Agenda and minutes

There were no substitutes declared.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Rona Burt, Christine Mason and Reg Silvester.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2017 (copy attached).

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2017, were confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chairman.

Members of the public who live or work in Forest Heath are invited to put one question/statement of not more than 3 minutes duration relating to items to be discussed in Part 1 of the agenda only.  If a question is asked and answered within 3 minutes, the person who asked the question may ask a supplementary question that arises from the reply.

A person who wishes to speak must register at least 15 minutes before the time the meeting is scheduled to start.

There is an overall limit of 15 minutes for public speaking, which may be extended at the Chairman’s discretion.

There were no questions/statements from members of the public.

The Chairman attended Cabinet on 20 June 2017, and presented the Committee’s report on items it considered on 6 June 2017, which was noted.

Report No: OAS/FH/17/018

The Lead Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Sara Mildmay-White has been invited to the meeting to provide an annual account on her portfolio and to answer questions from the Committee.

The Committee was reminded that on 21 July 2016, it had received a presentation from the Lead Cabinet Member for Housing, setting out her responsibilities covered under the portfolio.

At this meeting, the Lead Cabinet Member for Housing had been invited back to provide a follow-up presentation on her portfolio.  Report No: OAS/FH/17/018 set out the focus of the follow-up presentation, which was to:

·         Outline the main challenges faced during the first year;

·         Outline some key successes and any failures during the first year;

·         Set out the vision for the Portfolio through to 2019, and whether on target to meet that vision.

Before initially opening her presentation, Councillor Mildmay-White informed the Committee that Sara Lomax was nominated in her role of Service Manager for Housing Options and Homelessness in which she works closely with domestic abuse support services, supporting victims through homelessness prevention and encouraging agencies to work within the area. She had been at the forefront in bringing additional support to West Suffolk through the satellite accommodation project (which provides accommodation for victims of domestic abuse that were not in a refuge) and continued to bring best practice and new ideas to the area, increasing the support the councils could offer to victims of domestic abuse.  Sara was presented with a certificate in recognition of her work from Cllr Tony Goldson, Chair of the Suffolk Health and Wellbeing Board.

Councillor Sara Mildmay-White then opened her presentation by thanking the Committee for the invitation and for its support over the past year, and provided a number of examples, outlining challenges faced; successes and lessons learnt; and the vision through to 2019, such as:

• Behaving more commercially due to changes being made by Central Government (challenge)
• Bringing more empty homes back into use (challenge)
• Introduction of the Universal Credit full service goes live in Forest Heath and surrounding postcodes on September 2018 (future challenge)
• Barley Homes Group Limited which had now been incorporated (key success)
• Following a successful bid to the DCLG, the council along with Babergh/Mid Suffolk had employed a Rough Sleeper Outreach Prevention Worker (key success)
• Unable to meet the 30% affordable housing on brownfield sites (less successful)
• Delayed implementation of the data transfer to Home-link due to IT issues (less successful)
• Embedding the housing portfolio into the council in the way it delivers its commercial work (vision)
• Currently developing a Space Standards to eventually become a Supplementary Planning Document (vision)
• Barley Homes Group Limited to become an exemplar for housing standards (vision)

Members discussed the update in detail and asked questions of the Cabinet Member and officers, to which comprehensive responses were provided.

In response to particular questions raised, members were advised that:

·         Delays had occurred around the negotiation of land sales to the Barley Homes Group Limited, but this had not impacted on the dividend / long-term profit margins for the councils.  Terms had now been agreed for three of the four sites.

·         Suffolk County Council in co-operation of the district and borough’s was looking again at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 173.

Report  No: OAS/FH/17/019

The Committee received Report No: OAS/FH/17/019, which built upon recent discussions held at its meeting in March 2017 with the Portfolio Holder for Resources and Performance regarding member development. 

The report sought scrutiny input into how the member development programme could be developed to ensure it most effectively helped members to deliver their role.

Attached at Appendix A to the report was the outcomes from the recent Member Development Survey and at Appendix B was a list of previous events held an attendance figures.

The aim of the report was to serve as the basis for Committee to discuss the current strengths and weaknesses of the Development Plan, and assess how the offer could be developed further to maximise the use of training resources to best meeting Councillor needs.

The Committee discussed the various options set out in the report and asked questions to which responses were provided.

Discussions were held on the need to provide sufficient notification of training sessions; tailoring training to the committee that members sat on; holding 20 minute training sessions/updates prior to a Committee meeting; the use of webinars and e-learning; and not repeating the same training sessions each year.

The Vice-Chairman of the Committee stated that the key point was to incentivise members to attend training sessions, and it would be wrong to use the stick approach.  Furthermore, members should not be treated as employees. 

It was then proposed by Councillor Ruth Bowman, seconded by Councillor Nigel Roman and with the vote being unanimous, it was

          RECOMMENDED:

That the Member Development Steering Group be asked to consider the following recommendations for improving the Development Plan:

1)   Explores the use of webinars alongside work already being undertaken on e-learning.

2)   Explores holding quick 20 minute learning sessions prior to the commencement of Committee meetings to update Committee members on legislative requirements; changes etc.

3)   Ensure that sufficient notice / publicity is provided on planned training sessions.

The Monitoring Officer to provide a verbal update to the Committee.

The Monitoring Officer presented a verbal report, which built upon discussions held at its meeting in April 2017 regarding the use of surveillances powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Directed Surveillance and Covert Human Intelligence Sources) Order 2010 by the Anglian Revenues Partnership (ARP) for carrying out benefits checks.

The Monitoring Officer advised that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) carried out fraud investigations on behalf of the Anglia Revenues Partnership.  She further advised that DWP had not used these surveillance powers.

There being no decision required, the Committee noted the verbal update from the Monitoring Officer.

Report No: OAS/FH/17/020

The Committee received Report No: OAS/FH/17/020, which updated Member on the current status of its rolling work programme of items for scrutiny during 2017-2018 (Appendix 1).

The Democratic Services Officer (Scrutiny) informed the Committee that the following additional items were to be included in its forward work programme for 9 November 2017:

-      Development of a New West Suffolk Strategic Plan 2018-2020

-      Annual Report from Barley Homes Group Limited.

The Committee noted the update on the current status of its forward work programme for 2017-2018 and the additional items to be included in its forward work programme for November 2017.