Agenda and minutes

To confirm the appointment of Councillor Andy MacLeod as Chairman of the Community Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee for the Council Year 2017/18.

Councillor Andy Macleod was confirmed as Chairman of the Community Wellbeing Sub-Committee for the Council Year 2017/18.

To confirm the appointment of Councillor Liz Wheatley as Vice-Chairman of the Community Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee for the Council Year 2017/18.

Councillor Liz Wheatley was confirmed as Vice-Chairman of the Community Wellbeing Sub-Committee for the Council Year 2017/18.

To receive apologies for absence and note any substitutions.

Apologies for absence were received from Simon Thornton and Sam Prichard. Councillors Patricia Ellis and Nabeel Nasir attended as substitutes.

To receive from Members declarations of interests in relation to any items included on the agenda for this meeting, in accordance with Waverley’s Code of Local Government Conduct.

There were no declarations of interests in connection with items on the agenda.

To receive a presentation on the Service Areas falling within the remit of the Community Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Committee received a presentation from Damian Roberts, the Strategic Director for front Line Services, and Kelvin Mills, the Head of Communities and Major Projects, on the service areas falling within the remit of the Committee.

The Committee noted the Community Services Team structure and was advised that the  team covered Community Partnerships including overseeing the service level agreements with a number of  key partners including Citizens’ Advice Waverley, Farnham Maltings and the day centres in the borough.  It also encompassed Economic Development working successfully with Enterprise First and the four chambers of commerce to support local business, and Community Safety delivering the key priorities of the Safer Waverley Partnership and working with the Joint Enforcement Team.  The team was also instrumental in the current refurbishment and extension of the Farnham Memorial Hall and the transfer of the Community Meals Service.

The Committee noted that the Arts and Cultural Services team worked with partners to support the development and commissioning of arts and cultural projects to meet the needs of communities.  They attracted external funding to deliver a wide range of community arts projects and directly delivered services from Godalming Museum, the Borough Hall and Farnham Memorial Hall (currently closed for refurbishment).  The Farnham Museum was run for Waverley under a Service Level Agreement with Farnham Maltings

The Careline team looked after the careline emergency call systems and telecare for nearly 1900 clients – telecare was additional monitoring equipment linked either to a careline or a hand-held pager which included smoke detectors, bed and chair sensors and pill dispensers – which helped enable residents to live independently in their own home. The service operated 24/7, 365 days of the year.Waverley Training Services  were a not for profit arm of Waverley offering training and apprenticeships in a range of subjects including business admin, customer service, management, IT and Social Digital Media.  They worked with students in their workplace as well as in a classroom setting at their centre in Farnham. 

The Leisure Services team managed the contract for Waverley’s five leisure centres.  They worked to develop access to leisure in the borough through participatory events such as Waverley’s team in the Surrey Youth Games, Sport Relief Mile, annual skate events and through partnership working with local sports councils and schools.  They were also responsible for promoting an active lifestyle through the development of health and wellbeing activities. The Greenspaces team covered the management of Waverley’s Parks and Countryside.  They had achieved Green Flag status for 4 sites in the borough and were working with the National Trust to develop a visitor centre at Frensham Great Pond.  They also looked after the play areas and skate parks, trees on Waverley owned land and managed the contract for grounds maintenance across the borough.

The Committee noted that the key aims of the Team, noted in the service plan 2017/18 were:

·       To successfully complete the Memorial Hall refurbishment creating:

o   a new multi-use community facility for Farnham;

o   a new home for the Gostrey  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Community Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, along with the O&S Co-ordinating Board is responsible for managing the Committee’s work programme.

The work programme (attached) includes items agreed at the O&S Co-ordinating Board and takes account of items identified on the latest Executive Forward Programme (Annexe 2) as due to come forward for decision.

Members are invited to identify any additional topics that the Committee may wish to add to its work programme.

Recommendation

Members are invited to consider their work programme and make any comments and/or amendments they consider necessary, including suggestions for any additional topics that the Committee may wish to add to its work programme.

The Committee received its work programme for 2017/18. The Work programme included items agreed at the O&S Co-ordinating Board and took account of items identified on the latest Executive Forward Programme as due to come forward for decision. Members were invited to identify any additional topics that the Committee might have wanted to add to its work programme.

Councillor Andy Macleod advised the Committee that himself and the Vice Chair have had a series of meetings with Karen Simmonds, the Public health lead at Surrey County Council for the Waverley area, about the wider health environment and how the Community Wellbeing committee could work to improve both the health and mental health of residents in our Borough.

Among conversation they also had talked about potential in-depth scrutiny review topics and now would like to propose a scrutiny review on reducing ‘health inequalities in the Borough’.

The Committee was advised that a starting point for this review was information from Public Health England for the Waverley District in the Health Profile 2016. It stated that Life expectancy in the Borough was 7.4 years lower for men and 11.8 years lower for women in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived areas.

These statistics were surprising and, therefore they would like to propose an in-depth scrutiny review on the factors affecting health inequalities in the borough and explore the following areas:

1)         How the wider determents of health such as housing, employment, cost of living, environment, which includes social isolation, transport infrastructure & social capital, and career development & opportunity,  contributed and affected the health and mental health of residents and overall life expectancy.

2)         The second area related to how our lifestyles and health behaviours affect life expectancy , such as smoking and drinking

3)         And thirdly looking into how accessible health and mental health care is for our residents.

The scope would be prepared by Alex Sargeson, the Scrutiny Policy Officer, and would be circulated to members for comment and approval. Members were in full support of the proposal and a task group would be established to take this further. Councillors Andy Macleod, Patricia Ellis, Nabeel Nasir and Liz Wheatly all agreed to be part of the group.  

To receive a presentation from Inspector Mark Bridges on the Community Engagement Plan.

The Committee received a presentation from Inspector Mark Bridges on the Community Engagement Plan. He outlined that their aim was to be able to engage with the public in order to prevent and detect crime and pursue offenders. They wanted to provide support to all victims of anti-social behaviour and support the elderly and vulnerable in order to help them feel safe and secure. The Force wanted to engage with the community in the hope that they would support them and share information and intelligence and also in an effort to build greater confidence and security in local communities. Inspector Bridges advised the Committee that to carry out the engagement plan they needed to communicate with Councillors and a number of people in the community in order for it to be effective.

The presentation provided the Committee with an outline of performance of the Waverley Safer Neighbourhood Team and operations and campaigns recently carried out as well as looking forward to future ones. The presentation is attached at Annexe 1 to these minutes.

In relation to performance the Committee noted that although there was an 8% increase in offences recorded in Waverley over the previous financial year the number of positive outcome rates decreased by 4.1% points to 13.4%. This compares with a Forcewide increase of 8.1% over the previous financial year and a decrease in positive outcome rates of 4.8%. Nationally (March 2017) – At Force level, Surrey were 8th lowest at 53.7 crimes per thousand population and also 1st within its most similar forces. Members were pleased that the number of incidents of violent crime had decreased by 12.6% over the last year , nationally Surrey was rated 2^nd lowest at 5.3 crimes per thousand population and also 2nd within its most similar forces. The Committee was disappointed to note that the number of incidences of domestic burglary had increased by 40.6% (71 offences) but was pleased that the levels of vehicle crime, sexual offences and antisocial behaviour had all decreased.

The Committee was advised that the Community Engagement Plan was in place so the police engaged where there was a “clear policing purpose” and to meet the needs of the community. This plan had been written with consideration given to The Policing Vision 2025 document by The APCC and NPCC, the College of Policing, recent HMIC Inspection and local Borough community knowledge and its demands. Engagement Plans aimed to empower and engage local people and acknowledged the importance of communication with those most likely to be affected by services, policies and decisions. Inspector Bridge advised that the Force used to do a lot of communication through fetes and schools and then, because of resources, had to reduce this. They ideally wanted to find a position in between this and “in the know” was a key to their success and any encouragement from Councillors and the public to enrol would be good so that there could be two way communication. The Committee was encouraged to sign up  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

This item was withdrawn from the agenda as there was some inaccuracies in the report and it needed updating.

The first part of this report provides an analysis of the Council’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2016/17 for services that fall within the remit of Community Wellbeing O&S. Annexe 1 to the report details performance against key indicators. Annexe 2 gives outturn performance on the Service Plan objectives for 2016/17.

The second part of this report serves as a discussion item and asks the Committee to consider their future requirements on performance monitoring.

Recommendation:

It is recommended that the Community Wellbeing Overview & Scrutiny Committee:

1.      Considers the performance figures for Quarter 4 as set out in Annexe 1, and agrees any observations or recommendations about the performance and progress towards target it wishes to make to the Executive.

2.      Considers how performance monitoring should be achieved in 2017/18 and agrees a way forward.

The Committee received the quarter 4 performance management report 2016/17. The report outlined an analysis of the Council’s performance for services that fell within the remit of Community Wellbeing. The Annexes detailed performance against key indicators and provided the outturn performance on the Service Plan objectives for 2016/17.

The Committee considered the indicators and noted performance for Leisure Centres was particularly good but commented that when does outturn become too good?. They might need to consider a different indicator in future to more accurately reflect performance. There were no further comments on the indicators but the Committee felt that it only needed to receive indicators on an exception basis, and there were differing views as to whether the trend analysis should be presented quarterly or annually; overall more members expressed a preference to retain the quarterly trend analysis. It was also suggested that the other indicators (non-exception) could be circulated to Members for information outside of the committee environment.

To receive the final report of the Leisure Centre Contract Management Review Sub-Committee (to follow).

The Committee received a presentation from Councillors Richard Seabourne and Wyatt Ramsdale on a summary of the scrutiny work that was undertaken by the Leisure Centre Contract Management Sub-Committee which had been established in November. The presentation picked out some of the key points of the activities carried out between December and early June by the Sub-Committee the detailed report and the recommendations for consideration were detailed in the agenda.

The Committee was advised that the Management contract was signed with DC Leisure in 2007 for a period of 15years. DC Leisure was then acquired by Places for People (PfP) in 2012. In return for managing Waverley’s 5 leisure centres PfP paid Waverley a management fee and had entered into a profit sharing arrangement with Waverley. The review was undertaken because the contract was longstanding, the Council’s Leisure Centres would continue to need capital investment and the perceived success of Waverley’s contract with PfP made it probable that important lessons could be applied to other major Council contracts.

The Committee was advised that the review had found that there was a healthy collaborative relationship Waverley v PfP There was signs of continuous improvement. Attendance had increased and there was no potential cost savings identified. The Sub-Committee had asked the question about whether not in a time of financial shortage they should be maximising financial gain in order to protect other services.

The Councillors outlined potential opportunities for improvement. The Sub-Committee had found difficulty in identifying the commercial and wellbeing expectations to which PfP was expected to perform. Consequently it was recommended as a matter of urgency that the Portfolio Holder for Health, Wellbeing and Culture and the Head of Communities and Special Projects developed a clear policy setting out the Council’s priorities for leisure centres in Waverley. Further, the Sub-Committee found it difficult to readily access summary management accounting information to show if the Leisure Centres were delivering a surplus to Waverley’s residents or if they required subsidy. Consequently, it was recommended that continuous assessment of financial value for money was carried out by comparing revenue generated for Waverley by PfP with Waverley’s internal operating costs. A specific budget monitoring template for leisure centres should also be created to improve financial and commercial management and analysis. 

Other recommendations were as follows:

·         Waverley’s Finance team should start collecting good practice procedures by management accountants and, in particular, the specific procedures used by the current management accountant for Leisure, in order to provide quality information for a hand-over and back-up if the post holder was not available. In time best practice should be captured in a financial management manual.

·         Waverley should include risk thresholds in monthly accounts for the Borough’s leisure centres and these should be frequently reviewed.

·         To understand the performance of the Council’s leisure centres better it was recommended that the Council established a performance sharing network with similar neighbouring authorities to share key delivery metrics to help drive financial and service improvement.

The Sub-Committee noted further recommendations  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.