Agenda item

Report of the Head of Democratic Services. 

The Chair welcomed the Chief Executive, the Leader of the Council, the Head of Planning and Place and the Head of Property, Economic Growth and Regeneration to the meeting.

The Chair advised that the Health Care meeting had now been rescheduled for 8^th February.

The Chair began by expressing his concerns regarding the late commencement of the Planning Informal Task Group, the progress of the Morecambe Future High Streets Bid Task Group final report and the postponement of the Ethical Investment Strategy Task Group until the new Municipal Year.

Morecambe Future High Streets Bid Task Group

With regard to the Morecambe Future High Streets Bid Task Group final report, it was agreed that Democratic Support would finalise the report which would then be considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for approval before being submitted to Cabinet.

Ethical and Sustainable Investment Policy Task Group

The Committee went on to discuss the Ethical and Sustainable Investment Policy Task Group. It was reported that this piece of work had been agreed by Council at its meeting, therefore officers could not comment on the resource implications of undertaking this work. It had come at a time when officers were committed to working on Outcome Based Resourcing to reduce the Council’s budget deficit and was therefore postponed until after the forthcoming elections.

The Leader stressed the importance of Scrutiny, the need for resources for it to function and that Cabinet Members should welcome the challenge. It was suggested that an expert could be invited to give advice on the Scrutiny function within the City Council.

The meeting was adjourned at 6.50pm

The meeting was reconvened at 6.59pm

Planning Informal Task Group

The Committee went on to discuss the Planning Informal Task Group. Members were reminded that the outcome of the recent Peer Review had been circulated to them. The Chair advised that he raised a number of questions which had been answered by the Head of Planning and Place and that this would be circulated to the Committee.

It was agreed that the Informal Task Group would meet as soon as possible, comprising of interested Members of the Committee to expediate the process. The first meeting would be with the Head of Planning and Place.

It was further agreed that the Head of Planning and Place would make arrangements for the Chair to contact the Lead of the Peer Review to discuss the independent workshops that had been undertaken as part of the process with service users such as developers, architects and agents.

It was agreed that the Implementation Plan, which was the Council’s response to Peer Review would be reported to the Committee.

United Utilities and the Recent Water Outage

The Chair went on to discuss the problems that occurred during the water outage in December 2022. It was reported that the Chair of the Committee would contact the Chair of Lancashire County Council’s Scrutiny Committee to take this forward with United Utilities and request that the City Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee Members be invited to attend this meeting.

Resolved :-

That the Committee agreed the actions as set out above.