REPORT TO: Scrutiny and Overview Committee 11 April 2012 ... · Annual Report 1. SCRUTINY ANNUAL REPORT 2011-12 The Council’s constitution requires the Scrutiny and Overview Committee

REPORT TO: Scrutiny and Overview Committee 11 April 2012

AGENDA ITEM: 8SUBJECT: SCRUTINY ANNUAL REPORT 2010-11

LEAD OFFICER: Council Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, Director of Democratic & Legal Services

CABINET MEMBER: Not applicable

PERSON LEADING AT SCRUTINY COMMITTEE MEETING:

Councillor Steve Hollands, Scrutiny Chairman

ORIGIN OF ITEM: The Council’s constitution requires the Scrutiny and

Overview Committee to submit a Scrutiny Annual Report to Full Council

BRIEF FOR THE COMMITTEE:

To approve the content of the 2011/12 Scrutiny Annual Report

1. SCRUTINY ANNUAL REPORT 2011-12 The Council’s constitution requires the Scrutiny and Overview Committee to “report regularly to ordinary meetings of the Council including the submission of an Annual Report on the work undertaken during the year”. A draft Scrutiny Annual Report for 2011/12 is attached for the committee to approve with any desired amendments. It is proposed that the Chairman be empowered to approve the final version, including the addition of any significant developments between the production of this draft and agenda dispatch for Council. The Annual Report will be presented to Full Council on 30 April 2012. It will not therefore be possible to report on the outcomes of the additional meeting of the Health, Social Care and Housing Sub-committee on 14 May 2012. Printed versions of the Annual Report will be subsequently be produced for scrutiny members (only) and external organisations that have contributed to scrutiny during the year. 2. RECOMMENDATIONS

The Committees is recommended to:

1. Approve the attached draft Annual Report with any desired amendments 2. Agree that the Chairman be empowered to approve the final version for

submission to Council on 30 April 2012, including the addition of any significant developments between the production of this draft and agenda dispatch for Council.

CONTACT OFFICER: Nigel Spalding, Scrutiny Manager. 020 8726 6000 X62669. [email protected]. BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS: None

Scrutiny Annual Report 2011/12

[Draft as at 28.3.2012]

Contents page 1. Introduction from the scrutiny chairman 2. Why scrutiny? 3. Committees and membership 4. Task and finish working groups 5. Making an impact

5.1 By making recommendations

5.2 By tracking the implementation of recommendations accepted

5.3 By making comments and suggestions

5.4 By holding decision-makers and service providers to account

5.5 By facilitating Member learning and development

6. Making scrutiny work

6.1 Development of the work programme

6.2 Liaison with internal departments and external organisations

6.3 Developing scrutiny procedures

6.4 Member skills development 6.5 Improving external participation

6.6 Learning from experience

6.7 Scrutiny chairs’ meetings

6.8 Scrutiny team

Appendices 1: Committee work programmes 2011/12 2: Task and finish working group recommendations

1. Introduction from the scrutiny chairman

Cllr Steve Hollands Scrutiny chairman

Cllr Jason Cummings Deputy chairman

Cllr Sean Fitzsimons Vice chair

2. Why scrutiny? Local authority scrutiny originates from the Local Government Act 2000. This Act required local authorities to shift from a committee-based system of decision-making to a split between a smaller executive group making key decisions and backbench councillors undertaking scrutiny. In Croydon, the electorate votes in 70 councillors who, in Full Council, appoint the Mayor on an annual basis and the Leader of the Council for a four year term. The Leader can, in turn, appoint up to 9 councillors from the majority group to Cabinet and has chosen to delegate his decision-making powers to Cabinet or to individual members of Cabinet. Apart from the Mayor and members of Cabinet, all the other councillors can be appointed to scrutiny committees or working groups. These scrutiny bodies have the power to: obtain information from Cabinet members, from council officers and from a number of other statutory bodies (most notably the NHS); to require attendance and ask questions; to make comments; and to make formal recommendations to decision-makers which, the case of Cabinet and the NHS, must be responded to within a set timescale. The Centre for Public Scrutiny (www.cfps.org.uk), a small charity whose principal focus is on scrutiny, accountability and good governance, produces a guide to effective public scrutiny, which states that good scrutiny:

• provides a ''critical friend'' challenge to executive policy-makers and decision-makers

• enables the voice and concerns of the public and its communities

• is carried out by ''independent minded governors'' who lead and own

the scrutiny process

• drives improvement in public services. In 2010, Croydon’s main Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed that the aim of scrutiny should be to “improve services for the people of Croydon and value for money”.

Scrutiny and Overview

Committee Chairman:

Cllr Steve Hollands

Community Services and Safety

Sub-Committee Chairman:

Cllr Jason Cummings

Health, Social Care and Housing

Sub-Committee Chair:

Cllr Sean Fitzsimons

Education Sub-Committee

Chairman: Cllr Steve Hollands

3. Scrutiny Committees The Scrutiny and Overview Committee (SOC) was established with fewer members than in 2010 by Annual Council in May 2011. The SOC then increased the number of its sub-committees by one for 2011/12, adding an Education Sub-committee to the configuration that applied in the previous year. By agreement between the two political parties, the minority party was again invited to chair one of the scrutiny sub-committees.

COMMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP 2011/12

Scrutiny and Overview Committee

Councillors Steve Hollands (Chairman), Jason Cummings (Deputy Chairman), Sean Fitzsimons (Vice-Chair), Yvette Hopley, Humayun Kabir, Bernadette Khan and Terry Lenton Reserve members: Councillors Jeet Bains, Alisa Flemming, Lynne Hale, Ian Parker, Tony Pearson, Mark Watson and Louise Woodley

Community Services and Safety Sub-Committee

Councillors Jason Cummings (Chairman), Sherwan Chowdhury (Vice-Chairman), Justin Cromie, Bernadette Khan, Tony Pearson, Donald Speakman and Mike Selva Reserve Members: Councillors Maria Gatland, Timothy Godfrey, Karen Jewitt, Adam Kellett, David Osland, Avril Slipper and Louisa Woodley

COMMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP 2011/12

Health, Social Care and Housing Sub-Committee

Councillors Sean Fitzsimons (Chair), Jason Cummings (Vice Chairman), Carole Bonner, Pat Clouder, Ian Parker, Adam Kellett and Sue Winborn. Non-voting co-opted member: Tracey Hague (nominated by Croydon LINk) Reserve Members: Councillors: George Ayres, David Fitze, Maria Gatland, Tony Harris, Patricia Hay-Justice, David Osland and Mike Selva

Education Sub-Committee

Councillors Steve Hollands (Chairman), Jeet Bains, Justin Cromie, Clare George-Hilley, Donna Gray (Vice-Chairman), Lynne Hale, Tony Harris, Patricia Hay-Justice, Terry Lenton, Shafi Khan, Michael Neal, Tony Pearson and Manju Shahul-Hameed. Voting co-opted members: Parent Governor Representatives: Mr James Collins (Vice-Chairman) and Mrs Vinoo John Diocesan Representatives: Rev Leonard Marsh and Mrs Elaine Jones Non-voting co-opted member: Teacher representative: Mr Brendan Fitzgerald Reserve Members: Councillors Eddy Arram, Jan Buttinger, Alisa Flemming, Maria Gatland, Yvette Hopley, Janet Marshall, David Osland, Helen Pollard, Paul Scott, John Wentworth, Sue Winborn and Chris Wright

In December 2010, Full Council has also approved the creation, with the London Boroughs of Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth and the Royal Borough of Kingston, of a South West London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The next meeting of Full Council then waived the proportionality requirements and appointed two members to the committee – Councillors Jason Cummings from the majority group and Sean Fitzsimons from the minority group. This Joint Committee has been set up, as required by legislation, to consider and respond to the proposals for a major reconfiguration of acute services labelled as ‘Better Services Better Value’. The joint committee has a statutory right to relevant information from the NHS but both the joint committee and the individual borough health scrutiny committees retain the power to make a referral to the secretary of state for health. The joint committee held its first meeting on 22 February 2012. A three-month public consultation on the proposed service changes is expected in the summer of 2012.

4. Task and Finish Working Groups All four of the scrutiny committees had the power to establish informal task and finish working groups, designed to able to focus more intensively on a single topic over a number of months. The following five working groups operated in 2011/12:

Title Membership Committee and timescales (Children’s) Speech and Language Therapy Services

Councillors Sean Fitzsimons (Chair), Adam Kellett, Terry Lenton, Maggie Mansell and Tracey Hague

Established by the Health, Social Care and Housing Sub-committee in January 2011. Draft final report presented to the sub-committee in July 2011. Final report presented to the Children and Families Partnership Board in September 2011. The Learning Disabilities/ Difficulties Sub-group responded to the recommendations in February 2012.

Public Access to Council Information

Councillors Steve Hollands (Chairman), Jeet Bains, Pat Clouder, Sean Fitzsimons and Clare George-Hilley

Established by the Scrutiny and Overview Committee in September 2010 for a January 2011 start. Draft final report presented SOC in September 2011. Final report presented to Cabinet in October 2011. Cabinet responded to the recommendations in December 2011.

Neighbourhoods and The Big Society

Councillors Jason Cummings (Chairman), Kathy Bee, Yvette Hopley, Tony Pearson and Mark Watson.

Established by the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee in January 2011. Draft final reported presented to the Sub-committee in September 2011. Final report presented to Cabinet in October 2011. Cabinet responded to the recommendations in December 2011

Title Membership Committee and timescales Neighbourhood Watch

Councillors Jason Cummings (Chairman), Pat Clouder, Justin Cromie plus Brian Udell (Chair, Croydon Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association)

Established by the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee in July 2011. Draft final report presented to the sub-committee in March 2012. Final report [to be] presented to the Safer Croydon Partnership (SCP) in April 2012. SCP response to the recommendations expected in [tbc]

The impact of new academies and free schools on schooling in Croydon

James Collins (Chairman), Elaine Jones, Brendan FitzGerald and Councillors Clare George-Hilley, Michael Neal and Paul Scott.

Established by the Education Sub-committee on Sub in October 2011 Draft final reported to be presented to the sub-committee in April 2012. Final report to be presented to Cabinet in April 2012. Cabinet response to the recommendations expected in June 2012.

5. Making an impact This section looks at how scrutiny has had an impact during the year by making recommendations, monitoring the implementation of recommendations that have been accepted, holding decision-makers to account, making comments and by promoting learning and development. 5.1 By making recommendations The task and finish working group method of scrutiny has proved particularly productive this year with the five working groups listed above developing a total of 52 (+Academy Schools) recommendations. Full details of the recommendations made, and the responses received from the relevant decision-makers so far, are contained in Appendix 2. As at mid-April 2012, the relevant decision-makers had considered and responded to a total of 40 recommendations as produced by the working groups and submitted by the establishing committee. Of the 40, 30 had been accepted in full (75%), 7 in part or with amendments (17.5%) and only 3 (2.5%) had been rejected outright. The recommendations of the Neighbourhood Watch task and finish working group are due to be received by the Safer Croydon Partnership on 26 April and those of the ‘Impact of academy schools’ working group by Cabinet on 23 April 2012. Two scrutiny committees also made formal recommendations during the year following consideration of issues scheduled into their work programmes – the Scrutiny and Overview Committee and the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee. In November 2011, the Scrutiny and Overview Committee welcomed “the statements made by the Leader and Chief Executive that it is important for scrutiny to have the opportunity, wherever possible, to be able to undertake pre-decision scrutiny on the policy and strategy underlying major decisions”. It subsequently made a recommendation to Cabinet on this issue to which Cabinet is expected to respond on 23 April 2012. Scrutiny and Overview Committee recommendation: That Cabinet bring forward some practical proposals on how pre- decision scrutiny might be embedded into the decision-making process and thus reduce the risk of call ins which might impact a project timetable and prejudice the Council’s interests. The Community Services and Safety Sub-committee also made recommendations to Cabinet in March 2012 following consideration in

January of ‘the future of the arts in Croydon’. Cabinet is expected to respond to this recommendation on 23 April 2012. Community Services and Safety Sub-committee recommendation:

(a) the council should look to allow the use of its various advertising media, including "Your Croydon" and the JC Decaux poster sites, to publicise arts events in the borough

(b) the council should receive a joint business case for investment in the arts in Croydon and its potential impact on the economy, which Fairfield Halls, London Mozart Players, the Warehouse Theatre, CRYPT and CYTO are intending to prepare

(c) the council should look at the application process for arts grants and simplify it considerably, enabling smaller groups to make successful bids for funding.

The same meeting of the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee in February 2012 also followed up discussion at its previous meeting on ‘the voluntary sector and the council’s commissioning framework’ with the following recommendations to Cabinet, to which Cabinet is expected to respond on 23 April 2012. Community Services and Safety Sub-committee recommendation:

(a) the commissioning process for the lowest levels of funding be dramatically simplified to enable smaller voluntary organisations to bid more easily

(b) additional weighting should be given to any bid, from the voluntary sector or any other sector that demonstrates potential for developing social capital within the borough

(c) whenever possible, the bidding process should not coincide with summer holidays, so that small voluntary groups, which may rely on one person with fundraising skills, are not impeded by the timetable from bidding to provide local services.

Finally, the very first meeting of the South West London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting in February 2012 also made a formal recommendation, in this case to NHS SW London. The two Croydon members prompted the committee to recommend to NHS SW London that the options agreed by the 60-person scoring panel be released at the same time as the financial scoring. This recommendation, as reported in the Health Service Journal before the next meeting took place, was accepted.

5.2 By tracking the implementation of recommendations accepted Scrutiny Members have wanted re-assurance that recommendations accepted are actually being implemented. For this reason, the Scrutiny Chairs agreed that progress on implementation should be reviewed by the relevant committee after 6 months and again, if needed, after another 6 months. Four sets of recommendations were tracked through this procedure during the year. Firstly, a six-month progress report was provided in October 2011 to the Education Sub-committee by council officers, the Children’s Safeguarding Board, NHS Croydon, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust and Croydon Police, in response to the earlier recommendations of the ‘School Notices’ task and finish working group. The report confirmed that all the relevant agencies had adopted the communications procedures advocated by the working group for use in the event of child welfare incidents outside Croydon schools, such as alleged abductions. Secondly, the same meeting of the Education Sub-committee also received a 6-month progress report from council officers on implementation of a scrutiny recommendation to Cabinet, prompted by information from officers in January 2011 that there was not reliable data on the number of fixed term exclusions from the academy Schools. Officers reported on the ongoing arrangements for liaison with academy schools and confirmed that requests for data were now being dealt with promptly and fully. In September 2011, the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee followed up earlier recommendations to Cabinet on:

• thirdly, protecting community access to Stanley Halls, “with the council retaining overall control”; and

• fourthly, “continuing discussion on retaining the long-term operation of the David Lean Cinema via a third party operator outside of the Clocktower”.

On the David Lean Cinema, the sub-committee was informed that council had been working with Fairfield Halls to ensure continued opportunities for independent cinema screening in central Croydon – the projection equipment had been made available and a new film programme (branded under the David Lean banner) had commenced in July 2011. A second progress report on implementation of recommendation on the future of Stanley Halls was received by the Sub-committee in March 2012. Key points in this report were that:

• the council owns the freehold of Stanley Halls which is subject to a community use covenant

• Stanley Halls continues to be managed by the council and is available

for hire by regular hirers on a reduced basis pending a decision about long term arrangements

• an open community management transfer process was being planned

for autumn 2012, in the knowledge that an emerging local consortium had expressed interest, once essential capital works had been completed by the council

• and, in the meantime, the current “light hire” arrangements would

remain in place for existing bookings with new bookings from April 2013 being restricted.

5.3 By making comments and suggestions Aside from formal recommendations, scrutiny committees and working groups have exercised significant influence during the year by making suggestions, raising issues of concern and sharing information. Examples include:

• the withdrawal, pending further consultation, of the decision to introduce new car parking restrictions around Croydon University Hospital by the Cabinet Portfolio Holder at a Scrutiny and Overview Committee Call-In meeting

• obtaining confirmation, following advice, that the Memorandum of

Understanding with LB Wandsworth on the future of the libraries service could be made available to Members

• brokering an arrangement whereby the Croydon Communities

Consortium could be covered by the council’s own public liability insurance

• ensuring that papers for all meetings of the South London Waste

Partnership are available on the Croydon’s website and advocating that the other boroughs in the partnership do the same

• stimulating an increased level of networking amongst

neighbourhood watch co-ordinators, better sharing of information about relevant local services and a resumption of ward panel chairs’ meetings

• consideration was given, in autumn 2011, to the establishment of a

task and finish working group on the number and role of health visitors in Croydon when NHS Croydon reported that it was undertaking a review, the findings of which could be reported to scrutiny in 2012

• prompting a review of what committee papers should be made

available to the public (in Part A) and the legal basis for withholding certain papers from the public (in Part B)

• testing the effectiveness of partnership working within the Children

and Families Partnership and the Safer Croydon Partnership by asking these bodies to respond to the task and finish working groups on Speech and Language Therapy Services and Neighbourhood Watch respectively

• advocating, with others in early 2011, that the two GP Consortia set up

in Croydon merge to create what, by the end of 2011, became one Clinical Commissioning Group

• one of the Joint Chairs of the Clinical Commissioning Group

expressing an intention to take a more holistic view of alcohol services as a result of hearing the views of service providers, a service user and members

• prompting an investigation into the benefits of developing “apps” to

improve customer access and experience

• providing officers in the department of adult social care, housing and health with comments on two pre-decision scrutiny reports on re-ablement and short break services for adults with learning disabilities so that these reports could be sharpened up before presentation to Cabinet

5.4 By holding decision-makers and service providers to account The scrutiny committees carried out this core scrutiny function by, for example, questioning:

• the leader, chief executive and executive director corporate resources & customer services on the council’s performance (November 2011) and the proposed council budget for 2012/13 (January 2012)

• the chief executive of Croydon Health Services NHS Services Trust (in

October 2011) about action being taken to improve patient experience in Croydon University Hospital, seeking assurances that improvements will take place. The Trust Board minutes (November 2011) noted this meeting and commented “It had been useful to work through the report with the Scrutiny Committee members and obtain an external perception of the formal survey versus internal work”.

• officers from corporate resources & customer services on the customer

access strategy and the council’s website (September 2011), and later on, the council’s capital and property strategy and the performance management framework (December 2011)

• the cabinet member for environment & highways about the appointment of a preferred bidder for the waste procurement (December 2011)

• the director of step change about the achievements being claimed by,

and the evidence behind, the step change programme

• officers in planning & environment on whether appropriate equality impact assessments had been carried out when funding for the family justice centre was reduced

• the police, about the reasons for, and implications of, their withdrawal

of funding for accommodation in the family justice centre’s premises - leading to the conclusion that that co-location of the police services was critical to the functioning of the centre

5.5 By facilitating Member learning and development An indirect, but valuable, consequence of scrutiny work this year has been the facilitation of opportunities - outside of committee meetings - for member learning and development. For example, questions about how reduced funding was impacting on police numbers, structures and priorities at the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee in September 2011 led to the scrutiny chairs proposing the organisation of briefing session on the work of the Croydon Police. This was subsequently integrated into the member learning & development programme with the borough commander providing extensive information at a session open to all members in February 2012. Also, scrutiny of children’s safeguarding at the Education Sub-committee in October 2011 led to recognition by members and officers at the meeting that further training for members on safeguarding issues should be arranged. The transfer of responsibility for Member L&D back to Democratic Services and Scrutiny in 2011, created a clearer pathway for learning needs identified at scrutiny meetings to help shape the content of the overall Member L&D programme. 6. Making scrutiny work This section looks at the work undertaken “in the background” to make scrutiny effective during the year.

6. 1 Development of the work programme A “trawl” for possible topics was undertaken in the spring of 2011 amongst Members, officers in the council and in external statutory and voluntary bodies and the general public, via “Your Croydon”. The list of 100+ suggested topics was then reviewed and prioritised at the scrutiny members’ conference at the end of May. A draft work programme was then drafted by officers and reviewed by the scrutiny chairs so that an initial work programme for each of the four scrutiny committees could be presented to, and approved by, the main Scrutiny and Overview Committee in early June 2011. Each of the four committees then reviewed and revised its work programme at the end of each of its meeting in response to new information and changing circumstances. In addition, towards the end of the year, the department of adult social care, health and housing invited the Health, Social Care and Housing Sub-committee to take three pre-decision scrutiny items (ie prior to decisions being taken by Cabinet) and the department of children, families and learners agreed to bring three other pre-decision reports to the Education Scrutiny Sub-committee. The joint director of public health also brought his public health annual report to scrutiny before submission to Cabinet in April 2012. These developments corresponded well with the wish of scrutiny members to undertake more pre-decision scrutiny and the hope that this might reduce the need, as perceived by some members, to call-in these decisions. The Health, Social Care and Housing Sub-committee has needed to be particularly adaptable this year in order to respond to developments within the NHS such as the release of Care Quality Commission reports, the Better Services Better Value proposals and the opportunity, at the end of the year, to comment on the NHS Quality Accounts. The Scrutiny and Overview Committee (SOC) also held two additional meetings during the year to consider decisions “called-in” by 14 or more non-executive members that could not be delayed until the next scheduled SOC meeting – the details are contained in Appendix 1. The number of call-ins this year was much reduced from total of 8 considered by the SOC in 2010/11. 6.2 Liaison with internal departments and external organisations Effective scrutiny depends heavily on the quality of relationships built up between up between the “scrutineers” and the “scrutinised”. Amongst the activities undertaken during the year to support this relationship-building has been:

• inviting the nominated departmental scrutiny “leads” to attend the Members’ Scrutiny Conference in June and assist in the prioritisation and timetabling of topics for the work programme

• ongoing liaison with the nominated internal and external scrutiny leads for the identification of appropriate report authors and resolution of any timetabling or apparent communications problems

• the presentation by scrutiny officers of a mid-year update to each of the

departmental management teams and half-hour ‘scrutiny and democracy’ sessions being run for all heads of service to raise awareness and understanding of the scrutiny function

• the provision of reports to the corporate management team

• the scrutiny chairs holding meetings with key internal and external

officers including the chief executives of Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, South London and Maudsley Foundation NHS Trust, the Police Borough Commander and Croydon Voluntary Action

6.3 Developing scrutiny procedures The stability of scrutiny in 2011/12, as compared with the challenges experienced in 2010/11, was in part due to the ongoing development and bedding-down of a range of documents and processes underpinning the scrutiny arrangements. Amongst these were: a standard format for work programme reporting; the use of a simpler scrutiny report template; a guide for report authors; a template for report requests; a checklist for pre-agenda meetings; a set of clerking procedures for committee meetings; a guide to setting up and running task and finish working groups and a clearer and quicker procedure for the initial presentation of scrutiny recommendations to Cabinet. 6.4 Member skills development Part of the Scrutiny Members’ Conference in May 2011 was given over to discussion about ‘scrutiny in a time of austerity’ initiated by a short presentation by an experienced chairman from another London Borough. A month later, 6 scrutiny members also participated in a skills-based workshop, led by an experienced outside consultant, on drawing conclusions and drafting recommendations, examining how scrutiny meetings can move beyond absorbing information to develop clear and productive outcomes. 6.5 Improving external participation In addition to the involvement of the co-optees listed in Section 3, who were able to draw upon the knowledge contained in the networks by which they nominated, they were a number of success stories this year about involving informed local organisations and people. For example, the Education Sub-committee meeting held at the Old Town Youth Club October 2011, welcomed the participation of two representatives from Croydon Youth Council, several youth workers along with four officers

from children, families and learners for discussion about the involvement of young people in decision making and the provision of services for young people in Croydon and how people are made aware of them The Health, Social Care and Housing Sub-committee meeting held at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, South London and Maudsley Foundation NHS Trust, (SLaM) was attended by more than 25 people including SLaM managers and clinicians, council officers, a representative of the Croydon clinical commissioning group, Foundation 66, three members of Croydon LINk and a service user who presented a compelling description as to how the personalisation of alcohol services had helped her turn her life around. Meanwhile, the Community Services and Safety Sub-committee held two meetings at which invited contributors provided members with a much deeper understanding of both voluntary sector commissioning and the future of arts in the borough. For the former, five voluntary organisations – nominated by Croydon Voluntary Action – were invited to participate (December 2011); at the latter, five major arts organisations came and contributed (January 2012). 6.6 Learning from experience As in 2010/11, at the last round of scrutiny meetings of 2011/12, members were invited to identify what had been learnt during the year about effective scrutiny – ie what worked and what didn’t work, and why? The following points were made: To add A scrutiny survey, seeking the views of scrutiny members and everyone else who has attended two or more scrutiny committee and/or working group meetings, is again being used as a key method of assessing the performance of scrutiny during the year. Last years’ results were reported to the scrutiny members’ conference in May 2011 and were used to identify areas for development and improvement in 2011/12. 6.7 Scrutiny chairs meetings The three scrutiny chairs met monthly throughout the year, enabling them to take a co-ordinated lead in the development of the overall scrutiny work programme. They did this by, for example:

• sharing information on proposed and established task and finish working groups

• reviewing the council’s forward plan to identify any issues that scrutiny

could or should take into account on a pre-decision basis rather than awaiting possible call-ins

• considering how to respond to emerging NHS issues

• contributing to the development of the overall member learning and development programme

• and monitoring the scrutiny performance indicators (especially member

attendance at meetings) 6.8 Scrutiny officer team Supporting the scrutiny function by organising and clerking of meetings, providing governance advice, project managing the work of the task and finish working groups, undertaking research and surveys, report-writing, ongoing liaison with managers and report writers, updating of the website, written and oral briefings to Members and relationship-building with internal and external officers has been the scrutiny team of:

• Craig Bowdery, June Haynes and Ilona Kytomaa (member services managers – scrutiny); and

• Nigel Spalding (scrutiny manager). Supporting and guiding the scrutiny team have been

• Solomon Agutu (head of democratic services and scrutiny) who is the appointed statutory scrutiny officer responsible (as required by Section 31 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009) for promoting, supporting and providing guidance on the scrutiny arrangements; and

• Julie Belvir (director of democratic and legal services) and scrutiny champion at corporate management team.

Further information and contact details www.croydon.gov.uk/scrutiny [email protected]

Appendix 1: Topics considered in 2011/12

Scrutiny and Overview Committee 23 May 2011 Establishment of the three scrutiny sub-committees

7 June 2011 Review of the scrutiny recommendations in 2010/11, responses received thus far and the arrangements for future follow-up Appointment of scrutiny sub-committee chairmen and vice-chairmen Approval of the initial scrutiny work programme for 2011/12

20 July 2011 Additional meeting

Call-In: Veolia contract variation – recycling collection

20 September 2011 Customer access strategy and performance of the council's website Step change progress report Public access to council information task and finish group final report

8 November 2011 Leader of the Council

6 December 2011 Additional meeting Call-in: waste procurement – appointment of preferred bidder 20 December 2011 Capital programme and assets strategy Performance management framework

24 January 2012 Council budget 2012/13

11 April 2012 Review of the council's IT strategy Freedom of information requests Approval of the 2011/12 scrutiny annual report

Community Services and Safety Scrutiny Sub-committee

5 July 2011 Family Justice Centre - impact of budget cuts, involvement of key partners, changes in demand, impact of changes on management systems, service provision and performance monitoring Methods used for consulting local people on planning applications Final report of the task and finish working group on neighbourhoods and the big society Establishment of a task and finish working group on neighbourhood watch 13 September 2011 Acquisitive crime

The libraries service Progress report on scrutiny recommendations on arts and heritage 1 November 2011 Flooding risks and Croydon's drainage systems Implications of the police and social responsibility act in London Committee members' role in shaping the content of scrutiny reports 13 December 2011 Family justice centre – recent equalities impact assessment and the contribution of the police Equality act and the council’s equality impact assessments Cabinet response to the scrutiny recommendations on neighbourhoods and the big society The voluntary sector and Croydon's commissioning framework Additional information on the review of library services 13 March 2012 Council’s capital programme: street lighting Council’s capital programme: highways programme 12-month follow-up of scrutiny recommendation on the future of Stanley Halls Final report of the task and finish working group on neighbourhoods watch Update on the street based services review

Education Scrutiny Sub-committee

19 July 2011 School Admissions

Education Estates Strategy 18 October 2011 – held at Old Town Youth Club Involvement of young people in council decision-making Provision of services for young people in Croydon Safeguarding children and young people 6-month review of implementation of scrutiny recommendations on academy schools and from ‘notices to schools’ task and finish working group 24 January 2012 Council Budget 2012-13 9 February 2012 School Performance Changes to the school improvement service Annual report on children's safeguarding and the annual report of the local safeguarding children board 17 April 2012 Academies - their role in the local community and their links to the local education authority Education Estates Strategy Final report of the task and finish working group on the iImpact of new academies and free schools on schooling in Croydon

Health, Social Care and Housing Scrutiny Sub-committee

12 July 2011 Appointment of nominee from Croydon LINk as a co-optee Local involvement network (LINk) / Croydon voluntary action (CVA) DASHH personalisation programme

4 October 2011 Safeguarding vulnerable adults strategy Safeguarding vulnerable adults board Housing reforms

22 November 2011 NHS Better services better value – the case for change Croydon university hospital - patient experience Proposed South West London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee 10 January 2012 – held in the Board Room, Royal Bethlem Hospital (South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust) Personalisation in Croydon’s integrated adult mental health services The SLaM personalisation programme pilot on substance misuse- alcohol abuse Proposed housing strategy 28 February 2012 Draft annual report of the joint director of public health Health inequalities Croydon clinical commissioning group Update on the proposed SW London joint health overview and scrutiny committee 27 March 2012 Introduction of a new occupational health led re-ablement service and role of the homes for the future day activity services and facilities Re-provision of short breaks service for adults with learning disabilities Update on the SW London joint health overview and scrutiny committee

14 May 2012 NHS quality accounts Adults transport policy Update on the SW London joint health overview and scrutiny committee

South West London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee 22 February 2012 Terms of reference Rules of procedure Presentation from NHS SW London 22 March 2012 Committee membership and election of vice-chairman Better Services Better Value review – progress update Options appraisal: financial criteria presentation

Appendix 2: Recommendations from the scrutiny task and finish working groups

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY SERVICES

No. TASK AND FINISH WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS

RESPONSE OF THE CHILDREN AND FAMILIES PARTNERSHIP BOARD LEARNING

DISABILITIES/DIFFICULTIES SUB-GROUP (To accept, reject or amend the recommendation)

ACTION PLAN AND IDENTIFIED ORGANISATION AND LEAD OFFICER (IF RECOMMENDATION ACCEPTED)

1 Commissioning, funding and reporting lines for SALT need to be agreed as a matter of urgency before responsibility is handed over from NHS Croydon to Clinical Commissioning Groups

Accept NHS Croydon commission Croydon Health Services NHS Trust to provide a speech and language therapy service to children in Croydon 0 – 19 yrs who attend a Croydon maintained school and/or have a Croydon GP. The Local Authority SEN department buy additional therapy time from the Trust for children attending special schools and units.

Establish joint commissioning plan and contract specification for SALT provision. Lead officers: Jane McAllister, Senior Commissioning Manager NHS SW London and Linda Wright, Head of Service Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN at Croydon Council

2 NHS and Council teams should consider integrating services and pooling budgets to eliminate uncertainty about responsibility for the assessment and support of children with Speech and Language needs.

Accept Currently, the LA draw up Statements of Educational needs and are legally responsible for providing services that are named in Part 3 of the statement. On occasions when professional opinions about the amount and type of therapy needed differ, the LA legally have to pick up any shortfall. This is an area where the SEN department and SALT seek to work closely together to resolve issues and improve outcomes for children. The Children and Families Partnership has agreed to establish jointly funded packages of support with health and to put in place a joint strategic commissioning group to align resources

Establish multi-agency support and resource panel to agree jointly funded packages of support for individuals from April 2012. Children and Families Partnership to sponsor establishment of Joint Strategic Commissioning group Lead officers: Jane McAllister, Senior Commissioning Manager NHS SW London and Linda Wright, Head of Service Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN at Croydon Council






3 More appropriate use should be made of trained therapists and better provision made for maternity leave

Accept All therapists working for CHS Trust are fully qualified specialist therapists. The service carries out extensive redesign year on year to ensure that the skill mix is appropriate to the caseloads and appropriately used. . There is an issue for the service re the high rate of maternity leave and the service are very aware of the pressures and challenges this causes. Every possible measure is taken to reduce the risks to children arising as a result of vacancies in the service.

A comprehensive review of skill mix through out the Croydon Health SALT service will be completed and recommendations implemented Lead officers: Alison Markwell Assistant Director Children’s Services, CHS and Ann Harvey, Head of Service, Paediatric speech and language therapy, CHS New contracts (see action in response to recommendation 1) will seek to address the continuity of service delivery

4 Speech and language therapists and teachers & education professionals should collaborate further to enable them to promote early recognition, assessment, intervention and support.

Accept We do provide training sessions for education professionals every year which develop skills and prompt early recognition and support and seek to establish that working with children to develop language and communication is everyone’s business not just SALT. Each school has a named link therapists who visits the school, liaises with SENCOs (special needs coordinators) and may treat children on site if appropriate. The introduction of the Partners in Talking (PIT) Oracy project with all primary schools in Croydon will be in addition to the above and has a proven track record in successfully meeting the needs of children. Please see Appendix 1

Review outcomes from Partners in Talking project and promote to a wider range of schools. Lead Officer: Ann Harvey Head of Service, Paediatric speech and language therapy, CHS






5 The target maximum waiting time for the initial appointment with a therapist should be no more than 6 weeks.

Reject Our contractual target is to see new referrals with in 18 weeks (national standard). Whilst it is very rare that a child has to wait longer than this time, majority are seen significantly sooner. The implementation of a new system for processing referrals has made a considerable difference. Parents receive a letter within 10 days of receipt of referral requesting them to phone in to book an appointment. They can then choose, from a range of date, times and venues, an appointment that is convenient for them. The service does aim to achieve shorter waiting times. The average waiting time is around 10 weeks.

6 The key themes from the September 2010 consultation document circulated by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety as set out in section 4 of the Speech, Language and Communication Therapy Action Plan should be adopted, ie:

• Agree a care pathway for SALT • Primary school appraisal of pupils

Document referred to is guidance for Northern Ireland. There are clear care pathways in place. Accept The Partnership in Talking project (PIT) launched this year has screening tools and activity plans developed by the service, to fit with all national curriculum topics. The project is an extension of the Oracy Project, run jointly by SALT and EIP (Education Improvement Partnership) for the last 3 years. This pilot proved to be very successful in advancing children’s language so the decision was made to extend it to all schools. The SALT service is committed to this style of evidence based partnership working and offers the training and support as an integral part of provision. Schools do not therefore have to pay for the training

Implementation of PIT project and review of outcomes. Details to be sent to school governors for schools that have not yet chosen to take part. Lead officer: Ann Harvey Head of Service, Paediatric speech and language therapy, CHS






• Standardised data collection for SALT by March 2012

• Appropriate training for nursery school and P1 and P2 teachers

resources or support but they are required to provide dedicated time for and support of a Teaching Assistant. So far approximately 65% of primary schools have signed up to take part in this scheme. The SALT department will continue to promote this partnership working year on year and it is hoped that all schools will become involved. Accept Data is collected as part of the Community Minimum Data Set requirements. Accept As above. We provide Level 1 general training, Level 2 Advanced and Level 3 specific conditions. Every year we train nursery staff – approx 80 per year plus ongoing for those who have completed training in previous years. In addition we will be providing training for the Teaching Assistants involved in the PIT project. We carry out whole school training on a regular basis for mainstream and special schools. We have been involved in providing yearly training on ASD and Specific language disorder jointly with Education staff

To inform partners about the type of data that is collected and make information available to partners in the Health and Wellbeing directorate to inform service provision. Lead Officer: Alison Markwell, Assistant Director Children’s Services, CHS Continuation of the Nursery Project support/training packages and PIT project Lead officer: Ann Harvey Head of Service, Paediatric speech and language therapy, CHS






7 The recording and retrieval of the information collected by NHS therapists is essential for successful collaboration, so additional administrative support and an improved IT system should be set up in order to achieve standardised data collection for SALT by March 2012.

As above, clarification is needed for this issues. Due to patient confidentiality we cannot make our clinical notes available to non NHS therapists or staff. However, all reports, care plans and target sheets are given to all professionals involved with a child unless parents do not give permission. CHS Trust will be implementing a new computer system during the next 9 months.

Croydon Health is aware of the access to computers issue that clinicians have and are in the process of upgrading equipment. Lead Officer: Alison Markwell Assistant Director Children’s Services, CHS

8 An increased provision of 18 extra primary school and 20 secondary school places should be implemented as soon possible.

Accept The SEN and Inclusion Strategy recommends this and the SALT service would be seeking to work in partnership in the development of new resource bases. The funding for therapy provision will need to be factored in to the provision and organised in a timely way so that parents can be confident in the provision

SEN Capital investment plan to deliver 12 additional primary places and 12 additional secondary places from September 2012 and a further 12 secondary places from September 2013. Lead officer: Linda Wright, Head of Service for Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN, Croydon Council

9 More effective partnerships should be developed between schools and specialist services

Accept The SALT department recognise that some negative perceptions of the service remain but are working hard to change this by giving clear messages, high quality communication and accurate information about service performance to all service users. Feed back via the organisation “Just a Minute” cards over the last year has been very positive.

The PIT project has been presented to senior management staff in primary schools via 3 launch events and will provide a structured support network. Lead Officer: Ann Harvey Head of Service, Paediatric speech and language therapy, CHS

10 Capacity for outreach and preventative work with schools should be enhanced.

Accept The expansion in provision (see recommendations 8 and 11) will increase capacity for outreach and prevention

.Develop specifications for new provision Lead officer: Linda Wright, Head of Service for Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN, Croydon Council






11 The SEN Strategy should be revised to address the under provision of SALT for secondary school children.

Accept The SEN strategy includes the development of secondary SALT provision

SEN Capital investment plan to deliver 12 additional secondary places from September 2012 and a further 12 places from September 2013 (see recommendation 8) Lead officer: Linda Wright, Head of Service for Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN, Croydon Council

12 SALT sessions should be provided on Saturday mornings to avoid children being taken out of school, which may support those families on a lower income who are unable to travel to centres if not based close to home.

Reject The development of speech, language, communication skills cannot be isolated form the communicative and learning context. However, the SALT service will undertake a feasibility study.

13 SALT provision in main stream schools should be increased.

Accept The PIT project should address some of the issues raised.

Please see Action Points 4 & 6

14 Arrangements for providing feedback to parents/carers on their child’s progress should be improved and made consistent

Accept Many parents have commented that they have valued bringing their child to therapy in clinic rather than accessing school based sessions because they can be part of the process. Parents are invited to school based appointments but rarely attend. The therapists that only offer school based input, e.g. special schools, are reviewing their communication with parents and it is hoped that parents will experience a significant difference in the future.

The SALT service will work with the Trust patient partnership officer to develop more effective ways of providing feedback for parents Lead officer: Ann Harvey Head of Service, Paediatric speech and language therapy






15 There should be an increased provision of SALT in Special Schools as SLCN cannot be separated from more complex needs.

The LA have significantly increased the funding for SALT provision in Special schools. However, small classes, high staff pupil ratios, staff experienced with the client group, ongoing training and support from therapists increase the opportunities for children to benefit from a language rich environment and curriculum delivery with highly integrated language targets. Evidence is very clear that children with learning difficulties make better progress if language learning is fully integrated to their learning context. The role of the therapist is therefore to ensure that school staff have the resources, understanding, and support to deliver language learning constantly throughout the day. However, the LA have recently provided additional funding for therapists in special schools to the amount of 2 fte

Maintain current, increased levels of SALT provision within special schools and review with head teachers how this is managed and targeted. Lead officer: Linda Wright, Head of Service for Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN, Croydon Council

16 SLCN support groups should be established reporting to the Children and Families Partnership Board

We would agree and support this

Children and Families Partnership LDD subgroup to monitor progress on implementing the Scrutiny recommendations Lead officer: Linda Wright, Head of Service for Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN, Croydon Council

17 Recognition and increased support should be given by the Children and Families Partnership Board to self help/support groups

We would agree and support this A priority within the work of the LDD sub-group is to ‘ensure parents and carers have appropriate information, advice and support to engage confidently in decisions affecting their children’s education and support’.

Children and Families Partnership LDD subgroup to monitor progress on delivering this priority with regard to SLCN Lead officer: Linda Wright, Head of Service for Inclusion, Learning Access and SEN, Croydon Council

PUBLIC ACCESS TO COUNCIL INFORMATION

No. TASK AND FINISH WORKING

GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS

CABINET RESPONSE (To accept, reject or amend the

recommendation)

ACTION PLAN AND IDENTIFIED OFFICER (IF RECOMMENDATION ACCEPTED)

COST IF IMPLEMENTED

1 Freedom of Information requests should be published on the Council’s website in a format that allows customers to search previous enquiries and their responses in a designated transparency section that is easily found from the homepage.

Accept

Hayley Lewis Within existing budgets.

2 Information outlining the public’s rights of access to information should also be included on the website in a prominent position to enable users to understand their rights of access.

Accept


3 The Scrutiny & Overview Committee should receive a report reviewing the Council’s performance responding to FoI requests at the April 2012 meeting of the Committee.

Accept


4 The level of public interest in the financial expenditure data should be monitored during its first year of publication to ascertain whether there is sufficient demand to justify allocating resources to redesign the payments system to provide more detailed information.

Accept - the amounts of hits on the “payments over £500” web page have

been monitored and do not justify more work to redesign the system as they average less than 70 per month so far in this financial year (2011/12).

Richard Simpson Not currently known until assessment of need is ascertained


No.

TASK AND FINISH WORKING GROUP

RECOMMENDATIONS


recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

5 Croydon Council should seek to emulate the examples of best practice displayed by authorities such as the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, the London Boroughs of Barnet and Hammersmith & Fulham and the GLA. Data should be published in the formats required by public demand, rather than just a spreadsheet, to enable residents to easily understand what their money is being spent on.

We currently publish this information in Acrobat and Excel which are

readily accessible and follow the recommendations of the Code of

Recommended Practice

Richard Simpson Within existing budgets.

6 A dedicated area of the website should be developed to host an improved Publication Scheme, raw datasets and other statistics. Links to this area should be clearly visible on the Council’s front page and labelled so that it is clear to the public (for example ‘Transparency in the Council’)

Accept Julie Belvir Not currently known until assessment of need is ascertained.

7 Croydon Council should seek to identify which datasets are of most interest by engaging local independent software developers, programmers and other interested members of the open data community in an open and frank dialogue in order to inform the Council’s approach to greater transparency.

Amend Aiden McManus By the end of March 2012

Consider against the current basis by which the

Council makes data available and implement subject to the costs and benefit involved in doing

so.

Subject to the number of datasets and level of

engagement.


No.


RECOMMENDATIONS


recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

8 Croydon Council should develop greater transparency in all its services, including those delivered by external contractors. Measures to ensure openness should be incorporated into commissioning and contract management, as long as commercial sensitivity is not compromised, and Croydon Council should seek to establish an overarching commitment to transparency from all of its providers.

Accept Sarah Ireland Within existing budgets.

9 Officer resources to prepare data for release should be allocated to ensure that data is published as early as possible, with the publishing of new data incorporated into officer best practice.

We publish the monthly financial information by the 15th of the following

month

Richard Simpson Within existing budgets


No.


RECOMMENDATIONS


recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

10 Information such as councillor allowances, the register of interests and meeting attendance should be published online where available and not of a sensitive nature. To ensure individuals’ privacy, councillors should be given the opportunity to redact information of a personal or sensitive nature from the published register of interests.

Reject at this stage. We will review again once details of the Localism Act

are known.

Members Interests - At their meeting held on 13 June 2007 the Standards Committee considered a report “Members’ Declarations of Interests and the Council’s Website” (click here). The Committee agreed (see Minute A32/07):

"RESOLVED that, following consideration of the results of the consultation with stakeholders regarding the implications of including Members’ Register of Interests on the Council’s website, it be recommended that web registers should not proceed."

Allowances - (This information is available online) http://www.croydon.gov.uk/democracy/elected/generalinfo/membersallowances. The Allowances Notice for 2010-11 include expenses in the total figure for each member.

Attendance - (This information is available online) This information is contained within the Minutes of each ‘committee’ which are online - http://www.croydon.gov.uk/democracy/dande/minutes/

It is estimated that to provide online system

for Register of Interests/attendance

information would cost in the region of £30,000

in plus annual maintenance and

support costs. There are no resources

allocated in the budget 2011/12 for this new activity so it would

require a bid for growth in 2012/13.


No.


RECOMMENDATIONS


recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

11 A dedicated Transparency & Accountability Champion within the Cabinet and CMT should be assigned responsibility to drive greater openness.

Amend The responsibility for the transparency of data lies within the Corporate Resources and Customer Services department and therefore is the responsibility of the Executive Director through a number of routes:-

- Finance – the transparency of our financial transactions published on a monthly basis is an accessible format. - Customer Services – dealing with FOI and Complaints and the establishment of all FOI responses on the Council’s website - Corporate Services – Information Management - Strategy, Commissioning, Procurement & Performance – publication of strategies and performance management data. Responsibility for the maintenance of the Council’s Publication Scheme lies with the Director of Democratic and Legal Services. The aims of the scrutiny recommendation can be achieved without the need to create a designated officer within the organisation. The organisation has already been provided with a clear steer to set transparency as the default operational mode but further emphasis from this scrutiny is clearly welcomed.


No.


RECOMMENDATIONS


recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

12 Ways of making the data contained within committee reports available as separate downloads and amending the committee report template should be considered and assessed for their feasibility.

Partly Accept. There is a legal requirement to keep committee data for six years and separating the data

from the committee item might confuse these obligations

Julie Belvir By the end of May 2012

This will require consideration of budget

implications.

Cost to be assessed subject to feasibility

13 A small-scale pilot project using local developers and datasets from a designated service within the Council should be undertaken to demonstrate the potential benefit and an indication of the cost and resource-requirement of wider data release.

Amend Aiden McManus By the end of July 2012

Consider against the current basis by which the

Council makes data available and implement subject to the costs and benefit involved in doing

so.

Cost to be assessed

Subject to the scale of the pilot.

NEIGHBOURHOODS AND THE BIG SOCIETY

No. TASK AND FINISH WORKING GROUP

RECOMMENDATIONS

CABINET RESPONSE (To accept, reject or amend

the recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

1 A simple process should be available whereby community groups can request a meeting with Cabinet Members to discuss major issues of concern.

Accept

Pam Parkes (Sharon Godman) Groups can request meetings with Cabinet

Members; however, these opportunities can be better advertised though Cabinet Member

bulletins.


No.

TASK AND FINISH WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS


the recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

2 Key agencies (council eg housing, police, CVA, etc.) should be required to keep councillors and key officers appraised of sectors of the community suffering from isolation.

Accept

Pam Parkes (Sharon Godman)

3 The Council's proposed communication hub should include up to date links to the networks which are regularly used by various sectors of the community, such as school websites for young people.

Accept

Pam Parkes (Sharon Godman) This is implicit in the following action contained in

the Strategy: “Setting up a web based community toolkit that

makes it easier for local people to get more involved in their community by March 2012”

4 When undertaking area-based consultation, the Council should contact representative groups as well as individual residents.

Accept This is in place

Pam Parkes (Sharon Godman)

5 The Council should restate its commitment to officer and councillor attendance at community group meetings.

Accept This is in place

Jon Rouse

6 Free training courses on key capacity building skills should be made available to small community groups. If this cannot be achieved within existing funding arrangements, consideration should be given to widening the criteria of the small grants fund to include such provision.

Accept

Pam Parkes (Sharon Godman) Infrastructure organisations are funded to provide

capacity building support. Training support available to voluntary and community

organisations is also outlined in several actions in the Strategy action plan.


No.

TASK AND FINISH WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS


the recommendation)


COST IF IMPLEMENTED

7 The Council should practise and encourage the distribution of important web links, including links for the community hub, to as many other websites as practically possible, in order to maximise access to them.

Accept

Pam Parkes (Sharon Godman) The Council distributes links through e-bulletins and other mechanisms. Links to the community

hub will be distributed widely.

8 The Council should inform the public of policy changes following the implementation of the Localism Bill, making effective use of all communication channels available.

Accept

Jon Rouse Information will be circulated through Bigger

Stronger Society e-bulletin and a range of other communication channels.

9 In order for the power granted under the Localism Bill to be used wisely to improve services, Councillors should consult Council officers to ascertain what regulations should be repealed to improve efficiency.

Accept

Jon Rouse

10 Councillors' role in community development should be included in the councillor induction and on-going training programmes.

Julie Belvir/Sharon Godman: Currently exploring offering equalities training

around fostering good relations.

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Safer Croydon Partnership – 26 April 2012:

1. That the Police and the council should take every opportunity to build a positive image of Neighbourhood Watch as an instrument for strengthening community spirit in the borough, through such means as community awards, presentations to recognise the achievements of co-ordinators, etc.

2. That an article on Neighbourhood Watch be published on a yearly basis in the private landlords’ newsletter to reinforce landlords’ awareness of the need for effective crime prevention in privately rented properties and their vicinity

3. The working group would be keen to see the good practice established in a number of wards in Croydon applied across the borough. Therefore, they recommend that police officers who have developed effective joint working arrangements with Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators should be given the opportunity to share this good practice with other Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) so that more officers may be encouraged to adopt such working arrangements

4. That the local activity update sheets produced by SNTs should record joint work carried out with Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators - this is already the case with some SNTs but not current practice across the borough

5. That the “victim of crime” letters sent by the police and subsequent visits to their recipients should include a mention of the benefits of Neighbourhood Watch, and that police should provide residents with information leaflets provided by the Croydon Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association either when providing crime prevention advice or when visiting after a recent burglary

6. That support be given to ward panel chairs to develop the membership and effectiveness of their panel

7. That good practice and challenges relating to Neighbourhood Watch involvement in ward panels should become a regular discussion item at ward

panel chairs' meetings

8. That the council should continue to support the annual Neighbourhood Watch conference by offering a conference room such as the Council Chamber and break-out rooms or areas to the association for that purpose at no charge

9. That the council’s communications should make effective and judicious use of existing newsletters and bulletins including Your Croydon, e-communications and other media to disseminate publicity regarding Neighbourhood Watch

10. That the activity of Community Watch and Cocoon Watch action plans be monitored on a quarterly basis to assess their effectiveness at addressing the particular needs of the areas they were designed to protect

To the Standards Committee – 24 April 2012

11. That the Members’ Learning and Development Panel should commission the Croydon Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association to brief councillors on the work of the association and its co-ordinators, and that ward panel chairs be invited to take part in these events to encourage the development of joint work with co-ordinators

To the Scrutiny and Overview Committee – 11 April 2012

12. That a synopsis of the final report of the Scrutiny review of Neighbourhood Watch be sent out via the Croydon Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association to all co-ordinators, ward panel chairs and SNTs in Croydon to highlight the good practice in the borough and to encourage its take-up

[To be added: Recommendations of the working group on ‘ The impact of academy schools on Croydon schools’ ]

Documents

REPORT TO: Scrutiny and Overview Committee 11 April 2012 ... · Annual Report 1. SCRUTINY ANNUAL REPORT 2011-12 The Council’s constitution requires the Scrutiny and Overview Committee