Agenda item

Councillor Fellows, Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel led the discussion and asked Members for items to add to the Panel’s work programme.

Members said that items to include to the work programme could either be one off officer reports, cabinet member presentations and scrutiny review topics. They acknowledged the need to prioritise the review topics in order to work within resources available. They said that there was a need for the Panel to look at wider issues affecting local communities in Thanet. Members said that it was important for the Panel to be flexible with the scoring matrix used in prioritising review topics so that when an urgent and important issue affecting communities arose, the Panel would be able to respond to the need to review such an issue by re-prioritising the list of topics Thereafter Members requested that these topics be included in the Panel’s work programme:

• Cost of living crisis (including debt);
• Health and Wellbeing;
• Housing affordability – how was that impacting on local communities and what TDC could do;
• Broken bins review: Council used to repair bins that whose lids would have been broken during waste collection;
• Parking charges review;
• Review of the  Winter Gardens;
• Review of the Toilet Strategy;
• Manston site review. Invite Mr Tony Freudmann to make a presentation;
• Review planning enforcement. What could be done to come up with a fair protocol? The review could also look at planning enforcement at Ramsgate Harbour;
• Review multi agency working in Housing;
• Review regularly the Independent Monitoring Officer’s (IMO) implementation plan;
• Housing development: How does the government work out housing numbers for the Local Plan? How are the type, location and quality of housing determined? How do developers negotiate social housing quotas in development projects, sometimes from a high of say 30% to 15%?

• What is the health impact of some of the council’s projects?
• Fly tipping and abandoned vehicles;
• Review the impact of tourism on TDC (visitor parking, tourist tax, AirBNBs and visitor economy; can these be handled better?);
• On street parking income review;
• Grant funding: What is TDC missing out on due to lack of staff resources to maximise on grant funding sources? What can the council do to maximise grant funding income?
• How is the Section 106 fund used? Jackey Bakers changing rooms could have been refurbished using these funds;
• Review the lifts and disabled accessibility to Thanet beaches;
• Cabinet Member Presentations: The new Leader of Council to be invited to make a presentation on his vision for the next four years;
• Cabinet Member Presentations: Invite each of the Cabinet Members to present on the key reviews currently taking place in their respective portfolio areas once those reviews have been completed;
• Levelling Up Fund  regular projects implementation updates (through officer reports);
• Review of historical decisions made by TDC on key projects.

Members requested that information describing future key decisions to be made should be more detailed in the Forward Plan than was currently the case, (particularly in the ‘what this decision will mean’ section).

The Panel agreed the following that:

1. Mr Freudmann be invited to make a presentation on Manston site;

2. The topics identified above as potential work programme items be added to the work programme for 2023/24.