Cllr Bob Price, Board Member for Corporate Strategy and Economic Development, and the Policy and Partnerships Team Leader updated the Committee on the implementation of the recommendations of the Inequality Panel.

The evaluation demonstrates what a lot of work goes into combating poverty and inequality in the city. Cllr Price said it was a core value of the Council which is reflected in the holistic approach taken across all services.

The Council does a lot of work with the voluntary sector/ partnerships and influences other organisations’ policies and plans ie the clinical commissioners group (CCG) to tackle inequalities in health.

The Committee was reassured that their planning related recommendations would be included in the local plan review.

The Committee discussed the following:

Rec 2:  The appointment of the Assistant Chief Executive has improved partnership working.

Rec 5h: There is on-going support to allow council tenants to downsize and relocate easily however quite often older people don’t want to move.

Rec 6b: No figures are available on the uptake of keyworker housing interventions however the scheme has been extended and is promoted in schools and during the recruitment process. A conference is being run (by the universities) to retain and recruitment teachers in Oxford. The Policy and Partnerships Team Leader to ask officers whether this scheme includes teachers at free schools as well.

Rec 7: there is no work being done on whether the HMO scheme is affecting good landlords.

Rec 10 (a+b) – Can we have an update report on the work being done to offer council premises to promote health outcomes.

Rec 11 – The existing Barton medical centre will provide for the new Barton Park development.

Free NHS checks are offered to everyone aged 45-75 could the Council do more to promote this?

Rec 14a: The Committee felt there was scope for more Scrutiny work or a review of the Asylum Welcome scheme. Cllr Price said that an assessment of the number of Syrian refugees in the city would be useful as lots have arrived outside of the scheme.

Rec 19: It was suggested that the Council could decline to offer stands at job fairs to firms that don’t offer the living wage. Cllr Price agreed with the proposal.

The Committee discussed the best way to review this report in the future. It was agreed that given the wide-ranging nature of the review, that a review group could be commissioned to monitor the implementations of the recommendations.

The Committee agree that Cllr Coulter (as chair of the initial Inequalities Panel) be asked to be champion this work and to feed back to the committee intermittently.