Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received on behalf of Councillor Dexter Bullock.

To note any urgent items of business which the Chairman has consented to being considered under the provisions of Section 100(B) 4(b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

The Scrutiny & Elections Officer briefed Members on the outcome of the Executive meeting on 6^th March.  As this was the last meeting of the current Committee prior to the election this was the last opportunity to feedback that all recommendations from the Review of Council’s Approach to Carbon Reduction had been approved.

Members should declare the existence and nature of any Disclosable

Pecuniary Interest and Non Statutory Interest as defined by the

Members’ Code of Conduct in respect of:

a) any business on the agenda

b) any urgent additional items to be considered

c) any matters arising out of those items and if appropriate, withdraw

from the meeting at the relevant time.

There were no declarations of interest made.

To consider the minutes of the last meeting held on 31^st January 2023.

Moved by Councillor Evonne Parkin and seconded by Councillor Jen Wilson

RESOLVED that the Minutes of a Climate Change & Communities Scrutiny Committee held on 31^st January 2023 be approved as a correct record.

(Members should contact the officer whose name appears on the List

of Key Decisions for any further information. NB: If Members wish to

discuss an exempt report under this item, the meeting will need to

move into exempt business and exclude the public in accordance with

the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 and Local

Government Act 1972, Part 1, Schedule 12a for that part of the

meeting only).

Committee considered the List of Key Decisions and items to be considered in private document.

Moved by Councillor Jen Wilson and seconded by Councillor Nick Clarke

RESOLVED that the List of Key Decisions and items to be considered in private document be noted.

Committee considered their work programme for 2022/23.  The Chair noted that this was the last meeting of the municipal year and thanked Members for their commitment to the work of the Committee.

Moved by Councillor Jen Wilson and seconded by Councillor Nick Clarke

RESOLVED that the Work Programme 2022/23 be approved and noted.

The Scrutiny & Elections Officer reported back to Committee on progress against the recommendations.  To date 3 out of 4 recommendations had been achieved and 1 had not been progressed following extensive officer investigation.  Negotiation of additional powers for the Enforcement Team required a partnership approach and approval of such powers was out of the Council’s control.  Options to develop this and secure additional powers had been investigated extensively, however, this was not something the Council could deliver on at present.

A Member queried whether the option to develop a Community Accreditation Scheme would come forward in the future.  The Assistant Director noted that this would be dependent on the volume and type of incidents that occur in the future, which would then warrant the need to secure such additional powers.

Following the last update, the Portfolio Holder had received a response from the government.  The response received acknowledged that there was already a range of legislation in place and guidance on the considerate use of fireworks.  The government was currently monitoring the impact of additional legislative changes introduced by the Scottish government pending any further review for England.  There were currently no plans to change the law and the government continued to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including animal welfare organisations such as the RSPCA, to listen to and understand their views.

Moved by Councillor Jen Wilson and seconded by Councillor Anne Clarke

RESOLVED that (1) the progress against the review recommendations be noted,

(2) any exceptions to delivery and additional action required by the service be acknowledged,

(3) the report and its findings, in accordance with Part 4.5.17(4) of the Council’s Constitution be made public.

(Scrutiny & Elections Officer)

Further to the report provided by officers in January, the Leader’s Executive & Partnership team provided an additional update on certain aspects of implementing the recommendations.

The Leader’s Executive & Partnership Strategy Manager explained to Members that there would be careful management of the implementation of the new approach due to the length of time the current grants had been allocated for.  It was acknowledged that since completing the review some of the delivery timescales for the recommendations had to be extended to ensure that the voluntary and community sector could be fully engaged in the process.  Furthermore, the team faced unexpected additional pressure from supporting the completion of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) bid.

The officer noted that the team had engaged with the sector in partnership with BCVS.  The consultation had looked at a wide variety of current issues including the role of the sector, Integrated Care System funding and current service commissioning.  One of the key messages received from the sector was that using a commissioning approach rather than direct grants while useful for those designing local services, was not always an easy process for smaller organisations to engage with as local providers.

A Member noted that a commissioning approach had felt like the best option when assessing a new way forward and hoped the revised approach implemented would be a better system to identify outcomes for investment.

The officer noted that the purchase of the Loop system would be a huge support in monitoring the delivery of future investments and partnership delivery with the voluntary and community sector.

A Member questioned what the new grant allocation scheme would look like.  Another Member questioned how the Council would monitor new service level agreements and how the decision would be made on the value of future grants in comparison to the current values allocated.

The officer noted that consultation feedback from the sector was clearly showing the impact of inflation on the value of the grants received.  The sector was currently only able to deliver around 70 – 80% of the outcomes expected, as grants were not keeping pace with the costs associated with service delivery.  The team was currently taking this into account as part of developing the revised allocation process.

A Member questioned if this work could be completed in time to meet deadlines for the next budget setting process.  The Scrutiny & Elections Officer noted that this would likely mean that only 5 months-worth of monitoring data would be available of the 2023/24 financial year.  The officer agreed that a shorter monitoring period would be possible to ensure that revised allocations could be determined for the next budget setting period.

The Scrutiny & Elections Officer reiterated that the purpose of recommendation 7 was to consider the areas of service demand as part of the development of a new allocations process, alongside the monitoring data to determine revised SLAs and future grant allocations.

Moved by Councillor David Dixon and seconded by Councillor Anne Clarke

RESOLVED that (1) the progress  ...  view the full minutes text for item CLI5822/23

The Scrutiny & Elections Officer advised Members of a change to the planned issues to be addressed under this item.  Due to a recent major incident, the Fire & Rescue Service could no longer be in attendance and the update from the Deliberate Fires Group would be rearranged to a future date.

Overview of Bolsover CSP, achievements, and future priorities

The annual review began with an update on the Partnership Plan, recent achievements, and future priorities.  The Housing Enforcement Manager briefed Members on the current draft Partnership Plan and explained that there had been an unexpected delay in receiving data from DCC which was impacting completion of the new plan.

A Member queried how well the Partnership was currently working as they were aware of how hard it was to get key personnel to commit to attendance/action.  The officer noted that it was an ever-increasing issue, particular with the Probation Service who had been subject to repeated change at a national and local level.  The officer did feel however, that Bolsover was one of the better attended Partnerships.  It was also noted that the regular staff changes within the Police and Fire Services made it increasingly hard to maintain working relationships.  One option to ensure improved engagement from Probation could be online meetings.  While the Council currently used Zoom, other partners used Microsoft Teams due to security restrictions and it was hoped the move to Microsoft 365 would mean that online meetings could be used moving forward to ensure attendance/engagement.

Proposed Priorities for 2023-2026 included:

• Reducing and Managing ASB & Criminal Damage

• Reducing Domestic Abuse, Violent Crime and Sexual Offences
• Prevent & Protect Duty (Counter Terrorism)
• Reducing and Preventing Acquisitive Crime (Vehicle Crime)
• Reducing Alcohol and Substance Misuse
• Reducing Risk of Child Exploitation
• One Cross Cutting Theme: Building and Cohesive Communities.

The partnership was supported by a PCC Grant of £25,000 to help deliver small scale projects on youth diversion, crime prevention, safeguarding, and emerging risk and threat.

Public consultation had taken place on the draft plan and the top 5 issues identified were not a surprise to officers, but it did show that littering was no less of a priority as ASB:

·         Anti-Social Behaviour 62%

·         Drug Use 55%

·         Burglary Dwelling 48%

·         Littering 48%

·         Vehicle Related Crime 45%

A Member asked if these priority areas were reflected in current crime figures.  The officer noted that ASB rates had in fact reduced and this was shown in a report to be considered under exempt business.  It was potentially more the fear of ASB rather than actual crimes that was fuelling the public response.

Members noted that shoplifting was a huge issue within their localities and was surprised that this didn’t show up in the public response.  The officer noted that maybe this wasn’t something that residents feared and as such didn’t rank as a priority for action.

The Housing Enforcement Manager briefed Members on recent achievements including:

Diversionary activities

·         Extreme Wheels – this includes the outreach provision which originally commenced during lockdown

·         Football projects during  ...  view the full minutes text for item CLI5922/23

To move:-

“That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended), the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the stated Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act and it is not in the public interest for that to be revealed.” [The category of exempt information is stated after each item].

Moved by Councillor Nick Clarke and seconded by Councillor David Dixon

RESOLVED that the public be excluded from the meeting during the discussion of the

following items of business to avoid the disclosure to them of exempt information as

defined in Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended

by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006).

Paragraphs 1,2 and 7.

Members considered the remainder of the Partnership updates in exempt business due to the sensitivity of the information discussed.

Domestic Abuse Service

The Domestic Violence Officer/IDVA provided a presentation to Members in relation to the Domestic Abuse Service.  This covered:

• how the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) worked,
• an update on the range of partners the service worked with,
• the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,
• a comparison of recent statistics and the demand on the service.

Case Study example

Members were then presented with a case study example of how the different elements of the community safety team work together.  The case study gave an example of partnership working between the domestic abuse service and the ASB team, and how both parts of the service work closely with the local police teams.

Performance report

Finally, the Members were presented with the performance data report covering the last 12 months.  A Member queried whether Bolsover had a clear comparator Council by which to judge performance.  Officers confirmed that they regularly compared performance against other Derbyshire authorities to gauge the quality-of-service delivery.

Moved by Councillor David Dixon and seconded by Councillor Jen Wilson

RESOLVED that (1) the reports outlining currently delivery be noted.

(2) A representative from the Deliberate Fires Group be invited to attend a future meeting of the Committee post the May election to update Members as originally planned.

(Scrutiny & Elections Officer)