Agenda and minutes

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2023 as an accurate record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2023 were agreed as an record.

Members are invited to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and other registrable and non-registrable interests they may have in relation to any item(s) of business on today’s agenda.

There were no disclosures of interest made at the meeting.

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.

The Chair highlighted the recent letter published by the Secretary of State for the Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), Michael Gove MP on 20 July 2023, which provided updated guidance on the statutory intervention at the London Borough of Croydon. As this was after the publication of the Committee’s agenda, the Chair invited the Council’s Chief Executive, Katherine Kerswell, to provide an update under ‘Urgent Business’ on the implications of the new guidance and to outline the next steps for the Council. Members of the Government’s Improvement & Assurance Panel were in attendance at the meeting, and the Chief Executive invited the Panel Chair, Tony McArdle, to provide additional insight on behalf of the Panel as part of the update.

It was advised that the letter from DLUHC confirmed that the Council would be entering into statutory arrangements with the Improvement & Assurance Panel. Since the original letter from DLUHC about the statutory arrangements, received in March 2023, the Council and the Panel had continued to work together under the previously established arrangement, while waiting for further guidance. The letter from DLUHC highlighted three previous identified areas of particular concern, namely finance, transformation, and housing. It was confirmed that the Council was not expecting any further guidance from DLUHC.

The ongoing role of the Improvement & Assurance Panel was to guide, challenge and advise the Council on its recovery. If the Panel felt it was needed, it also had the power to direct the Council to ensure its was meeting its best value duty.  Tony McArdle would continue as Chair of the Panel, while Jon Wilson and Phil Brookes would continue in their respective roles as leads in adult social care, and commercial and asset disposal. There would be two new additions to the team, with Brian Roberts joining as financial lead and Pamela Leonce as housing lead.

It was confirmed that DLUHC had recently opened a consultation on the Best Value Duty of local authorities, a link to which would be circulated to the Committee following the meeting. This document explained what the Government meant by Best Value Duty. It was highlighted that a local authority was not expected to be perfect, but it should be working towards this and be able to deliver a sustainable budget, which the Council was not able to do until its debt issue was resolved.

Panel Chair, Tony McArdle, advised the Committee that the Panel looked forward to continuing to support the Council with its recovery. Although the Government had put statutory arrangements in place, it was not envisioned that the current relationship between the Panel and the Council would be significantly different. The Panel would remain in Croydon until 2025 and it was their role to provide reassure to the DLUHC Secretary of State on the Council’s journey towards ongoing sustainability. 

A requirement of the statutory intervention was to have an exit strategy in place to set out where the Council was expected to be by the time the Panel was due to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45/23

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee is presented with the latest Financial Performance Monitoring report (Month 2 – May 2023) for its information. The Committee is asked to: -

1.  Review the information provided in the report on the Month 2 Financial Performance Report, and

2.  Consider its conclusions on the latest budget position for 2023-24

3.  Consider whether there are any recommendations to bring to the attention of the Mayor.

The Committee considered a report on pages 19 to 52 of the agenda that provided an overview of the latest budget position for 2023-24 up until the end of Month 2 (May 2023). This report was included on the agenda as part of the Committee’s ongoing scrutiny of the delivery of 2023-24 budget.

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Councillor Jason Cummings, Chief Executive, Katherine Kerswell, Corporate Director for Resources, Jane West, and Director of Finance, Allister Bannin were in attendance for this item at the meeting.

The first question from the Committee related to the forecast that, based on the current projection, there would be an overspend of £3.6m at year end, which would require the use of contingency funding to deliver a balanced budget. It was questioned whether it was normal accounting practice to allocate contingency funding at such an early stage in the year and whether this would discourage services from addressing any such overspends. In response, it was clarified that £3.6m figure in the report was not a current overspend, instead it was a year-end forecast, which should it crystalise by the year end, could be met from contingency funds. Where potential overspends had been highlighted within individual service budgets, there was an expectation that the specific service would proactively work to recover this over the course of the year by either addressing the cause of the overspend or through identifying alternative savings.

It was confirmed that the report included a breakdown on the underspend within the budget arising from staffing vacancies, which was broken down by directorates. It was noted that there were particular underspends forecasted on staffing within services with hard to recruit roles, such as social care and planning. There were also instances where recruitment had been held where a restructure was planned.

In response to concerns about the potential impact of staffing vacancies, it was confirmed that the risk was being actively monitored and managed. There was a specific challenge within social care, with a national shortage of trained staff to fill specialised roles. This required a wider workforce strategy and separately work was underway on overseas recruitment. As well as working on encouraging new employees to join Croydon, given the need to make significant savings, it was also important for the Council to look at how it could do things differently and more efficiently through areas such as automation.

As the next meeting of the Committee on 26 September 2023 was due to include an item on the People and Cultural Transformation Strategy, it was agreed that further information on the work on recruitment and retention would be requested as part of this report.

Regarding transformation, it was confirmed that the Transformation Internal Control Board had been meeting for six months, which had helped to shape the programme. The various transformation projects were being loaded into the new Verto project management software and officers were being trained on how to use this system. Projects were underway, such as the one to improve  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46/23

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee is presented with information on the process to refresh the Council’s Equalities Strategy.

The Committee is recommended to review the information provided and consider whether there are any conclusions or recommendations it wishes to make to be fed into the refresh of the Equalities Strategy.

The Committee considered a report set out in the supplementary agenda pack on the process for refreshing the Council’s Equalities Strategy. The report also provided a summary of the possible areas for update for the Committee’s feedback.

The Cabinet Member Communities & Culture, Councillor Andy Stranack, the Council’s Chief Executive, Katherine Kerswell, Head of Policy & Strategy, David Courcoux, Head of Learning & Organisational Development, Grace Addy, Equalities Manager, Denise McCausland and Senior Strategy Officer, John Montes, attended the meeting for this item.

From the introduction to the report, it was noted that the current strategy had been in place since its approval in 2021. As there had been significant changes both across the Council and nationally since then, it was felt to be timely to revisit the strategy to ensure that it remained fit for purpose. Although there had been progress made with delivering the original strategy, it had been found that it was difficult to measure its impact in some areas. As part of the refresh, there would be an opportunity to ensure the strategy was measurable and included clear accountability for delivery.

The first question from the Committee asked what term the Council would be using to describe the different ethnic groups formally known as BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic). It was confirmed that following consultation within the Council and with staff networks, the term Global Majority would be used, although the terms racialised groups and minoritised groups were also in use. The term Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic was still used when referring to statistics, but not in its shortened form.

Regarding the action plan for delivering the Equalities Strategy, it was confirmed that it was being reviewed to ensure that measurable targets were included, allowing the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Board to hold officers to account on delivery. Although the current action plan contained a large amount of ambition, clarity was needed on its targets and deliverability. Work was also needed to ensure that the ambition of the Council for the Equalities Strategy could be balanced against the capacity for delivery.

The revised action plan would have a greater emphasis on statistical outcomes rather than the more narrative aims included in the current strategy. Another issue being addressed within the current action plan was the inclusion of actions aimed at the entire organisation, which had proved difficult to define how they would be delivered. It was planned that the revised Equalities Strategy would be considered by Cabinet in September, before going to Council in October for approval. The updated action plan would follow within a couple of months of the Strategy’s approval. Although core accountability would be through direct line management and across directorates through the delivery of the work programmes, it was suggested that the EDI Board could be a mechanism for providing further challenge on the delivery of the strategy. It was agreed that a recommendation would be made on finding the most appropriate mechanism for regularly challenging those officers responsible for delivery.

It was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47/23

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee is presented with the latest recommendations made by its Sub-Committees. The Committee is asked to

1.     Approve the recommendations made by its Sub-Committee’s for submission to the Executive Mayor for his consideration.

The Committee considered a report set out on pages 53 to 60 of the agenda which presented recommendations proposed by the scrutiny sub-committees for sign-off ahead of submission to the Executive Mayor.

It was noted that feedback from the Government on the Council’s bid for levelling up funding had been shared with the Committee by the Mayor. The Committee agreed it would make a recommendation to the Mayor to explore whether it would be possible to publish this feedback.

Resolved: That the recommendations made by its Sub-Committees are approved for submission to the Executive Mayor for his consideration.

Conclusions

At the conclusion of this item, the Scrutiny & Overview Committee reached the following conclusion: -

1. Arising from its discussion with the Executive Mayor at previous meeting on 6 June 2023, The Scrutiny & Overview Committee welcomed the sharing of the feedback received from the Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities on the Council’s bid for Levelling-Up funding and noted it reflected positively on the bid submitted.

Recommendations

The Committee agreed to submit the following recommendation for the consideration of the Mayor: -

1. The Scrutiny & Overview Committee recommends that the Mayor publishes the feedback received from the Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities on the Council’s bid for Levelling-Up funding.

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee is presented with the draft work programmes for itself and its Sub-Committees, and asked to: -

1.     Agree the Scrutiny Work Programme for 2023-24

2.     Consider whether there are any other items that should be provisionally added to the work programme as a result of the discussions held during the meeting.

The Committee considered a report set out on pages 61 to 82 of the agenda which set out the draft Scrutiny Work Programme for sign-off by the Committee.

As part of this item, feedback was provided on the activity outside of formal meetings. This included: -

·       The Health & Social Care Sub-Committee, visiting the Croydon University Hospital to receive a guided tour by the Chief Executive. The tour focused on the changes made to facilities to improve both the patient experience and flow through the hospital environment.

·       As part of its ongoing review of health visiting, the Children & Young People Sub-Committee had arranged to meet with frontline staff to hear their experience of the delivering the service, which had informed their in-committee scrutiny of the item.

The Chair of Scrutiny & Overview Committee, Councillor Davis, advised that she had recently met with the Director of Community Safety & Culture to receive an update on the delivery of the Borough of Culture programme, with a view to scheduling it for scrutiny later in the year. The Chair thanked the officers involved in delivering the programme and noted that there were some concerns, including around staff capacity, that needed to be kept under review. It had been agreed that it would best for the Committee to review the Borough of Culture after six months, once the first set of evaluation data had been received.

Resolved: That the Scrutiny Work Programme for 2023-24 is agreed.