To receive any questions submitted from Members of the Council in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rules 30 and 30A.

Councillor Powell submitted the following question:

I would like to congratulate officers on putting in place the technology so that this Council meeting and Cabinet can now take place virtually. As this way of meeting becomes the new normal for the foreseeable future I would like reassurance from the Leader of the Council that the schedule for all committees especially Planning and Licensing and Audit and Risk will now resume from June. And that the vital function of Scrutiny in developing policy, holding Cabinet to account and driving improvement in public services, will be reinstated imminently. Now seems to be an opportunity to make better use of Scrutiny ‘to support policy and decision making through focused commissions and deep dives into strategic challenges’ as recommended in the recent Peer Review and I ask the Leader to advise members what specific plans he has to enable this to happen.

Councillor Hemsley responded as follows:

Thank you for the question, I am sure that the Strategic Director of Resources will pass on the thanks to both the IT team and the Governance Team.

I share (as I am sure that we all do) the desire to get to the “new normal” as quickly as is practicable that living with the corona virus will demand.  I recognise that setting out what this looks like and how we get there is an important piece of work to ensure that we emerge from the crisis as a better organisation than when we went into it.

I also agree whole-heartedly that this crisis does present an opportunity to look at roles and the way we operate right across the Council and this includes our role as elected representatives.  We should review our arrangements, see what works, how we work and what we might change. I would very much value input and thoughts from all members to this process. I did send out an invitation to informal scrutiny to all members last week. As you suggest we should be looking to “drive improvement in public services” and this includes the way in which we as councillors operate.

However, this process will have to take place in a context where we are still dealing with a serious health crisis, together with the associated effects on our community  and our management of this horrible disease.  We are finding the demands on services and the leadership continues to increase and our first priority must always be directing all available capacity to supporting our communities through these unprecedented times.

I do acknowledge that we need to set out a clear ‘road map’, for restoration of an effective democratic framework, that will set out how we will:

·       deliver against our priorities,

·       develop new ideas and ways of workings

·       manage the current crisis not just in the next few months but probably over the next couple of years; and

·       deal with essential business

We have our first Scrutiny meeting being held on the 11^th June at the request of the Scrutiny Committee and Commission and it will be single item agenda on a report published for Cabinet on the 16^th June and I expect we should be able to outline the transition plan in more detail at Annual Council and I welcome a dialogue on this issue with all members.  Councillors Oxley, Waller and I will continue to liaise with senior officers to ensure that interim measures are put in place to ensure that all Councillors are included in this process and to ensure the scrutiny of essential policy decisions is enabled.

My own view is that we will likely have to go through 3 stages:

1.     A limited provision as we deal with the crisis (based on circumstances); I see this as a place for us as elected members to gather information on topics that can help inform the future of the Council.

2.     A phased return looking at priorities of the Council and balancing the need to provide capacity to consider and shape what any new arrangements will look like.

3.     Implementing and embedding the new ways of working for Council and Councillors

I look forward to working with you all on this, it is a real opportunity to do what we got elected to do and make a difference.

Councillor Hemsley, in response to a supplementary question from Councillor Powell stated assurance would be given that the approach proposed would be laid out at the Annual Meeting.