Minutes:
The Chairman welcomed Councillor Richard Brooks, the Finance Portfolio Holder and reminded Members of the areas under the remit of his Portfolio. He also welcomed Councillor Paul Deach, Daniel Harrison, the Executive Head of Business, who would respond to Members’ queries on follow-up data from the previous meeting and Kelvin Menon, who was attending to assist in consideration of the areas of work covered by the Finance Portfolio.
The Chairman reported on discussions with the Council Leader on the need to focus on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of scrutiny and in particular, ensuring an understanding of the matters to be scrutinised prior to the meeting at which they would be considered. He highlighted, in particular, the following:
(i) If there were outstanding issues arising from consideration of any items, the Committee should adjourn the meeting to a future date rather than close it;
(ii) When the Committee identifies an issue to bring to the attention of the Executive, a specific resolution was needed to refer that item;
(iii) If the Committee wished to consider a matter further, it needed to clearly indicate this at the meeting; and
(iv) The Committee needed to develop better ways of addressing the issues within its remit.
One way to get a better grasp of the issues facing the Committee would be to establish a confidential Slack Group.
Slack was a group messaging app which operated through mobile phones, tablets and computers. Using a Slack Group would allow Members to discuss, in a closed confidential site, in real time, matters which the Committee was planning to scrutinise, enabling Members to be better informed on what questions to ask, what information to seek and what issues to focus on.
Members would be able to consider matters within the Committee’s purview in greater depth, through real time discussion, messaging, participating or just viewing. The data sets to be considered would only be accessible to the Group.
The Group’s considerations could inform the Committee’s requirements and officers could then be tasked, with a minimum of 2 weeks before the Committee agenda publication date, with producing reports which would assist committee deliberations, inform the work programme and allow proper scrutiny.
The Chairman proposed establishing a Slack Group, including the Council Leader, who had already agreed to join, all Committee Members and Substitutes, plus 2 officers (Committee Legal Representative and Democratic and Electoral Services Officer). The Group would be moderated by the Chairman and Members would be invited to join by the moderator, accessing the Group through their own passworded links.
The Committee would continue to consider matters at the planned meetings, but, through Member participation in the Slack Group, would be better informed and prepared for those discussions and the material presented could be informed by the Group’s deliberations, giving the Committee the opportunity to achieve more and give better support to the Executive function.
The Committee noted certain Members’ concerns in terms of the setting up of a Slack Group and in more general terms, whether any changes were needed to the Committee’s terms of reference.
It was proposed by Councillor Edward Hawkins, seconded by Councillor Wynne Price and
Resolved, that a Task and Finish Group be established to consider the Committee’s terms of reference and to draft proposals for any changes, to be referred to the Executive and Council for further consideration.
Note: Councillors David Allen, Edward Hawkins, Rebecca Jennings-Evans, Oliver Lewis, Jonathan Lytle, Alan McClaferty, Max Nelson, Robin Perry, Chris Pitt, Wynne Price, Darryl Ratiram, Victoria Wheeler and Valerie White voted in favour of the motion. Councillor Paul Ilnicki abstained.