Issue - meetings

That the ‘action tracking’ approach be approved for a six month trial by the Corporate Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee.

The Democratic Services Manager presented a report detailing progress on action points from previous meetings of the Committee.  This was a reporting mechanism which had proved effective with the Audit Committee.

Councillor Heesom referred to repeated requests for a copy of the survey report on the Flintshire Bridge and its impact on the proposed highways ‘red route’, which had not yet been shared.  The Chief Executive said that the findings of the report posed no financial risk to the Council and would be circulated to any Members expressing an interest.  No information had yet been made available on capital spend for the highways route and the adoption of the Flintshire Bridge as part of the trunk road network by Welsh Government (WG) would remove any future liability for the Council.  On the North Wales Growth Bid, the draft proposition document was to be discussed at a regional meeting the following day however, he stressed that the A494 was not included in that bid and predated it.

In welcoming the Action Tracking report, Councillor Jones suggested that future actions include completion timescales.  The Democratic Services Manager said that the format could be developed over time and that the approach would be extended to the other Overview & Scrutiny committees following the six month pilot, as agreed by Group Leaders.

As an update from discussion at the previous meeting, the Chief Executive explained the formal position being taken by the Council comprising two key actions, which had received support at the recent Member workshop.  Firstly, the Council had contributed to a collective case being made by the Welsh Local Government Association on behalf of all Welsh councils to WG for an uplift in Revenue Support Grant (RSG).  In addition, the Chief Executive and Leader would be writing to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance to reiterate the Council’s specific expectations for a minimum 3% uplift in the RSG or a 4% uplift if the cost of additional teachers’ pay was not funded separately.

As Members had received a copy of written representations about the timeliness of grants, Councillor Jones suggested that the Committee make its own case to WG to highlight the cost of out of county placements as a national issue.  Councillor Shotton spoke in support of the Committee making a separate response to compliment the formal response by Cabinet.  The Chief Executive referred to forthcoming budget discussions and suggested that the Committee may wish to consider making representations at a later stage in the process once Members were satisfied that all options had been exhausted to balance the budget without risk.  This approach was supported by the Committee.

RESOLVED:

That the ‘action tracking’ approach be approved for a six month trial by the Corporate Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee.