46 Minutes of the Meeting of the SCRUTINY COMMITTEE held on 21 November 2007 __________________ PRESENTCouncillor Graham Dudley (Chairman); Clive Smitheram and Colin Taylor Councillors David Morgan, Ruby Smith, In attendance: Councillor Jean Smith; Bruce Winton (Head of Venues) and John Turnbull (Director of Finance) Officers present: Fiona Cotter and Maggie Jones __________________ 20 MINUTES. The Minutes of the Meeting of the Scrutiny Committee held on 10 July 2007 were agreed as a true record and signed by the Chairman. Following signature of the Minutes, the Chairman suspended the meeting to allow a member of the public, Mr Barrie Taylor, to address the Committee on the topic of council communication with the public and sparse coverage of events in the local press, in particular publicity of the ability of the public to speak at certain committee meetings. Whilst the Chairman acknowledged that there may be opportunities to give greater publicity to the facility to speak at meetings of this and the four policy committees, he understood that the council was proactive in trying to secure greater press coverage. 21 CONSIDERATION OF ANY MATTERS CALLED IN BY MEMBERS OF THE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE ARISING FROM DECISIONS OF THE POLICY COMMITTEES. With the agreement of the Committee, consideration of this matter was deferred until all other business had been dealt with. 22 INTERNAL AUDIT – MONITORING REPORT. The Committee received a report which summarised progress against the audit plan for 2007/08. The Committee noted that there were insufficient reports finalised by the date of the previous meeting of the Committee in July to justify a separate report and all reports issued had substantial assurance. This report therefore comprised the first monitoring report for 2007/08. The Committee noted that of the reports issued to date, six had been issued with substantial assurance, three with satisfactory and none with limited assurance. However, internal audit had made three significant recommendations which might impact on their annual opinion. Two of these were in relation to their review of parking and the other in relation to their review of debtors. The Committee was assured that clear action plans allocating responsibility for addressing these issues within agreed timescales had been put in place to address the internal control issues identified. Epsom and Ewell Borough Council Meeting of the Scrutiny Committee, 21 November 2007 23 47 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 2007/08: QUARTER 1: The Committee received its first report in line with the new procedure agreed at its previous meeting regarding monitoring progress against the policy committee’s Key Service Priorities. The Committee was informed that at the end of Quarter 1 there was only one policy committee Key Service Priority with red traffic light status. This related to a Key Service Priority of the Strategy and Resources Committee carried over from 2006/07, namely: “To develop an Energy Management Plan across all Council owned buildings by the end of October 2006”. The Committee noted that responsibility for this Key Service Priority had originally been allocated to the Corporate Property Officer. This post had been vacant for over a year despite two recruitment processes and this reflected the current employment market for estate surveyors. The Committee was pleased to note that a better solution had presented itself in respect of this particular area of work with the opportunity to appoint a Sustainable Energy Manager and the Committee was satisfied that progress against this Key Service Priority would now be made. As a result of recruitment difficulties, the Council still had a skills and capacity difficulty in the area of corporate estates management and the Council was buying in professional services in the short term. Accordingly, the Committee considered that no further action needed to be taken and that there was no need to receive an update in six months time unless this target remained at red. 24 OUTSTANDING REFERENCES. The Committee noted references to officers outstanding at the date of the meeting. 25 CALL-IN OF THE DECISION OF THE LEISURE COMMITTEE MADE ON 29 OCTOBER 2007 IN RELATION TO RECOMMENDATION 2, ITEM 05. The Chairman opened consideration of the matter by explaining how he proposed to deal with the item. He briefly outlined the purpose of, and procedure for, call-in and then went on to outline the procedures he intended to follow in conducting this part of the meeting. The reason given for the call-in was that there was evidence to suggest that the first principle of decision making set out in Article 12 of the Council’s Constitution had not been met, namely ‘clarity of aims and desired outcomes’. More specifically, that: In stating in paragraph 3 of the officer’s Report that the Best Value Review of Venues in 2003 set out assumptions on income, expenditure and investment for e.g. Bourne Hall the officer’s report did not restate those assumptions even in summary form. Scrutiny Committee therefore questioned the degree to which members of the Leisure Committee were able to determine whether the proposed changes accorded with the previously agreed assumptions. The Financial and Manpower section of the Report dealt almost entirely with expenditure and did not fully address the expected effect on income other than the possible effect of one of the options on income from the Rose Room. There was no evidence in the report that members had been taken to Bourne Hall and shown the proposed changes in situ. Instead it appeared that members were invited to determine the best layout based solely on a series of slides. Members of the Scrutiny Committee questioned whether this provided sufficient clarity of the proposed layout. Epsom & Ewell Borough Council 48 Meeting of the Scrutiny Committee, 21 November 2007 The following papers had been submitted to assist members in their consideration of the matter: Report to the Leisure Committee dated 29 October 2007 (“Venues 4 Year Draft Strategy”) and associated annexes (Annexe 1: a copy of four colour slides from the presentation showing the possible layouts at Bourne Hall; Annexe 2: Summary of Feedback from Bourne Hall Users and Annexe 3: Summary of costs associated with options) A copy of the full presentation made to the Leisure Committee. Councillor Jean Smith was afforded the opportunity to outline her reasons for requesting that the decision be called-in. She questioned the validity of many statements made in the report, the interpretation of the consultation responses, considered that the report did not put enough emphasis on the option for retaining the status quo and that a site visit should have been undertaken. The Chairman of the Leisure Committee, Councillor Alan Winkworth, the Head of Venues, Bruce Winton, and the Director of Finance, John Turnbull were present at the meeting to assist the Committee in deciding whether or not there was sufficient evidence to refer the matter back to the Leisure Committee or to Council. In response to questions, the following points were made: Councillor Winkworth was of the opinion that most members knew the site very well. Four newly elected members had availed themselves of an invitation to visit the venue with Mr. Winton. Only one member of the Committee could not visualise the existing layout of the venue at the meeting but was satisfied with the explanation as illustrated in the presentation provided. Mr. Winton stated that the calling letter for the meeting clearly invited members to seek clarification on any items to be discussed at the meeting prior to the meeting and that no requests for further information or a site visit (in addition to the site visit referred to above) were received. Site visits were not normal procedure in relation to items to be considered by Leisure Committee. No site visits, for example, had been undertaken prior to decisions made in January 2005 on the future of the venue or January 2007 when the funding for the works currently under discussion was approved. With respect to a cost benefit/analysis for the venue as a whole, Mr. Winton stated that the proposals in the current report were consistent with the sum of £200,000 included within the 2007/08 capital programme for improvements to the venue. The capital bid, agreed by the Leisure Committee in January 2007 and eventually incorporated into the capital programme, was intended to protect current income streams. Paragraph 4.2 of the current report made reference to this bid and restated the reasons for it. Mr. Turnbull concurred that the report to the Leisure Committee in January 2007 clearly stated that the £200,000 capital bid was to protect existing income streams so he had not been expecting to see any projections of increased income from the proposals in the current report. Mr. Turnbull referred the Committee to paragraph 4.2.4 of the current report, also echoed in the appraisal in the January Committee report, which made it clear that the proposed works were “to safeguard current revenue streams”. Potential increases in future income streams were not considered relevant at this stage Epsom & Ewell Borough Council Meeting of the Scrutiny Committee, 21 November 2007 49 although the Head of Venues had made it clear that this expenditure was seen as a basis for investment in the future. Mr. Winton stated that he had explained to members at the Leisure Committee meeting in October that the whole point of the proposed works at the venue were to create a neutral setting to set the basic framework for the layout of the building in order not prejudice future bids. Mr. Winton further stated that references in the Best Value Review of Venues were to the backlog maintenance programme and should not be confused with the sum of money currently under discussion. The Best Value Review was referred to in the background to the current report which also contained a genealogy for the Committee but these were not listed as background papers. The Committee withdrew from Committee Room 1 to consider its findings at 8.50 p.m. and returned to announce its decision at 9.26 p.m. The Scrutiny Committee's decision was unanimous. The Committee wished to make it clear that its findings did not imply any criticism of the Chairman of the Leisure Committee, Leisure Committee members or Officers. The Committee’s decision was as follows:(1) The Committee agreed that it would have been helpful if more background information had been included in the report to the Leisure Committee dated 29 October 2007. (2) The Committee believed that a site visit would have been helpful and accordingly recommended that the Leisure Committee consider undertaking site visits in future when considering changes to the layout of venues within its remit. (3) The Committee considered that there was some lack of clarity regarding the aims/objectives of the report and hence the Committee had been right to call-in the decision. However, following further scrutiny, the Committee concluded that overall, the decision had been made in accordance with the principles of decision-making set out in Article 12 of the Constitution and therefore the decision could take effect. The Committee wished to thank Councillors Winkworth and Smith and Officers for attending the meeting. The meeting ended at 9.30 p.m. GRAHAM DUDLEY Chairman Epsom & Ewell Borough Council