Scrutiny Committee met on 5 December 2022 and Finance & Performance Panel will meet on 7 December.  The following reports are expected and will be published as a supplement, together with any other recommendations from those meetings:

·     Thriving Communities Strategy 2023-27

·     Grant Allocations to Community and Voluntary Organisations 2023/24

·     Authority Monitoring Report and Infrastructure Funding Statement 2021/22

·     Workplace Equalities and Action Plan

Councillor Smowton, Chair of Scrutiny, presented the recommendations of scrutiny relating to items on the agenda.

Finance and Performance Panel had met on 7 December and had considered the Integrated Performance Report for Quarter 2.  No formal recommendations had been made, although the Panel had drawn attention to slippage on fire doors.    

Scrutiny Committee had met on 5 December 2022 and had considered: (i) Thriving Communities Strategy 2023-27; (ii) Grant Allocations to Community and Voluntary Organisations 2023/24; (iii) Authority Monitoring Report and Infrastructure Funding Statement 2021/22 and (iv) Workplace Equalities and Action Plan.

One recommendation had been made in relation to Grant Allocations to Community and Voluntary Organisations.  This related to providing a brief summary of the nature and purpose of organisations in receipt of Community Impact Fund Grants.  The recommendation had been accepted, and the information would be published on the Council’s website.

One recommendation had been made in relation to the Authority Monitoring Report and Infrastructure Funding Statement.  This related to including the amount of housing delivered as a result of site allocation policies in future Annual Monitoring reports, and had also been accepted.

Four recommendations had been made in relation to Workplace Equalities and Action Plan.  These had related to setting out a target for the disability pay gap; recording gender identity, including whether an individual identified as trans or non-binary; reporting on work surrounding trans and non-binary policies; and reporting on the LGBT pay gap.  The recommendations had been largely accepted, although Councillor Nigel Chapman, Cabinet Member for Citizen Focused Services, highlighted the need to safeguard anonymity and to exercise caution around drawing conclusions based on very small sample sizes of staff with protected characteristics.

Two recommendations had been made in relation to the Thriving Communities Strategy.  These had related to clarifying within future versions of the strategy where changes had been made to principles or ways of working, and providing greater clarity on which partners were involved in particular projects and what the nature and level of that collaboration was.  Both recommendations were largely accepted.  Councillor Shaista Aziz, Cabinet Member for Inclusive Communities and Culture responded that the strategy would be presented to Council for adoption as part of the policy framework, and as part of that process would be amended to show the changes which were intended to be made.