Issue - meetings

Final report of the Barbican Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Committee on the sale of The Barbican

Meeting: 18/11/2008 - Executive - for meetings from 03/06/00 to 26/04/11 (Item 118)

118 Final report of the Barbican Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Committee on the sale of The Barbican PDF 39 KB

This report presents the conclusions of the Barbican Ad-hoc Scrutiny Committee on their review of the sale of the Barbican and asks Members to approve the recommendations arising from the review, as previously agreed by Scrutiny Management Committee.

Additional documents:

Annex A Barbican Final Report, item 118 PDF 52 KB

Decision:

RESOLVED: (i) That the contents of the final report of the Barbican Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Committee on their review of the sale of the Barbican be noted.

(ii) That the following be agreed as a summary of the Executive’s response to the recommendations arising from the review, detailed in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the covering report:

Recommendation of Scrutiny Committee	Comment from Executive	Recommendation of Executive
Commission an officer report which sets out a corporate approach for the Council when working with pressure groups.	It is not clear what this would achieve. Where there are protest groups aligned to groups within the Guildhall there is already ample opportunity for comment and input to the democratic process.	Accept recommendation
Ensure that all future projects have a robust system of risk management which is regularly reviewed and updated throughout the period of each project.	Good project management will already include assessment of the risks and regular updating.	Approve the revised wording from the new Head of Audit and Risk Management.
Ensure that all future projects have a formal documented system of risk management which details key actions and controls, is regularly reviewed and updated throughout the period of each project.	This recommendation has been improved by the application of the Quality Control Group	Approve the revised wording from the new Head of Audit and Risk Management.

REASON: To enable the introduction of appropriate measures in response the Scrutiny Committee’s findings and recommendations.

Minutes:

Members considered a report which presented the conclusions of the Barbican Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Committee on their review of the sale of the Barbican.

The Committee’s final report, attached as Annex A, had been considered by the Scrutiny Management Committee (SMC) at their meeting on 15 September 2008. The SMC had agreed the Committee’s recommendations subject to some suggested changes to the wording, which had since been made. The agreed recommendations were set out in paragraph 5 of the covering report. Some further amendments, suggested by the Head of Audit & Risk Management in order to strengthen the second recommendation, were set out in paragraph 6. These changes had now been approved by the Chair of the Barbican Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Committee, who was in attendance to respond to any questions on the review and the Committee’s report.

Members queried the motives and objectivity of some of the members of the Scrutiny Committee, in view of the comments reported in the local media. The Scrutiny Committee Chair responded that the final report, including the comments in respect of ‘best value’, represented the unanimous view of the whole Committee.

Having noted the comments of the Shadow Executive on this item, it was

RESOLVED: (i) That the contents of the final report of the Barbican Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Committee on their review of the sale of the Barbican be noted.

(ii) That the following be agreed as a summary of the Executive’s response to the recommendations arising from the review, detailed in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the covering report:

Recommendation of Scrutiny Committee	Comment from Executive	Recommendation of Executive
Commission an officer report which sets out a corporate approach for the Council when working with pressure groups.¹	It is not clear what this would achieve. Where there are protest groups aligned to groups within the Guildhall there is already ample opportunity for comment and input to the democratic process.	Accept recommendation
Ensure that all future projects have a robust system of risk management which is regularly reviewed and updated throughout the period of each project.	Good project management will already include assessment of the risks and regular updating.	Approve the revised wording from the new Head of Audit and Risk Management, as indicated below.
Revised wording of Head of Audit & Risk Management: “Ensure that all future projects have a formal documented system of risk management which details key actions and controls, is regularly reviewed and updated throughout the period of each project.”²	This recommendation has been improved by the application of the Quality Control Group	Approve the revised wording from the new Head of Audit and Risk Management.

REASON: To enable the introduction of appropriate measures in response the Scrutiny Committee’s findings and recommendations.