Agenda and minutes

To be notified of the appointment of any Substitute Members.

There were no Substitute Members.

You are invited to declare any registerable and/or non-registerable interests in matters appearing on the agenda, and the nature of that interest.

You are also requested to complete the Declarations of Interests card available at the meeting and return it to the Democratic Services Officer before leaving the meeting.

You are also invited to disclose any dispensation from the requirement to declare any registerable and/or non-registerable interests that have been granted to you in respect of any matters appearing on the agenda.

Councillor Pat Oliver declared a non-registerable personal interest in Item 5 Efficiency. She has a family member with a learning disability.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 4 October 2021.

Councillor J Wallace sought confirmation in relation to minute OV23/21, 2022-2026 Financial Planning and Budget Process incorporating the Associated Engagement Strategy.

At the 4 October 2021 meeting, Councillor J Wallace questioned the wording under the Our North Tyneside theme: A Green North Tyneside, which stated “We will secure funding to help households to install low-carbon heating”.

It was stated that at the 23 September Council meeting the wording at minute C38/21 “We will secure funding to help low-income households to install low-carbon heating” had been approved.

In response officers informed the Overview, Scrutiny & Policy Development Committee on the 4 October 2021 the reason for the anomaly was due to the timing of agenda publication and that the definitive wording was the minute C38/21 approved at Council on 23 September 2021.

Resolved that the minute of the meeting held on 4 October 2021 be agreed.

To receive an update on projects and business cases within the Efficiency Savings Programme.

The Committee received an update report on the current year progress of the key 2021/2022 projects and business cases within the Efficiency Savings Programme.

The overall saving requirement for 2021/22 that had been agreed by Council in February 2021 was £4.537m. This consisted of £1.792m for the impact of prior years and £3.066m of business cases within Health, Education, Care and Safeguarding and Asset Management, that were achieved by management actions that required permanent delivery in 2021/2022.

It was noted that the delivery of some of the saving proposals in 2021/2022 had been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially Health, Education, Care and Safeguarding and Asset Management and that all savings were forecasted to be fully achieved.

The report detailed that the projected savings had been fully achieved and showed that:

·        £2.080m had been delivered against project activities associated to business cases.

·        £0.830m had been achieved directly from management actions

·        £1.627m had yet to be achieved.

Members were given the opportunity to raise questions in relation to projects within the report.

In relation to Learning Disability,  Leading Sector-Led Improvement and  Adult Social Care Review of Management

- A member asked for timescales to when the business case would be delivered and for this to be reflected in future reports.

Social Care Customer Experience – Assistive Technology – A member requested further information to the benefit gained for the user using new technology and asked that this be reflected in future reports.

Youth Offending and Early Help – It was questioned what temporary/permanent measures were being explored and it was indicated 2019/20 savings were achieved through holding of vacancies. It was questioned the necessity for holding vacancies and the need to do so, if there was no adverse impact to service delivery.

Keeping our Children in Care within the borough – further information was requested to provide greater understanding to the activity that had been undertaken in relation to this business case.

A further request was made to provide an update on the effect of Signs of Safety practice.

Director of Resources stated that future reports would provide greater information with associated timescales for those business cases with ratings of Red/Amber.

The Committee requested that officers with a full understanding to the business cases rated Red be in attendance to respond to questions in future meetings.

Agreed to (1) note the Efficiency Savings Programme Progress Report and (2) that future reports providing greater detail for each business case with associated timescales for those with Red/Amber rating and those areas of interest requested; and (3) where a business case hold a Red rating ensure officers are in attendance at meetings.

To receive an update on the performance of the Technical Services Partnership.

The Chair informed the Committee that items in relation to the Technical Partnership would not be received due to the Technical Partner unavailability due to illness.

Agreed that the Technical Services Partnership - Quarter 1 Performance Monitoring Update be received at the next meeting scheduled for 17 January 2022.