Agenda item

The Councilis asked to receive and consider the Annual Report presented at the meeting as listed in paragraph four of the report.

The Mayor introduced the item and invited Councillor Rowenna Davis to present the report.

Councillor Davis thanked the Chairs and Members for their work over the past year, particularly the work on the community safety strategy, the call-ins, the budget, the work on exclusions and the housing improvement plan.

Councillor Davis explained that the function of Scrutiny was to hold Members and officers to account and that this was central to the Council’s recovery. Councillor Davis highlighted that the Chief Executive had acknowledged that, in the past, Scrutiny had been abused and this had contributed to the Council’s position in the recent years.

Councillor Davis continued by stating that she would like two principles to guide Scrutiny’s work in the year ahead, which were community engagement and impact.

The first principle was community engagement. During the scrutiny on the Housing Repairs contract one pensioner told her his story about a leak in his property which took a while to fix. This was an example of the feedback which Scrutiny would need to create better recommendations.

Councillor Davis then explained that the second principle was impact, she stated that she wanted recommendations to be tracked and evaluated.

Councillor Davis continued stating that there were two themes for the work programme over the coming year; these were the Council’s finances and the people’s finances. The work programmes for the three sub committees could be found online.

Scrutiny Streets, Environment & Homes Sub-Committee would focus on the town centre and the Veolia contract, which would be overseen by Councillor Ben-Hassel.

Scrutiny Children & Young People Sub-Committee would focus on safeguarding and sound finances, which would be overseen by Councillor Richard Chatterjee.

Scrutiny Health & Social Care Sub-Committee would focus on the new integrated care partnership and mental health, which would be overseen by Councillor Sean Fitzsimons.

Councillor Nwafor was invited to ask a question and stated that she was pleased to see the increased engagement from Scrutiny to ensure that the voice of the community was kept at the centre of decision making at the Council. Councillor Nwafor then asked what key concerns had been identified regarding the current cost of living crisis and what the main solutions that Councillor Davis would recommend to the Council were.

In response to Councillor Nwafor’s question, Councillor Davis stated that Scrutiny had held a community meeting with voluntary groups, food bank leaders, soup kitchen leaders and advice groups to hear what they considered to be the key issues facing the community. Councillor Davis informed the Council that Scrutiny had also had a meeting with officers to hear about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the Council. The key findings from these meetings were that the issues would concern rent, fuel and energy costs, cost of food, difficulty for residents seeking help from the Council and how hard voluntary groups found it to work with the Council.

Councillor Nabukeera was invited to ask a question and asked, in light of the Mayor’s decision not to delegate decision-making powers, what Councillor Davis’s recommendations and conclusions were.

Councillor Davis stated that scrutiny had welcomed the Mayor’s top priority being to listen to Croydon to hold Cabinet roadshows. Councillor Davis went on to explain that she had asked the Mayor for more detail about putting residents at the heart of decision-making. Councillor Davis expressed concerns around finances and recommended that the Mayor sought guidance on how to remunerate his Cabinet Members as they had more of an advisory role. Another concern was the scale of the challenge facing the Council’s Members and the risks facing its residents.

Councillor Ponnuthurai asked whether Councillor Davis thought that the new housing repairs contract would result in the Council providing respectful, appropriate, and good quality services to its tenants and leaseholders.

In response, Councillor Davis stated that the chance to change the housing repairs contract was a massive opportunity as she felt that Axis provided a shocking and disgraceful service citing Regina Road as an example. Councillor Davis then went on to commend Stephen Tate and the Housing department for their work engaging with Scrutiny Members and residents. Councillor Davis informed the Council that Stephen Tate had suggested changes such as bringing the call centre in-house and splitting the repairs contract into three parts to help to diversify risk. Councillor Davis expressed concerns that residents would not get the full transformational service that they deserved and that the change in contract would not necessarily mean a change in council culture, contract management or staff.

Councillor Davis noted that scrutiny recommended the introduction of compensation schemes for residents if there were missed appointments or insufficient work carried out on a property.

Councillor Jason Cummings asked whether Councillor Davis had read the independent remuneration panel report that went to full Council that listed all the independent recommendations for SRAs.

In response to Councillor Jason Cummings’s question, Councillor Davis stated that Scrutiny members had decided to look at the best practice elsewhere considering the different levels of responsibility that had been assigned to Cabinet Members who had not been fully completing their areas of responsibility.

Councillor Bonham asked Councillor Davis whether there was a further commitment to address the imbalance in resources within the council.

In response to Councillor Bonham’s question, Councillor Davis stated that there had been a discussion with the Mayor about the provision of extra resources for Scrutiny, particularly if Scrutiny was going to continue with the increased levels of community engagement.

Councillor Stewart was invited to ask a question and asked Councillor Davis what she had learnt from her review of the past work of Scrutiny which would enable her to scrutinise the Mayor’s priority of improving the Council’s customer service.

In response, Councillor Davis stated that the most important thing that Scrutiny could do to help the Council to move forward would be to bring the community voice into discussions by increasing community engagement and resident involvement.

Councillor Davis moved the recommendations as laid out in the report.

This motion was seconded.

This was taken to a vote and carried with a unanimous vote in favour.

RESOLVED, to:

1.1Receive and consider the Annual Report presented at the meeting as listed in paragraph four of the report.