Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Huxley and Councillor Leys.

To receive any declarations of interest. Members are advised to consider the advice contained within the Declaration of Interest advice attached to this Agenda. If a Member declares an interest, they should complete the Declaration of Interest Form

There were declarations of interest made at the meeting.

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 30 August 2022, copy attached.

Councillor Paul Moore proposed, Councillor Fellows seconded and the Members agreed that the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 30 August 2022 were a correct record.

Councillor Pugh, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Economic Development made a presentation and made the following points:

• The council was awarded £51 million for the Levelling Up Funds projects to be implemented in the district;
• Thanet District Council (TDC) was one of a few councils in Kent who received these funds;
• Officers should be commended for the efforts they put into these successful bids;
• An officer to support with the administrative processes for the project implementation was recruited;
• The reporting protocol and governance arrangements were different for each project;
• For example the Margate Town Deal has a Board that monitors the implementation of the town deal projects;
• On the other hand, Levelling up Fund have Scrutiny Panels for Margate and Ramsgate;
• TDC’s Cabinet Member sits on the Board and the two Panel;
• An Interim Director was recruited to deliver the town deal projects through the Creative Land Trust;
• The Winter Gardens business case was had also been approved;
• Each of these project had its own performance indicators to report on and measure progress against;
• The Town Deal Board was no longer meeting monthly as before because projects had been approved and now the main task was implementation and monitoring.

Members of the Panel asked questions and made comments as follows:

• In this current business environment, were the business plans still appropriate in term in relation to budgets?
• It was pleasing to note that there will be additional staff to the Regeneration team. Engagement with the public was an important aspect of project implementation. One of the public representatives has not been attending meetings and this needed looking into;
• How effective were the People’s Panels? Was it doing the job it was set up to do?
• The public were asking when they would be able to see the evidence of the funding results on the ground;
• Had the Creative Land Trust identified buildings in Margate to be used under the Town Deal projects?
• The Trust could consider buildings in Arlington Square;
• Has Dreamland started operating?
• Was the council likely to get an investor for the RoRo refurbishment?
• The Regeneration team had done a commendable job by submitting a number of successful bids. Could the business cases information be shared with Members?
• If the public could be given information regarding the project implementation timetable that would help;

• Could the council assist community groups to apply for such funding?
• With regards to the Band Stage, was the funding given directly to the community group? Who was responsible for overseeing the spending and accounting for the funds? Who was responsible for monitoring project implementation?
• Was there any scope for the public to see how the funds were accounted for?
• Was there any progress regarding security ferry services for cargo for the Ramsgate Port and were there any destination ports identified?
• Were there any alternatives used for the Port together with match funding that had been identified to date?
• Was the project related to the Port going to leave Smack Boys and Sea Cadets  ...  view the full minutes text for item 408.

Michelle Jackson, Resident Involvement Manager introduced the report and made the following points:

• The service had managed a full compliance regarding lifts, fire assessments and gas;
• There were 140 outstanding actions and there were 134 overdue actions down from 200 in Q4;
• The more fire risk assessments that were done by the Service the more actions that the service needed to carry out;
• The Service was not pleased with the performance of the domestic electrical safety and officers were keeping up the pressure on MEARS to improve the performance in this area;
• A contractor would be brought in in Q2 to work on the domestic electrical safety area;
• MEARS would get more sub contractors to drive up performance;
• Council officers would continue to hold regular meetings with MEARS management;
• Some work was also needed to improve the VOIDS performance as there were some backlogs;
• It was pleasing to note that the Incomes Team now had a full complement of officers that would drive up performance for the team;
• The team was now able to reach out to residents much faster;
• Tenant and Leaseholder Services managers were meeting regularly to consider cases where residents were struggling with payments.

Councillor Jill Bayford, Cabinet Member for Housing also added that there were huge successes since the service was brought back in-house. Cllr Bayford also said that there were challenges being faced by the service. And thanked officers for the detailed report.

Members asked questions and made comments as follows:

• The number of void properties in Thanet was not as many as one would find in other districts. This was testimony to the good work being done by the Housing team;
• The figures for Gas Call and lack of customer satisfaction were reported as being 20%. What was causing this dissatisfaction?
• What was the team doing about this level of dissatisfaction? Could officers drill down in order to understand the reasons behind this?
• There were less complaint s now which was evidence of the good work being put in by the Service;
• It was also good to note that the team had also reported on the areas that were not performing to expectation;
• Members thanked officers for the hard work.

Ms Jackson said that the team was working on getting more feedback from residents which would create a better understanding of why there were levels of dissatisfaction in the reported areas.

Members noted the report.

Members were asked to send any suggestions for future presentations to Democratic Services.

Members then noted the report.

Members noted the report.