Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed all present to the meeting and informed them that the meeting was being webcast.

There were no apologies for absence.

It being a special meeting, under Part 4, Section B, Paragraph 17, of the Council’s Constitution, no other business shall be considered at the meeting.

It being a special meeting, under Part 4, Section B, Paragraph 17, of the Council’s Constitution, no other business was considered at the meeting.

None.

None.

Stuart Young – Assistant Chief Executive – introduced the report as set out.

NOTED:

·               The report was an outline of the business case – the full business case would be presented to Cabinet in Spring 2014.  A range of costs and options were provided in the report, although the IT procurement had not been fully costed.

·               The decision to be taken by Cabinet in November was not a key decision – the key decision would follow in the budget papers for capital / revenue funding, which would form part of the budget scrutiny process.

·               The primary drive for the project was to enable residents to access all possible services.  Support would be provided to those currently unable to access online services.

·               Four options were presented at page 5 of the report.

Mr Young, Catherine Galvin and Kieron McQuade responded to questions from the Committee:

·               At the start of the project, ten local authorities and public sector providers were visited.  If Members wished to do so, a visit could be arranged to see how the customer services programme worked in other areas.

·               The programme was about changing the way that the Council worked.  Processes would be re-designed so that specialist staff would be answering telephone calls.  This should result in telephone queries being dealt with in either one phone call, or being transferred to the correct department immediately.

·               A residents panel had been set up to look at the whole programme.  The initial participants were drawn from people who had made a complaint to the Council.  There was further work needed to ensure that those who are not so vocal could participate.

·               Following the resident panels there would be wider consultation.

·               It was noted that Members were a good contact point into the community.

·               It was important to remember that the Council had good staff – but the programme was about the ‘end to end’ experience, and staff needed the tools in order to do this.

·               The programme was not at the stage for knowing physical locations of hubs.  This would be a broader conversation at a later stage.

·               Redundancy costs had not been included in the costings because it was difficult to assess how much redundancy payments would be, as it was different for different staff members.

·               The procurement process would be transparent and could be brought to OSC should Members wish.

·               A good example for the programme was Wigan Council.  There were 14 partner services working out of one building, and all issues were tracked using one system.

·               The importance of getting buy-in from residents was noted, including ensuring documents were made accessible to them.

·               The aim was not to form a digital and non-digital queue.  No one who made contact would be turned away.  However, there was a possibility that in the future, some services would become online only.

·               There would be a digital overarching offer to cover all transactional processes.  There would also be an offer of telephone or face to face interaction.  Where possible, people  ...  view the full minutes text for item 277.

APPENDIX TO FOLLOW

The Chair introduced the report as set out.

NOTED:

·               The purpose of the report was to recommend that Full Council appoint a Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee (to include Haringey and other boroughs), in order to respond to the consultation on the proposals by NHS England to reconfigure cancer and cardiovascular services across North London.

RESOLVED to

i)          Recommend that Full Council appoint or enter into a Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee that includes the London Borough of Haringey and the other boroughs for the purpose of responding to the consultation by NHS England on proposals to reconfigure cancer and cardial services across North Central and North East London.

ii)         Recommend that Full Council amend the Terms of Reference and Functions of Overview & Scrutiny Committee in the Constitution, to include the power to enter into or appoint such Joint Overview & Scrutiny Committees that include the London Borough of Haringey and other boroughs for the purpose of responding to consultation by NHS bodies on proposals for substantial variations or developments in the provision of health services.  This shall apply to future proposals that require the appointment of such Joint Overview & Scrutiny Committees.

The Chair opened the discussion on the review of the Call-in process.  A review of the process was long overdue.  The Chair stated that he wanted to be in the position where if a decision was referred back to the decision maker, then the Committee should be able to give reasons as to why.  Alternatively, if the decision was upheld, the Committee should be able to add any opinions or comments on the decision, and these should be taken into consideration by the decision maker.

NOTED the discussion by the Committee:

·               The discussions that take place at call-in meetings are detailed and make good recommendations, and it would be useful if these could be fed in to future Council decisions.

·               The 10 working day limit to convene a call-in meeting was considered to be insufficient.  It was suggested that 15 days (or 20 days in August and the second half of December) would be better.  This would allow a longer time period for services to respond to the call-in.  It would also enable OSC Members to attend the call-in meeting as there had been previous call-ins where the membership was mainly substitutes and it was not felt that this was best practice.

·               The opportunities for pre-decision scrutiny had diminished.

·               The increase in Cabinet Member Signings was not helpful.  These meetings were generally inaccessible to members who would like to attend them  - they were often held in the day time and in locations not suitable for public meetings.  There was no transparency with these decisions.

·               It was felt that greater clarity was needed on Cabinet Member Signings as it was felt that public decisions should be made in places where there was public access.  Therefore, the location, time of day and ability to web-cast should all be considered.

Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense responded to the Committee.  The 10 working days deadline was not prescribed in law.  However, it was a decision taken by Full Council (and many other Councils) based on the guidance produced in 2000, which suggested this timescale.  If members wished to make changes then recommendations could be made by the Committee to Full Council.

It was also pointed out that the Committee can make comments to the decision maker, although these should only be in respect of the decision which was being considered at the call-in.  However, the Committee was able to make comments and recommendations to Cabinet within its statutory powers and therefore there were other routes outside of the call-in decision route in which the Committee could feed back general concerns and make recommendations.

Actions:

·               Scrutiny to arrange an informal meeting between Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny Committee in December 2013.

ACTION: Melanie Ponomarenko

·               A briefing note to be prepared on the comments made by the Committee, to aid the discussions at the informal meeting.

ACTION: Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense

·               Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense and Melanie Ponomarenko would meet to discuss how to take forward the points raised at the meeting.

ACTION: Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense & Melanie Ponomarenko

25 November 2013

16 December 2013

23 January 2014

17 March 2014

NOTED the dates of future meetings.