Scrutiny meeting this evening

Several meetings this week like a Green party District councillors meeting where we look at priorities and plan next month - several important issues came up but rather than type away here I'll write about them as they come up - of course you could always join the Green party and get our minutes sent to you?

Cartoon: new councillors enthusiasm?

This evening was my first scrutiny meeting - again rather than go into too much details I'll let you either read the minutes on the Council website or watch the webcast - it started just after 6 and I wasn't home until 10.00pm - several new councillors joined the committee so there was a bit of time spent clarifying the role and more - the huge piles of papers clearly can be a bit intimidating(see cartoon)!

To give a flavour - one item was the 'Annual Audit Letter and Use of Resources' - a presentation was given to the committee although I'd already heard it at Cabinet - however this is a time to ask more questions - I asked about how they assessed regeneration was good in the District - interesting and need to do more work as clearly their ideas are not always the same - Dursley supermarket is a good example - this was recently approved and supported by all the other parties - and auditors appear to view it as great - yet I have some serious questions about that - supermarkets also have a significant negative impact on the environment and local economy - where is the analysis???? Basically it doesn't seem to be there...that in my book is not acceptable - need some more Greens on the Council!!

In terms of 'Regeneration' - Sarah Lunnon, the other Green councillor on this committee and Vice-Chair spoke about how Cornwall view their Regeneration department as the best opportunity to tackle climate change - she got a very welcome response from Officers and the Cabinet member who said they would look at how they might learn from Cornwall. Both Sarah and I have been allocated Regeneration (and the Planning Department) to scrutinise the senior officers re their work. Hopefully it will be a good way of taking that forward.

While talking about climate change I also raised an issue re wording - see my follow up memo below - often documents like this can be crucial so it is important to get the wording right - we'll see. Hey has anyone managed to keep awake this far?? And I haven't even got to the Best Value Performance Plan, the Forward Plan, Statement of Internal Control and more...

...infact before I go to bed I will mention the Smart Rent Private Sector Leasing Scheme - a good way to encourage empty homes back into use - an issue the Green party raised in the press a week or so ago - private landlords are encouraged to rent through the Council with a whole range of incentives - there are apparently 600 to 700 empty homes in the District so getting them back into use would be a v important action to reduce our homelessness figures - sadly this scheme is v small and hopes are that 10 homes a year will be bought back into use - wholly inadequate but a start...this is again an issue on which the Government has sadly and badly let us down.

Re: Corporate Delivery Plan 2007-11

At Scrutiny I welcomed the Cabinet's amendment/clarification to include in the Environment section of 'Priorities and Focus' the replacement of the second bullet point with "Helping the community to reduce CO2 emissions and to mitigate the affects of climate change." (p22 Cabinet papers 31st May).

I am wondering if that amendment/clarification could be extended and used as the wording for the 'Area of Focus' (CO5) (p9 Cabinet papers 31st May). The current line suggests that we will help the community to tackle the consequences of climate change rather than reduce CO2 emissions. While also important the main focus should be on CO2 reduction - I suspect that is what intended as the 'Measure and Performance' section looks at CO2 emissions.

You may well have already made this clarification - I would welcome comments - thanks - all the best - Philip

More about Scrutiny Committee is available on 7th June 2007 blog.