Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from the following Members:

Councillor Connor;

Councillor Rusiecki, substituted by Councillor L. Piper;

Councillor Parsons, substituted by Councillor Bayford.

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 25 October 2016, copy attached.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Jaye-Jones seconded and Members agreed the minutes to be a correct record of the meeting that was held on 25 October 2016.

To approve the Minutes of the extraordinary Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 21 November 2016, copy attached.

Amendments

The minutes should reflect that Councillor Bayford was in attendance.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Dexter seconded and Members agreed that subject to the above amendment, the minutes be agreed as a correct record of the extraordinary meeting that was held on 21 November 2016.

Christine Parker, Head of East Kent Internal Audit Partnership, led the discussion. Mrs Parker leads the audit team that works independently for Dover, Canterbury, Shepway and Thanet local authorities. She gave an overview of the work conducted by her in reviewing the Dreamland project after being commissioned by the Corporate Management Team (CMT). The focus of the audit was on project management and to identify any lessons learnt by the organisation.

The structure of the report was according to the following themes;

•  Project management;

•  Governance arrangements;

•  Financial managements

•  Project risk management.

The report concluded that there were some lessons learnt that included the council being able to identify what projects to push back and which to embark on once satisfied with the operational capacity of the council to manage such projects taking into consideration the project risks in the context of overall resource impact for the organisation. The report concluded with an action plan for reference going forward.

Speaking under Council procedure 20.1, Councillor Tomlinson suggested that Members of the Panel set up a working group to carry out further in-depth review of the Dreamland project on what had gone wrong.

When the debate was opened up to the Panel Members made the following comments:

•  The report was fine, but the Panel would have wanted to sponsor their own report, hence the need to set up a working group;

•  Need for further clarification on some areas in the report including basic project management;

•  Council should have consistently used Smart Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely (SMART) methodology in order to manage risk for this project;

•  Governance arrangements should have been robust enough to withstand staff turnover;

•  Can it be confirmed that SHL went through the proper due diligence process that was amended in December 2014 considering that the operator selection had been first approved in April 2010 and later in May 2014;

•  Did SHL meet all the criteria when they submitted their bid in the second procurement process;

•  There should have been a Master File for such a multi departmental corporate project to eliminate risk;

•  What has been put in place to communicate to Cabinet and Members when a corporate project is not meeting targets;

•  Commended the Council’s Finance Department on the demonstration of strong financial management systems being place for the duration of this project;

•  There is a need to consider how much political influence has affected some of the decisions made for this project.

In response Madeline Homer, CEx said that:

•  Members had requested for a report on the Dreamland to understand the finance, governance and project management of this project;

•  There is a need for clarity on what it is that Members wanted to review which had not been covered by the report before the Panel;

•  Any scrutiny review would have resource implications for the organisation;

•  There is a comment in the report that states that there was no political influence  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84.

Nick Hughes introduced the item for debate and said that the proposals before the Panel were premised on the need to adopt an effective scrutiny process and based on the principle of ruthless efficiency whilst bearing in mind the limited corporate resources available to the council. Mr Hughes said that scrutiny was best when it looked at issues that Members did not know the answers to.

Mr Hughes also advised that the proposals had no implications for call-in as this facility would continue to run as per the current arrangement and that the Democratic Services team would only adjudicate on proposed projects submitted by Members, using the criteria that would have been adopted by the Panel. CMT would review the adjudication done by Democratic Services to ensure that officers had done their work correctly and cross-check against resource availability.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Bayford seconded and Members unanimously agreed that:

1.  Adopt an approach for a work programme made up of:

i.  Three Working Parties;

ii.  One Scrutiny Review;

iii.  Continued one off reports considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Panel (including presentations from Cabinet Members);

2.  Adopt the OSP Agenda Item Request Template attached at Annex 1 to the report;

3.  Adopt a system for prioritisation of scrutiny review projects that includes a scoring matrix using the template attached as Annex 3 to the report;

4.  Adopt the use of Scrutiny Review Project Scoping Form attached at Annex 4 to the report.

Members noted the report.

Nick Hughes reminded the Panel that having established the Dreamland Working Group, there was a need to stand down one of the working parties. Members agreed to stand down the Electoral Registration Process Review Working Party.

Councillor Jaye-Jones proposed, Councillor L. Piper seconded and Members agreed to set up the Dreamland with a membership size of seven that was politically proportionate as follows:

4 UKIP;

2 Conservative;

1 Labour.

Councillor Campbell indicated that he would like to be a member of this new on the working group. The Chairman requested that after the meeting, the political groups put forward names of their political group representatives the new sub group.

Members noted the report.

Councillor Campbell advised the meeting that the Community Safety Partnership Working Party met on 12 December and received additional presentations from Victim Support and EK Rape Crises Centre on ‘Sexual Offences Victims Support in Thanet,’ having received an initial report from a representative from Kent Police Sexual Investigation Team.

Councillor Campbell said that the working party came up with some recommendations which will be presented to the next scheduled meeting of the Panel.

Members noted the report.