010. 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 14) on the work of the Safer Select Committee.

Councillor Quentin Webb advised that the Select Committee continued its review into the installation of fire sprinklers into new and refurbished Council buildings including schools.  Visits were being arranged to sites including St Bartholomew’s School and the Kennet Centre to help inform the review.  It was the intention to conclude this review at the next meeting and recommendations relating to the need for a specific policy and its suggested content would be considered.

A draft scoping document was presented for the Commission’s approval in relation to a review into crime statistics.  This would seek to assess whether the activity undertaken as a result of the crime statistics had brought about a reduction in crime. 

RESOLVED that the report would be noted and the scoping document for the review into crime statistics would be approved. 

Purpose: To provide an update on the work of the Select Committee and provide information on the meeting held on 8 July 2010. 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 15) on the work of the Stronger Communities Select Committee.

Councillor Irene Neill advised that a briefing was received at the last meeting on the positive work being done as part of the Greater Greenham Project.

The audit report into the Housing Register was considered.  This covered the systems and procedures in place, but the Select Committee was of the view that further work needed to be conducted to assess the actual work being undertaken within the service.  A working group had therefore been formed and this was due to meet in September.  It was hoped that a report could then be provided to the next full meeting of the Select Committee in October.

Further agenda items for the October meeting were to review the work of the playbuilder programme, which was under threat due to budget cuts, and to receive a report from the supporting small schools Officer group to assess whether further work was required by the Select Committee. 

RESOLVED that the report would be noted. 

Purpose: To advise the Commission of items to be considered by West Berkshire Council from August – November 2010 and decide whether to review any of the proposed items prior to the meeting indicated in the plan. 

The Commission considered the West Berkshire Forward Plan (Agenda Item 16) for the period covering August to November 2010.

RESOLVED that the Forward Plan would be noted. 

Purpose: To receive, agree and prioritise the work programme of the Commission and Select Committees for 2010/11. 

The Commission considered the work programme of the Commission and Select Committees for 2010/11 (Agenda Item 17).

Councillor Brian Bedwell informed the Commission that the CCfA item relating to the Underwood Road shopping centre in Calcot could be removed from the work programme as good progress was being made.  He was shortly due to attend a public display of the plans, this was part of the consultation being undertaken by the developer. 

Councillor Bedwell thanked Members of the Commission for their support in helping to resolve this matter.   

RESOLVED that the work programme would be noted. 

Purpose: To be informed of the response to the Commission’s recommendations following its review into Health Partnership Working. 

(Councillor David Rendel declared a personal interest in Agenda item 18 by virtue of the fact that his wife was a GP in West Berkshire. As his interest was personal and not prejudicial he was permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

(Councillor Carol Jackson-Doerge declared a personal interest in Agenda item 18 by virtue of the fact that she worked for NHS Berkshire West. As her interest was personal and not prejudicial she was permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

The Commission considered an information report (Agenda Item 18) advising of the response to the Commission’s recommendations by the Executive and NHS Berkshire West following the scrutiny review into health partnership working.

Members were pleased to see that the recommendations were fully accepted by the Executive and partially so by NHS Berkshire West. 

RESOLVED that the information would be noted.