Issue - meetings

To receive updates from the Chairs of the Scrutiny Committees on the recent activities of those Committees

The Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee reported that the Committee had held its first virtual meeting under the Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) Regulations 2020 on 17 June 2020.  Members of the Committee were encouraged to watch the broadcast of the Executive meeting and submit written questions in advance based on the Executive reports and discussion.  These questions were then circulated to the Strategic Leadership Team for written responses which were, in turn, circulated to the Committee Members before the meeting.  At the meeting, the questions were verbally raised by the relevant Member and the responses were provided by officers – it was hoped that this would help those viewing the virtual meeting to better understand the discussion and the supplementary questions raised.

The Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee advised that a slightly different format had been used for the meeting of the Committee held on 14 July 2020, in that the answers to submitted questions were not provided to Members in advance, but were answered by officers at the meeting.  It was intended to continue this format until face to face meetings resumed.

The Chair of the Community Select Committee reported that there was no specific update to provide to Council on the work of both select committees, other than to state that it had not been possible to meet since the start of the lockdown because of the added strain on resources that this would cause.  However, it was intended to re-commence the activities of these Committees in September 2020.