Agenda and draft minutes

At this point in the meeting, Members will be invited to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on the agenda.

No interests were declared by Members relating to the business of the meeting.

At this point in the meeting members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so. Anyone who wishes to register or requires further information is requested to contact the Democracy Officer on the contact details listed at the foot of this agenda. The deadline for registering is Friday, 1 September at 10:00 am.

The Chair reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting.

This report asks Members to consider the topic registration forms and feasibility reports in respect of the following newly registered Scrutiny Topics and to decide whether or not to progress the topics:

• Key Strategic Partnership Working (no 138)
• Local Transport Plan – LTP2 (no 139)
• Parking, Paving and Verges (no 140).

Members considered a report giving details of the registration forms received and feasibility reports prepared relating to 3 new topics submitted.  The topics were:

• No. 138 Key Strategic Partnership Working
• No. 139 Local Transport Plan 2
• No. 140 Parking, Paving & Verges

Members discussed each of the topics in detail, with a view to determining whether or not, at this stage, they should be added to the list of registered topics for consideration as soon as capacity became available on completion of the remaining outstanding reviews.  In the light of their discussions, Members approved the following arrangements:

No. 138 Key Strategic Partnership Working – agreed to add to the list provided the scope of any review which might be agreed in the future be restricted to focus upon a small number of key partnership, such as the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) or health/police sector partnerships.

No. 139 Local Transport Plan 2 – deferred for consideration at the next meeting, prior to reviewing the main list of registered topics, to enable Councillor Simpson-Laing to address the meeting, as topic registree.

No. 140 Parking, Paving & Verges – agreed not to allocate to the list on the basis that the issues raised in the topic registration were actually already covered by an agreed policy.  It was, therefore, a matter of policy enforcement in the Committee’s view.  Moreover, the new Constitution now required appropriate Ward Member consultation to be undertaken by officers before making certain decisions.

RESOLVED:(i) That topic 138 be allocated to the full list of registered topics, as set out above;

(ii)               That topic139 be deferred to consideration at the next meeting, prior to consideration of the full list of registered topics, as set out above; and

(iii)             That topic 140  be rejected for the reasons outlined above.

This report asks Members to re-consider the topic registration form for Public Art and to decide whether this topic can be approved for progression to a future Ad Hoc Scrutiny Sub-Committee. 

Members considered a report, giving the topic registration details for No. 137 on Public Art.  A feasibility study had previously been considered by Members, which had given rise to them calling for Councillor Hogg and relevant Officers to address them to justify the basis for any review, given there was an existing policy requesting 1% of the total cost of any new development be set aside for public art.

A detailed discussion took place on the value of proceeding to potential review with this topic and on balance, Members felt that it had sufficient merit to be added to the full list of registered topics at this stage, on the basis that the existing policy could be reviewed to assess how it could be realistically achieved and made fit for purpose.

RESOLVED:             That topic No. 137 be added to the full list of registered topics for consideration at the next meeting.