Agenda and minutes

1.         This meeting is to be webcast. Members are reminded of the need to activate their microphones before speaking.

2.         The Chairman will read the following announcement:

“This meeting will be webcast live to the Internet and will be archived for later viewing. Copies of recordings may be made available on request.

By entering the chamber’s lower seating area you consenting to becoming part of the webcast.

If you wish to avoid being filmed you should move to the public gallery or speak to the webcasting officer”

The Chairman reminded everyone present that the meeting would be broadcast live to the Internet, and that the Council had adopted a protocol for the webcasting of its meetings.

It was noted that Councillor T Thomas was substituting for Councillor K Angold-Stephens.

Decisions required:

To confirm the minutes of the meetings of the Committee held on 14 October 2014.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 14 October 2014 be signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

There were no declarations of interest made pursuant to the Member’s Code of Conduct.

Following on from last years successful talk on Children Services and this committee’s desire to have an update in a years time, officers have arranged a follow up presentation.

To this end we have a representative from the County, Chris Martin, the Integrated Commissioning Director (West), at Essex County Council coming to speak to the Committee. He will be talking about Children Services in the County and their current commissioning intentions for young children based upon an Early Years review they have completed.

For information, an extract from the minutes from the O&S meeting held on 4 June 2013 is attached containing the section of the Children Services presentation given, and subsequent questions asked.

The Chairman welcomed Chris Martin, the Integrated Commissioning Director (West) from Essex County Council. He was there as part of a follow up to last years successful presentation on Children Services, given by Jenny Boyd. Mr Martin noted that if the Committee were so minded he could come back again to update them on the other, wider aspects of Children Services he did not have time to cover at this meeting.

Mr Martin noted that it was important to support children and their families from birth right through to the early years of their life (2 to 5 years), to give them the best possible opportunity to succeed. They wanted to be challenging and have all the people working across the early years system to have a single vision of what needed to be changed, this would require big shifts in culture and practice. They would also look at how families and communities may be contributing through peer support and mentoring, thinking about the kind of support families need and not just how it was delivered. (A copy of Mr Martin’s slides are attached).

They would be working towards building capacity and capability of parents to support themselves and to support one another; with professional workers starting from peoples strengths and finding ways to build on them to preventing problems occurring. This would involve thinking differently about the workforce, letting them do what needed to be done and make use of their diverse experience. If they get this right they would achieve better outcomes for children while at the same time saving money.

They have less money to spend than before and so would need to be more effective with what they do have. They spent too much time ‘firefighting’ and not enough on prevention or early intervention. They should make use of citizens and communities; they would have the insights, capabilities and energies which were as yet untapped; there was a collaborative potential to be unlocked.

The outcome for children in Essex had improved but, they needed to do better as there were still some children doing poorly. More needed to be done and improvement continued as resources diminished. There was a need for joined up strategies at the foundation of their work with their partners; a strategic review of the early year’s workforce; investment in building community resilience and to address child poverty.

They were undertaking an ambitious, strategic, broad reaching review of early years in collaboration with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to identify innovation across the system, especially with families, removal of duplication of resources and roles, developing a common understanding and model of child development and skilling up the workforce to deliver new approaches.

They would innovate to generate new ideas and select the most promising ones, then test and develop them. They will be open to learning, and would honestly reflect on what they learnt, being open to failure; sharing and applying what they learn to improve the system.

They would also engage in ethnographic  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

(Director of Neighbourhoods) to consider the attached report.

The Forward Planning Manager, Ian White, introduced the report on the Communities and Local Government Consultation on ‘Planning and Travellers’, seeking views on proposed changes to planning policy and guidance for the travelling community. The consultation would end on 23 November 2014. The stated intentions of the proposed changes were to (i) ensure that the planning system applies fairly and equally to both the settled and traveller communities; (ii) further strengthen protection of “sensitive areas” and Green Belt; and (iii) address the negative impact of unauthorised occupation. The consultation also stated that the Government remained committed to increasing the level of authorised traveller site provision in appropriate locations to address historic undersupply as well as to meet current and future needs.

The consultation also included streamlined draft planning guidance aiming to support councils in robustly assessing their traveller site needs. Members were aware that the Essex Gypsy and Traveller and Travelling Showpeople Accommodation Assessment (GTAA) was published in July 2014 and was included in the Local Plan Evidence Base at Cabinet on 8^th September 2014.

The key suggestions in the consultation were:

·         Travellers who have given up travelling permanently should be treated in the same way as the settled community, especially regarding sites in sensitive locations, such as the Green Belt – i.e. redefining “Gypsy” and “Traveller” to exclude those who no longer travel;

·         Strengthening Green Belt protection by amending the current policy (paras 87 and 88 of the NPPF) so that unmet need and personal circumstances were unlikely to outweigh harm to the Green Belt and any other harm. Ministerial statements earlier in the year had already emphasised that “unmet need, whether for traveller sites or for conventional housing, is unlikely to outweigh harm to the Green Belt and other harm to constitute the “very special circumstances” justifying inappropriate development in the Green Belt;

·         Strengthening the current onus on authorities to “strictly limit new traveller development in open countryside” (para 23 of PPTS) to “very strictly” limit such developments;

·         Downgrading the weight attributed to a lack of an up-to-date five-year supply of deliverable traveller sites – para 25 of PPTS states that this should be a “significant material consideration” when considering applications for temporary permission. The consultation proposes that this would remain a “material consideration”, but its weight would be a matter for the decision taker;

·         Addressing unauthorised occupation of land – the Government is concerned about those who intentionally ignore planning rules and occupy land without planning permission. Such actions, particularly in sensitive areas including the Green Belt, (where those who would apply through the proper channels would be unlikely to gain permission), are highly contentious at the local level and can fuel tensions between the site occupants and the adjacent community. The consultation proposes that national planning policy and PPTS should be amended to make it clear that intentional unauthorised occupation, whether by travellers or members of the settled community, should be regarded by decision takers as a material consideration that weighs against the grant of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

To consider the attached report on the six monthly work programme.

Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Mr Tautz, the Democratic Services Manager took the Committee through their current Work Programme reviewing the 6 months of work carried out so far, noting that we have had item 2 today, the presentation on Children Services and that item 5 should read January 2015 and not 2014 and also noted that the quarter 2 report on the key objectives will now go to the next meeting.

Councillor Girling noted that the JCC had recently received a presentation form the apprentices who had just completed their first year at the Council and suggested that it would be a good idea if they got to do their presentation to a wider audience and could they perhaps come to a future meeting of this Committee. The Chairman asked that a PICK form be submitted so that the Committee could consider this request formally.

Housing Scrutiny Panel

The Committee noted their current position on their work programme.

Constitution and Member Services Scrutiny Panel

The Committee noted that this Panel had not met since the last meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Their next meeting will be held on 27 November, when they would be looking at the Joint Consultative Committee and the Council procedure rules.

Safer Cleaner Greener Scrutiny Panel

Councillor Lea noted that she had nothing further to add. It was noted that no officers from NEPP had yet been to one of this Panel’s meeting and that Nick Alston the PCC would be going to a Local Council’s Liaison Committee meeting.

Councillor Wixley noted that the Panel had not received any minutes from the SLM contract monitoring board for some time. He noted that there had been problems at the Loughton Leisure Centre which needed to be got to grips with. Mr Macnab noted that there was a constant push for improvement. He would also look at the availability of notes for the next meeting.

Councillor Chana noted that the Local Highways Panel was not a District but a County Panel. Councillor Church noted that this was in effect a liaison committee with the ECC. Councillor Surtees noted that concerns had been raised about public access to this Panel, could it be improved and made more open. Members on this Panel noted that they were always happy to feed through other councillor’s comments to the Panel meetings.

Councillor Janet Whitehouse asked if the notes of the North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP) should go to this Panel or should they go in the Council Bulletin for all members to see.

Planning Services Scrutiny Panel

Councillor Chambers noted that at the last meeting Councillor Angold-Stephens had a question on Building Control; a report on this should be going to their April meeting.

Finance and Performance Management Scrutiny Panel

Councillor Church had noted that they had not met since the last Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting.

Councillor Stavrou asked that members attend the Finance Cabinet Committee meeting on 20 January 2015 and give their views.

Scrutiny Panel Review  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.

To review the Cabinet Forward Plan (Key Decision List) on a meeting by meeting basis.

The Committee noted that Cabinet’s Forward Plan for October 2014. They had no specific items that they wanted to consider.

To agree a Conservative Group replacement for the Safer Cleaner Greener Scrutiny Panel to replace Councillor Y Knight with Councillor A Mitchell.

RESOLVED:

That Councillor A Mitchell replace Councillor Y Knight on the Safer Cleaner Greener Scrutiny panel.