Agenda item

To consider the following Overview and Scrutiny Project reports:

a.    Under Occupation of Social Housing

b.    Community Engagement with the Planning Service

c.    Strategic Enforcement

d.    Two Year Olds Early Entitlement

Cabinet received four Scrutiny Panel project reports and an overview of each of these was provided by the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Gideon Bull.

Under Occupation of Social Housing

In introducing the report Councillor Bull noted that the Panel had met with residents affected by the ‘bedroom tax’, officers from Homes for Haringey, other local authorities and the Chartered Institute for Housing. He noted that there had been particularly useful discussion with representatives from local Housing Associations around the measures they were taking to help tenants affected by the new rules on under occupation.

The Panel had concluded that downsizing provided the most effective and sustainable approach to this issue and the recommendations put forward reflected this and the need to support tenants.

Community Engagement with the Planning Service

Councillor Bull noted that meeting with residents had been useful in discussing how engagement could be improved and how this might be achieved.  The need for greater transparency and early engagement had emerged as strong themes and the Panel’s recommendations reflected this. It was noted that recommendations made by the Panel had already been acted upon with the establishment of pre application discussion meetings.

The Cabinet Member for Environment added that building capacity within the Planning service to support engagement and the development of mechanisms for early engagement were essential in empowering local people.

Strategic Enforcement

In introducing the report Councillor Bull noted that the Panel had considered how enforcement services worked together to deliver coordinated enforcement action and how enforcement information was collected and shared across the Council.

The Panel had found that individual enforcement services often held data that could assist the business of other enforcement or regulatory services. However, there were barriers to partnership working and information sharing such as; incompatible IT systems; a lack of protocols; and misinterpretation of Data Protection. The Panel’s recommendations included ensuring that the Council’s enforcement databases were linked to a core database to facilitate centralised record of enforcement actions. 

Councillor Bull noted that the Panel had also recommended that a system to prioritise, coordinated and monitor enforcement action across the Council was established whereby each service would indentify twenty priority cases. These would then be pooled and assessed across the Council to identify twenty Council wide priority cases and each case would be assigned to and monitored by one service lead.

Two Year Olds Early Entitlement

Councillor Bull noted that the Panel had considered plans to implement the two-year-old early entitlement offer and the sufficiency of high quality places across the borough to meet the likely demand for places.  The Panel found that a significant number of additional places were required in some wards in order to provide sufficient places from September. A number of providers had indicated that they were restricted in their capacity to provide additional places at present but that were keen to expand.

Councillor Bull also noted that the Panel had suggested that greater engagement with local primary schools and the local community may assist in identifying potential sites for delivering two-year-old places from.

The Chair thanked Councillor Bull for presenting the reports.

RESOLVED:

1. That the attached scrutiny project reports from 2013/14, listed as (a) to (d) as set out below, and the recommendations contained in those reports be noted:

a)      Under  occupation of social housing

b)      Community engagement with the planning service

c)      Strategic  Enforcement

d)      Two year olds early entitlement

2. That in respect of the scrutiny project reports Mental Health and Accommodation and Mental Health and Physical Health,  as listed in paragraph (i) report  – it be noted that both reviews would be considered by the Health and Wellbeing Board on 30 September 2014 and then reported to Cabinet on 14 October 2014;  

3. That in respect of the scrutiny project report on Mental Health and Community Safety as listed in paragraph (i) of the report  - it be noted that this review would be considered by the Community Safety Partnership on 18 September 2014 and then reported on to Cabinet on 14 October 2014.

Alternative options considered

Not applicable.

Reasons for decision

The findings of the Overview and Scrutiny Reviews for 2013/14 are reported to Cabinet in accordance with Part 4, Section G, paragraph 1.3 of the Constitution. The findings of the 2013/14 reviews have been responded to in the covering reports for the scrutiny reviews a) to d) and are for Cabinet to consider and adopt.