The Scrutiny Committee operates within a work plan which is agreed at the start of the Council year. The Work Plan is  reviewed at each meeting so that it can be adjusted to reflect the wishes of the Committee and take account of any changes to the latest Forward Plan (which outlines decisions to be taken by the City Executive Board or Council). The Committee is asked to review and note its work plan for the 2018/19 council year.

Separately from regular consideration of the Work Plan, the Scrutiny Committee conducts an annual Work Plan review, which will take place at this meeting and is based on a longlist compiled by  the Scrutiny Officer in response to suggestions by Members and Senior Officers. The Scrutiny Committee is recommended to:

Agree the indicative Scrutiny Committee Work Plan for 2018/19.

Agree to establish the first scrutiny review group to be scoped for agreement by the Committee on 3 July, and identify any further review groups for later establishment in 2018/19.

Agree the chair(s) of any review groups.

Agree the membership of the Finance, Housing and Companies Panels for 2018/19.

Delegate responsibility to each Standing Panel to form its own Work Plan at their first meeting, with reference to the longlist presented to the Scrutiny Committee.

Contact Officer: Stefan Robinson, Scrutiny Officer – srobinson@oxford.gov.uk 01865 252191

Work Plan

The Scrutiny Officer introduced the item. He reminded the Committee that the Work Plan was a ‘live’ document the contents of which was in their gift. A longlist of potential items for the Scrutiny Work Plan was presented to the Committee, based on suggestions gathered from councillors and senior council officers. Each of the suggestions had been scored against a set of criteria to support the Committee in prioritising items.   The Committee were invited to add and remove any items to the longlist, and agree this list as an indicative Work Plan for the year.

The Chair thanked the Scrutiny Officer for a thorough and well thought out report. The scoring mechanism had provided a robust approach for determining the order of the Work Plan and he saw no reason to depart from it. The Committee agreed to the longlist of items as the basis of its Work Plan for the year. The Scrutiny Officer would liaise with Councillor Howlett to in order to schedule the Prevent initiative for a subsequent committee meeting.

The Committee also agreed to delegate the formation of each Standing Panel’s work plan to the respective panels.

Review Groups

It was noted that the intensive nature  of review group work meant that it was not practical to run more than one at a time. Previous practice suggested that 3 to 4 reviews could be conducted in a year, the actual number depending on their complexity. The Scrutiny Officer had had  early conversations with officers to understand the Council’s capacity to manage some of the suggestions for Scrutiny Reviews. Specifically, officers had raised concerns about their current capacity to support review groups into rough sleeping and air quality, given their current workload. The new Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2018-2021 had recently been agreed, and officers were working to implement this Strategy.

Officers working on air quality initiatives had advised that their workload was such that they had no capacity to support a review. This could be reviewed when the Scrutiny Committee considers the Annual Air Quality Status report in September 2018. Officers had however welcomed councillor interest in establishing a tourism management review group.

Homelessness and Rough Sleeping

Cllr Simmons argued for a review group on homelessness/rough sleeping. While acknowledging that officers had resource and duplication concerns about the work already being done in this area, he was concerned that more attention needed to be paid to the need for a pathway for rough sleepers without a local connection. This could be a narrowly focused piece of work.

Cllr Bely-Summers supported the idea of a review group on rough sleeping, a need exemplified in her view by some of the distressing cases   she had witnessed the previous winter.  She drew particular attention to the ‘local connection’ criterion, which she saw as something which should be re-visited.

Cllr Simm suggested that it would be wise, first, to reflect on the efficacy of the new Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2018-2021.

Cllr Henwood said the City’s provision for homeless people and rough sleepers was second to none considering the finite resources available, but agreed that it would be desirable to review the local connection criterion.

Cllr Howlett was supportive of this as a subject for review with the proviso that the lessons learnt were in place by the following winter.

Cllr Donnelly agreed that this was an important subject and one which came up regularly ‘on the doorstep’ but suggested that consideration should be given to subjects in relation to which the Committee could have most impact. The root causes of homelessness and rough sleeping lay with national policies in relation to which the Committee’s influence was limited.

Cllr Arshad was also supportive of this as a theme, suggesting that the issue of no recourse to public funds was another element which should be looked at.

Cllr Simmons agreed that the City’s Homelessness Strategy was very good and served those with a local connection well, but still maintained that the pathway for those who were homeless and rough sleepers did need examination. While the root causes did indeed lie elsewhere, if some mitigation could be offered it should be looked at. The practice of providing services to rough sleepers without a local connection was more generous in some other parts of the country such as Derby.

Tourism management

Cllr Gant argued for a review group on tourism management. Tourism was vital to the prosperity and image of the City. The Council could be a more proactive player and spearheading tourism initiatives rather than hanging ‘onto the coat tails’ of others. Other Cities (such as Bath) were more successful in this regard with such initiatives as a tourist levy and a ‘visitor card’ (to encourage/facilitate visits to the many and various tourist destinations in and around the City).  Oxford had recently twinned with  two additional  cities but there was no increased officer capacity to capitalise on the potential benefits of that. A proper twinning strategy was needed. Thought had  been given to seeking UNESCO status for the City but that had faltered. This was something worthy of proper consideration.

Cllr Donnelly agreed that this was a good subject for review. It was something which had the potential to raise revenue on the back of the considerable  “historic cultural capital” of the City.

Cllr Simmons agreed that this was an important subject and worthy of examination.

Conclusion

It was agreed that the first three review groups of the new Council year should should be on: homelessness/rough sleeping; tourism management; and air quality. These groups to be chaired by Cllrs Bely-Summers; Gant and Henwood respectively. The reviews would be scoped by the Chairs of each of these groups, in conjunction with officers, and report back with further information to the next meeting at which the order in which the reviews would be taken can be decided.

Membership of Standing Panels.

Membership of the Standing Panels was agreed as follows:

Housing: Cllrs Henwood (Chair), Bely-Summers, Howlett, Arshad, Goff, Gotch, Wolff

Finance: Cllrs Fry (Chair), Munkonge, Henwood, Smith, Altaf-Khan, Simmons

Companies: Cllrs Fry (Chair), Henwood, Corais, Munkonge, Landell-Mills, , Simmons