Contact Officer: Pat Jones, Principal Scrutiny Officer, Tel: 01865 252191

Email: phjones@oxford.gov.uk

The Principal Scrutiny Officer introduced the Work Programme and Forward Plan to the Committee and highlighted the following:

·         A verbal update will be made by Tim Sadler on the post-flood operational review;

·         Councillor Darke will update the Committee on the work of the Flooding Panel;

·         Two members of the public have asked to address the Committee on issues of flooding and sewage in Marston and Northway;

·         The Scrutiny Finance Panel has completed its review of the Budget and Medium Term Financial Strategy and the Review report, which will go to the City Executive Board on the 12^th. February is attached for information;

·         The Covered Market Review Report is on this agenda and to allow members to see the complete picture officers have also attached the Officer recommendations to the City Executive Board on the same subject.

Councillor Simmons (Chair of the Scrutiny Finance Panel) gave a short presentation of the Budget Review Report:-

·         The majority of recommendations have been accepted by the Board Member which is good;

·         Of those that have not been accepted there may have been some misinterpretation of what was been recommended.  Councillor Simmons will try to clarify some of these issues in his presentation of the report at the City Executive Board.

The Scrutiny Finance Panel has also made recommendations on the proposed Treasury Management Strategy for 2014/15; these will also be considered by the City Executive Board on the 12^th. February.  Councillor Simmons emphasised the importance of this document because 9of our increasing investment levels and healthy balances.  The Council is generally doing well and Councillor Simmons said that officers were generally moving in the direction the Scrutiny Panel wished to see.  

The Committee moved on to discuss flooding issues and agreed to take the addresses from the members of the public on this first.

Betty Fletcher spoke and raised the following issues:-

·         Concern is for flooding in Northway and Court Place Farm “we have lost the sponge and this is making flooding worse”;

·         Seeing increasing levels of road flooding which is getting worse;

·         There is a lack of involvement of tenants and residents in the area and so the issues are not always understood, supported or delivered to best effect;

·         Would like some form of Area Committee back in this area.

Elaine Bennett spoke on issues and concerns around flooding.

Councillor Darke (Leader Member of the Flooding Panel) updated the Committee on progress so far.

·         Surface and sewage flooding is an issue in the City and the Panel has been set up to provide some impetus for this.  The focus of the work will be on sewage flooding and improvements to the sewage infrastructure managed by Thames Water;

·         £1.6m has been provided in the Capital programme as a large contribution towards a scheme to deal with flooding in the area the 2 speakers were talking about.  We now need to get the County Council and Thames Water in on this.  The speakers asked if matched funding was needed from the other agencies and Councillor Darks clarified that a contribution was sort rather than matched funding.  The other issues are because of a culvert that is not fit for purpose.  Saxon way culvert has been cleared recently but the proposed scheme will help problems here.  Whilst accepting that building in the flood plain causes problem the City Council has not approved development of this type in recent years.  Ms Bennett pressed the Committee to ensure that the issue of flood-plain development was taken seriously;

·         The Panel is focusing on Thames Water to get them to take their responsibilities and duties seriously.  The Panel is developing with officers a priority investment list and the intention is to match this with Thames Water proposals for the infrastructure to see where there is match and mismatch.  The Panel will be pressing hard the City’s case and inviting the Local M.P.s to be part of the debate;

·         A letter has been sent from the Oxford Flood alliance to the prime Minister to ask for his support in providing a flood defence for Oxford.   

Tim Sadler updated the Committee on the operational review that is underway.  Before doing this, Mr Sadler said that the Pitt Review had recommended that water run-off from developments had to be contained within those developments.  This had been confirmed in regulations and County Councils are responsible for delivering on this.

On the operation review so far we have bought 2 additional 6inch pumps to support our work.  We are now working with partners to look at other issues and the City’s priorities for these discussions are:

·         Road Closures, how they are decided upon and enforced etc;

·         How the Bronze, Silver and Gold commands operate in the County and at what point do things get serious enough for Oxford to have its own command centre;

·         Evacuation/relocation co-ordination;

·         Thames Water issues – how we get a response and some longer term issues. 

Councillor Simmons asked if we could take up the issues raised by the public speakers in our Panel.  After discussion it was agreed that the Panel should maintain its focus.

Councillor Coulter expressed his thanks to public sector workers for their response during the flooding; it is at times like this we see the value of public sector workers. Flooding affect the vulnerable more because they have less resilience to cope with it.

The effects of the impact on businesses in the City are about £30m with BMW having to close the line because of difficulties in obtaining parts.  We need to address these issues urgently and prove a more secure situation for people and businesses. 

The current scoring system for investment in flood prevention does not give sufficient weight to Economic Impact.  

Councillor Upton asked if the Committee could consider in their work programme what the City Council can do for children in care.  Councillor sanders expressed concern about this because of the complexity of the issues and the responsibility of the County Council.  It was agreed to add this to the considerations for the next programme.

From the Forward Plan Councillor Simmons asked to see for pre-scrutiny the consultation results from the Community Engagement Strategy and the final recommendation to the City Executive Board.  This was agreed by the Committee.