Agenda and 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 declarations of interest were made at the meeting.

To approve and sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 23 July 2007.

The minutes of the last meeting of the Committee held on 23 July 2007 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

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 14 September 2007 at 5 pm.

The Chair reported that no registrations to speak at the meeting had been made under the Public Participation Scheme.

This report proposes a more proactive role for Scrutiny Management Committee (SMC) in the future in the determination of scrutiny reviews, in the light of the White Paper on Strong, Prosperous Communities becoming legislation and in order to encourage and support effective scrutiny reviews.

Members considered a report outlining the potential for refocusing the role of Scrutiny Management Committee (SMC) within the Council, in order to enable it set its own annual objectives and scrutiny topics.  Members were advised that any change to the working practices of SMC would require constitutional amendment and, as such, would initially need to be reported to Audit & Governance Committee.

A full discussion was held on the proposals and in general, Members felt that the role and operation of SMC should continue as present and the report and consideration of the issues should be deferred for 6 months to enable the position to be reviewed, monitored and assessed.

RESOLVED:That the report be deferred for 6 months to enable the existing role of SMC to be sufficiently monitored and reviewed if necessary.

This report informs Members that Cllr Watt has been invited to the meeting to discuss revising his registered scrutiny topic on the sale of the Barbican and swimming facilities in York, following the Committee’s comments at its previous meeting.

Members reconsidered the feasibility report on the above proposed topic registered by Councillor Watt, who had attended the meeting to clarify his purpose in submitting the topic for potential review. 

A full discussion on the proposed topic took place and Members sought Cllr Watt’s views on their revised suggestions for reviewing the topic he had registered. 

Members generally were agreed that a review of the arrangements surrounding the sale of the Barbican site would be useful with a view to learning some key lessons for the future in relation to proposals of a similar nature/scope.  They did not, however, believe it would be beneficial to incorporate any review of swimming provision, given that this work was effectively being undertaken through a commissioned ‘review’ report to the Executive.  Cllr Watt agreed to revise his topic submission.  As such the following objectives for review were agreed by SMC:

• To understand why the contract in relation to the sale of the Barbican site was not signed, sealed and delivered until May 2003;
• To understand the public consultation processes which took place and the resulting decisions;
• To understand the changes in land values with a view to establishing whether best value was actually achieved in this case; and
• To assess whether decisions taken in relation to the sale resulted in a loss of capital to the Council.

RESOLVED:

(i)                 That the above objectives be agreed as a potential remit for scrutinising the arrangements for the sale of the Barbican site, as proposed by Councillor Watt; and

(ii)               That an Ad-Hoc Scrutiny Sub-Committee be established on a 2:2:1 basis with a Fishergate Ward Councillor being co-opted on to the Sub-Committee and Councillor Looker being invited to Chair.