The Head of Law and Governance has submitted a report which seeks the Committee’s agreement to the adoption of a set of scrutiny operating principles for the 2022/23 Council year, the establishment of standing panels, the appointment of standing panel chairs and a proposed work plan to September 2022. The recommendations are set out in the report.

The Chair introduced the report which sought to establish the scrutiny arrangements for the year which would be similar to previous years.

The Scrutiny Officer advised that the proposed change to the way that the Companies Scrutiny Panel would operate would create capacity to support an additional standing panel or review group. The July meeting of the Housing and Homelessness Panel was recommended to rescheduled for September due to a lack of business in July and to enable scrutiny of the Draft Housing and Homelessness Strategy. Members were encouraged to contribute suggestions to inform the emerging Scrutiny work plan for the year.

It was suggested that the Committee considers proposals for establishing a Climate and Environment standing panel at a future meeting.

The Committee resolved to:

1.    Agree the proposed Committee Operating Principles for the 2022/23 municipal year, as set out in Appendix A

2.    Agree to establish the following standing panels for the 2022/23 municipal year with the following remits and timeframes:

                 i.       Finance and Performance Panel – finance and budgetary issues and decisions, annual review of the Council’s budget, quarterly monitoring of finance and performance (including performance of the Council’s companies);

               ii.       Housing and Homelessness Panel – strategic housing and landlord issues and decisions, homelessness, housing services performance and interaction with the Tenant’s Forum;

              iii.       Companies Scrutiny Panel - executive decisions made in relation to any companies wholly or partly owned by the Council.

              iv.       To consider proposals for the establishment of a Climate and Environment standing panel at a subsequent meeting.

3.    Agree the schedule of meetings as presented within the report and to reschedule the July meeting of the Housing and Homelessness Panel for September.

4.    Agree the size and allocation of seats on standing panels to political groups for 2022/23 as set out in the report (Finance and Performance Panel: 4 members, Companies Scrutiny Panel: 4 member, Housing and Homelessness Panel: 6 members).

5.    Agree to appoint members and chairs of the Finance and Performance, Housing and Homelessness, and Companies Scrutiny Panels in accordance with nominations made by political groups:

                 i.       Housing and Homelessness Panel: Cllrs Dunne (chair), Diggins, Fouweather, Nala-Hartley, Rawle, Sandelson.

               ii.       Finance and Performance Panel: Cllrs Fry (chair), Jarvis, Landell Mills, Latif

              iii.       Companies Scrutiny Panel: Cllrs Rowley (chair), Fry, Landell Mills, Morris.

6.    Agree:

i) The preliminary Work Plan covering the period to September 2022 as detailed in Appendix B; and

ii) That Committee members will send ideas for topics for Scrutiny-commissioned reports to the Scrutiny Officer by e-mail for consideration at the Committee’s 05 July meeting.