To approve the Minutes of the Meeting held on 23 September 2021 (Minute Nos. 317 – 323) and the Minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting held on 21 October 2021 (Minute Nos. 394 - 397) as a correct record.

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 23 September 2021 (Minute Nos. 317 – 323) and the Minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting held on 21 October 2021 (Minutes Nos. 394 – 397) were taken as read, approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

Councillors should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves or their spouse, civil partner or person with whom they are living with as a spouse or civil partner.  They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.

The Chairman will ask Members if they have any interests to declare in respect of items on this agenda, under the following headings:

(a)          Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI) under the Localism Act 2011.  The nature as well as the existence of any such interest must be declared.  After declaring a DPI, the Member must leave the meeting and not take part in the discussion or vote.  This applies even if there is provision for public speaking.

(b)          Disclosable Non Pecuniary Interests (DNPI) under the Code of Conduct adopted by the Council in May 2012.  The nature as well as the existence of any such interest must be declared.  After declaring a DNPI interest, the Member may stay, speak and vote on the matter.

(c)          Where it is possible that a fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts would conclude that there was a real possibility that the Member might be predetermined or biased the Member should declare their predetermination or bias and then leave the meeting while that item is considered.

Advice to Members:  If any Councillor has any doubt about the existence or nature of any DPI or DNPI which he/she may have in any item on this agenda, he/she should seek advice from the Monitoring Officer, the Head of Legal or from other Solicitors in Legal Services as early as possible, and in advance of the Meeting.

No interests were declared.

The Committee is asked to consider the Performance Monitoring Report Quarter 2 (July 2021 – September 2021).

The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance introduced the report which presented the year-to-date quarterly performance management report for the second quarter of 2021/2022 (July – September 2021) as previously reported to the Strategic Management Team and Informal Cabinet. He drew attention to page 7, the list of red indicators, and explained that the number of missed refuse and recycling bins met short term targets, but the annual target would be missed, due to previous lower performance. The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance explained that the Planning Enforcement and Land Charges teams had staffing issues, and that was the reason why targets were not being met. He drew Members’ attention to the 100% fly-tipping incidents attended to within three days and the increase in number of affordable homes in the Borough.

The Chairman went through Appendix I, with Members.

Table 1

A Member was disappointed to see the percentage of Planning Enforcement complaints being dealt within the targeted 21 days. He acknowledged that this was because of staffing issues in Planning Enforcement, but questioned whether reporting on the number of complaints responded to within the 21 days was the correct indicator to report on, as the Enforcement Officers were sometimes waiting for the Planning Officers to give their recommendations on how to deal with the complaint.

A Member highlighted that problems recruiting Planning Enforcement officers were countrywide, not just within the Borough, and this also extended to Planning Officers, due to private housing companies paying higher salaries. This was a real problem that needed to be fixed as people knew we had a shortage and might try to ‘cheat the system’.

The Committee were invited to debate on other possible indicators that could be reviewed, and the points raised included:

·         The new committee system set-up could be an opportunity to reconsider performance objectives and reporting; and

·         Cabinet should review and look at possible changes to the reporting indicators before the committee system was implemented.

The Head of Policy, Communications and Customer Services said that this report was a summary of all the indicators that individual teams reported on, but agreed that the new committee structure, that would come into place in May 2022, created an opportunity to change and improve the reporting process.

Councillor Mike Dendor proposed that Cabinet reviewed the monitoring system to make the reporting indicators contain more qualitative information and come back with some suggestions to the Scrutiny Committee for them to progress and establish before the new committee system was in place. This was seconded by  Councillor Ken Rowles and on being put to the vote the motion was agreed.

The Chairman welcomed the improvement in the collection of refuse and recycling bins but wanted to see what impact the brown bin collection had. The Policy and Performance Business Improvement Officer agreed to find out the figures for brown bin collections and circulate to Members.

Table 3

A Member congratulated the Housing Officer, Cabinet Member for Housing and their Deputy, and the Leader, for the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 438.

The Committee is asked to consider the Forward Plan with a view to identifying possible items for pre-decision scrutiny.

The Chairman noticed that the Fees & Charges report was scheduled to be considered at the January 2022 Full Council meeting, before going to the Scrutiny Committee and asked officers to review this to ensure that the Fees & Charges report, as well as the Budget was considered by the Scrutiny Committee before it went to Full Council.

The Chairman said that he would like to see a report provided to the Committee on an update on progress on the Masters House, Swale Rainbow Homes and the greening of Swale House.

Resolved: That the report be noted.