Agenda item

Report of the Director - Finance and Corporate Services

The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group presented the scrutiny request for The health of our town and village centres.

The Chairman agreed that West Bridgford Central Avenue be included as part of the scrutiny item.

The Group agreed for this item to be taken forward in the scrutiny work programme.

The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group and the Chair of Growth and Development Scrutiny Group presented the Housing association customer service and maintenance request on behalf of Councillors Parekh, Brown and Upton.     

The Service Manager for Corporate Services said that Officer feedback on this scrutiny request was to ask for more clarity about what outcomes Members would wish to achieve from the scrutiny work, with the suggestion that Members identifying the main problems and what the scrutiny hoped to achieve would be beneficial to focus work. She said that as there were many housing providers in the Borough it would not be possible to invite them all to attend a meeting and as such Members may wish to highlight specific ones that they were having issues with or perhaps specify if they would wish to invite the largest ones. She suggested that clarification of objectives would be helpful and that discussing requests with Officers before submitting them also helped to focus what the scrutiny process could achieve.

The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group explained that when Councillors were approached by residents with problems with their housing it could be difficult for Councillors to make contact with the housing providers and they were often frustrated about how to best help them. The Chair of Growth and Development Scrutiny Group said that residents expected Councillors to be able to influence outcomes but that they often felt that there weren’t able to do anything and wanted to understand how they could help residents and address their issues.

The Chairman said that the Council had a duty of care to its residents and that as the Council had appointed housing associations to provide social housing, Councillors needed to be able to scrutinise the system. She suggested that Councillors could assess what the main issues were and which providers they had most issues with and then filter who to invite to attend a meeting. She suggested contacting the Director for Neighbourhoods to help clarify the function of the scrutiny request.

The Service Manager for Corporate Services confirmed that contact details for the Borough’s housing providers were available on the Councillors Portal and agreed to circulate a link to the Group and include it in Councillors Connections.

Members of the Group asked if it would be possible to have information on which housing providers were working in which areas and the Service Manager for Corporate Services said that she would take this request back to Officers.

The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group presented the scrutiny request for Playgrounds built on new developments. He said that whilst he had received feedback from Officers that this information may be covered through existing documents such as the Design Guide, he also wanted to scrutinise how playgrounds were developed and the stipulations that were put on developers and how those stipulations were identified, and once built, how playgrounds were inspected and how Councillors could contribute.

The Chairman noted that this request cut across the Open Spaces Management item and also that the Council was consulting on its Play Strategy. She suggested that as such it may be too early to review this request as it may duplicate work already taking place. She suggested also that this may be a matter for the Local Development Framework Group.

The Chairman confirmed that the Leader had written a letter to the Right Honourable Angela Rayner MP about Open Spaces and had called a round table meeting.

Members of the Group said different approaches to play areas were taken on different developments and that play areas were often installed in new developments in places where the local community didn’t want them or where they were of poor quality. Members expressed concern about maintenance and inspections and liability for costs. The Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group said that he did not want this matter to become lost in the wider discussion about management companies.

The Service Manager for Corporate Services confirmed that this item had crossover with the Open Spaces Management item programmed for the March Growth and Development Scrutiny Group Meeting. She suggested that perhaps the Play Strategy could be brought to Scrutiny for review in the future.

The Chairman suggested that this scrutiny request be held until after Open Spaces Management scrutiny had taken place.

The Service Manager for Corporate Services said that she would ask the Service Manager for Planning to provide a briefing note about the current situation for how decisions about play areas and decisions about s106 monies were taken and what standards the Council could hold developers to, to provide more information in the immediate term.

In relation to The health of our town and village centres item, the Group agreed for this to be programmed for January 2025 and that as it crossed the remit of both the Communities and Growth & Development Groups there was potential for it to be held as a joint scrutiny meeting. The Group agreed to confirm whether to hold it as joint meeting at the next Corporate Overview Group meeting in November.

The Service Manager for Corporate Services advised that Officers were reviewing possible areas of work that could come forward for review.

It was RESOLVED that the Corporate Overview Group:

a)    considered any additional items for scrutiny from the current Cabinet Forward Plan, Corporate Strategy, Medium Term Financial Strategy, Capital and Investment Strategy and Transformation and Efficiency Programme/Productivity Plan (Appendix One)

b)    determined any additional topics to be included in a scrutiny group work programme for 2024/25 for each of the scrutiny groups as presented on newly submitted scrutiny requests (Appendix Two)

c)    reviewed the current work programme for each of the scrutiny groups (Appendix Three).

Work Programme 2024/25 – Corporate Overview Group

Work Programme 2024/25 – Governance Scrutiny Group

Work Programme 2024/25 – Growth and Development Scrutiny Group

Work Programme 2024/25 – Communities Scrutiny Group