Agenda item

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

Councillor Jim Brown, Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee, provided updates for Council from the meetings held since the Council meeting in October:

He advised that alongside the scheduled meetings, a number of informal in-depth meetings had been held to cover its work programme items.  Items considered at those meetings included the following and Members asked a number of questions regarding these items:

·         The Council’s Local Government Reorganisation submission, including how the modelling for each option had been established; the financial challenges under each option; the impact on prospective candidates who worked for legacy authorities; clarity on foundation authorities and various impacts of aggregation and disaggregation of each authority’s debts and assets;

·         Five finance reports including; (i) 2^nd Quarter monitoring report for the general fund, (ii) HRA and capital, Mid-Year Treasury Management Review, (iii) Council Tax Support Scheme, (iv) Balancing the Budget priorities for 2026/27 and (v) upgraded 30 Year HRA Business Plan;

·         Management of Estates and Neighbourhoods Policy and the Housing Re-Charge Policy;

·         Annual Report of Equalities, Diversity & Inclusion and Action Plan Progress Update and

·         Part II items relating to the Station Gateway and an urgent decision relating to Claxton House;

·         Corporate Communications and Marketing and the Member Enquiries YourSay system.

·         Two further finance reports on the Council Tax Base 2026/27 and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Draft Budget and Rent Setting for 2026/27;

·         Relocation of Lister Hospital Taxi Rank;

·         Corporate Performance Q2 2025-26;

·         Digital Strategy

·         Two Part II reports relating to the Leisure Management Contract and Fire Doors in the Council’s Flat Blocks and Housing Stock

The Chair of the Community Select Committee, Councillor Ellie Plater advised that the Committee had received the interim report and recommendations of the review of Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion.  A number of recommendations were made which focussed on:

·         encouraging a more diverse range of people involved in community leadership roles;

·         Increased collaboration between Members and the Equalities Commission Legacy Group;

·         Voices and lived experience of the trans community would be invited into discussions and events to help combat misconceptions and hatred;

·         Carrying out an audit of the provision of benches and seating in the town centre;

·         Addressing concerns around digital exclusion for older people alongside concerns raised by Age Concern around the lack of provision of mobility scooter hire service from the bus interchange;

·         Addressing the needs of young people by supporting extracurricular activities in schools and in the community via sports, interests and social clubs; supporting neurodiversity to encourage better collaboration between the Council and external mental health experts and addressing the needs of the sight loss community regarding street furniture and accessibility screens in the bus interchange.

The final recommendations would be formally agreed by the Committee and sent to the Cabinet Portfolio for Equalities for formal response in due course.

The Committee had also held a meeting focused on services directed at Older People and had made the following observations:

·         Linked to the Age Friendly Hertfordshire initiative there was a commitment to audit the number of rest stops in the town. Officers had carried out an audit and found that there were a large amount of benches in the town;

·         Members had heard some concerning statistics regarding the number of over 65s who had a dementia diagnosis and linked to this welcomed the work the Council was involved in, in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society, to provide the taxi trade with dementia training;

·         the work that diverse business units and officers across the Council were providing with regards to supporting older people including Sheltered housing, communities and neighbourhoods, health and leisure services was welcomed.  The provision of modern bespoke sheltered accommodation such as Brodie Court was proving very popular with older people.

Councillor Leanne Brady, Chair of the Environment & Economy Select Committee advised that an informal meeting including a presentation from the Lead officer had been held focussing on Climate Change. The focus of the presentation and discussion was on the annual climate change report to Cabinet and included clarification of how the Council was meeting its targets.

A further meeting had been held to consider the draft report and recommendations on the review of recycling in flat blocks.  She advised that the key finding was that there was not a ‘one size fits all approach’ that could be adopted to deliver recycling in the flat blocks, each flat block and location requiring a bespoke approach, making it complicated to deliver.

The Review made a number of recommendations including:

·         The promotion of recycling champions and work with young residents;

·         The use of large, infographic stickers on bins to differentiate recycling bins;

·         At Bring Bank sites consider the use of mobile CCTV to enable follow up actions including education and civil prosecution;

·         Measures to counter fly-tipping around bin stores; and

·         Use of easy to understand and easy to do recycling methods at flat blocks.

Following the updates, the Leader of the Council thanked the three Scrutiny Chairs for the important work undertaken by their committees and reminded members of the Council’s commitment to scrutiny through resources and funding.  He also advised that he and the Deputy leader had recently met with the three chairs and recommendations on improvements to the work and the programme were with officers for consideration.