Minutes:
Councillor Combellack, Chair of Growth and Development Scrutiny Group provided feedback from the Growth and Development Scrutiny Group held on the 16 July 2025, where the Group were presented a report on the East Midlands Freeport development. Councillor Combellack reported there had been very little progress and felt the presentation and update the Group received was underwhelming. She added that there had been some discussion around the remodelling of J24 on the M1 and asked whether the Freeport could be brought back to Growth and Development as an update as she felt that questions Councillors had raised had not been addressed.
Councillor Plant had attended the Growth and Development Scrutiny meeting in July, adding that she felt there had been with very little movement or evidence of a solid direction with the Freeport.
Councillor Parekh, Chair of Communities Scrutiny Group provided feedback from the last meeting of Communities Scrutiny Group held on 24 July 2025, where the Group were presented a report on Metropolitan Trent Valley Housing (MTVH). Councillor Parekh reported that MTVH had provided an update on its performance. However, she felt the Councillors discussion and questions that followed had not been addressed by MTVH and she didn’t feel reassured by their responses. Councillor Parekh felt that MTVH were very defensive in their responses and unwilling to accept responsibility or take any action. The Group had requested the item return next year to ensure Councillor feedback had been acted upon.
The Head of Corporate Services explained that in the Terms of Reference for Corporate Overview Group, scrutiny items are not normally accepted within a 2-year period which will prevent the same scrutiny request being accepted.
The Chair suggested that Councillor Parekh and members of Communities Scrutiny Group look at where the item may be explored further in order for it to be brought forward again for scrutiny.
Councillor Simms, Chair of Governance Scrutiny Group provided feedback from the Governance Scrutiny Group meeting held on 19 June 2025, where the Group discussed the Council’s Internal Audit Progress and Internal Audit Plan, Annual Fraud Report, External Audit Plan, Annual Governance Statement and the Capital and Investment Strategy.
Councillor Simms highlighted his concern over an anomaly that had been discovered in relation to licencing that had not been picked up for a number of years. He added that he had agreed for the auditors to investigate it for now but was not reassured that lessons had been learnt. He expressed his intention to bring the matter up again at the next meeting of Governance Scrutiny Group.
With regards to Scrutiny, all Chairs and Vice-Chairs raised concerns about the feedback that was being provided after the meetings and whether officers were taking action on the views expressed by Councillors at the meetings.
All members of the Group were keen to remove the ‘2-year rule’ which currently prevents the same scrutiny request being accepted within a 2-year period. Councillor Simms, Chair of Governance Scrutiny Group proposed to look at the terms of reference for Scrutiny Groups as part of the Governance Scrutiny Group’s Constitution Annual Review.