Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest to report.

There were no questions from members of the public or the press.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Tim Mumford, Assistant Chief Executive (Legal and Democratic Services), which provided information to Members in respect of the 2008/09 outturn position plus the latest monitoring against the 2009/10 revenue budget as part of the first stage of the budget setting process for 2010/11.

The report set out in detail the 2008/09 Revenue Outturn Position and the main variations relating to:-

·              Chief Executive's Office (£36k underspend).

·              Communications, Policy & Performance (£15k overspend).

·              Scrutiny and Member Services (£588 underspend).

·              Members Training & Development (£9k underspend).

·              Human Resources (£4k overspend).

·              Legal and Democratic Services (£468 underspend).

Attention was also drawn to Revenue Budget Monitoring 2009/10 and the summary forecast net revenue budget outturn position (as at 31st August, 2009) for Chief Executive’s Directorate which highlighted:-

·              There were several vacancies and staff secondments across the Directorate which were offsetting other minor overspends and was, therefore, helping it achieve a break-even position.

·              The Rotherham newspaper was partially funded by contributions from the Human Resources Recruitment Management System package, but due to the current economic climate the number of advertisements being placed had reduced, leading to a probable year end pressure. This was being quantified and would be included in the next Budget Monitoring Report.

·              Transport fleet – the drivers currently undertook non-contractual, unbudgeted overtime. Working schedules were under review which should enable this budget to breakeven at year end.

It was noted that the Council currently had an estimated funding gap of £11.5 million to set a balanced budget for 2010/11. Within the Directorate a number of potential savings were identified within the service areas with work currently underway to identify additional savings to contribute to closing this funding gap. These would be brought forward for Member consideration during the budget process.

Discussion ensued and questions were raised and answered.

It was agreed that a breakdown of costs of the light transport fleet and “Rotherham News” would be circulated to Members.

Resolved:-  That the outturn position as at 31st March, 2009 and the Revenue Budget Monitoring Report for the period 1st April, 2009 to 31st August, 2009 be noted.

PC Perry Mangles from Rotherham’s  Anti-Social Behaviour Unit gave a short presentation on Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, what they were, how they could be obtained, examples of anti-social behaviour, how many had been sought in Rotherham and examples of who had been served with them.

Discussion ensued and questions were raised and answered.

Resolved:-  (1)  That PC Perry Mangles be thanked for his informative discussion.

(2)  That a further report on the impact, effectiveness and trends of operating ASBO’s and ABC’s be submitted to a future meeting of this Scrutiny Panel.

Consideration was given to a report introduced by Deborah Fellowes, Policy, External and Regional Affairs Manager, and Ian Squires, Regeneration Funding Manager, which provided a detailed update of the Neighbourhood Renewal Transitional Funding (NRF T/F) Programme 2008-11 including the current projects with and without approval within each Theme.  It also gave details regarding the project exit strategies and explained the position on this nature of funding both currently and for the future.

The NRF Transitional Funding Commissioning Plan was written to assist with the distribution of the Funds.   This plan outlined a commissioning process drawn from the framework and guided specifically by the checklist contained within it. 

It also drew on learning from previous commissioning processes; NRF 2006-08 and Children’s Fund.  It also took into account the findings from the evaluation and scrutiny review of the NRF Programme 2006-08.  Finally it had been developed in consultation with the relevant funding bodies, in this case Yorkshire Forward and GOYH.

This approach has created a streamlined light touch process, transparency, development of projects, identification for delivery and evaluation of the impact.

The report also set out the current themes, current position of the programme and exit strategies and other funding sources.

Discussion ensued and questions were raised and answered.

Members questioned the fairness of using the length of highway as part of the determination of Area Assembly devolved budgets.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the contents of the report and presentation be noted.

(2)  That Streetpride be contacted for them to explain their method of apportioning funds and that this explanation be fed back to the Panel verbally.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Paul Griffiths, Community Liaison Officer, which provided a summary of spending activity around the Elected Members Community Leadership Fund for the financial year 2008-9 and options for the future administration of the fund.

The fund was considered to be of high value through its ability to enhance the role of Councillors within local communities.

Further information was, therefore, provided on the expenditure for 2008/09 and 2009/10.

Members welcomed this funding becoming part of the core budget, together with the operation of the scheme and the wide range of projects being supported.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the contents of the report be noted.

(2)  That the performance against the Community Leadership Fund for 2008-09 be noted.

(3)  That further options be considered to ensure maximum value for money was achieved from the fund and that a further report be submitted to this Panel outlining these in more detail, together with details of comparisons with other Local Authorities.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Ben Knight, Scrutiny Support Officer, which detailed how Participatory Budgeting (PB) was a mechanism that allowed the citizens of an area (neighbourhood, regeneration or local authority area) to participate in the allocation of part of the local Council’s available financial resources.

It also aimed to increase transparency, accountability, understanding and social inclusion in local government affairs and applied to a varying amount of the local Council’s budget with the actual process developed to suit local circumstances.

In practice, participatory budgeting provided citizens with information that enabled them to be engaged in prioritising the needs of their neighbourhoods, propose and debate new services and projects and set budgets in a democratic and transparent way.

There was no universal way of applying participatory budgeting. Methodologies varied from city to city, but typically it involved allocating between two to three percent of the annual revenue budgets and sometimes the allocation of new investments. The process involved citizens taking into account both the demand and supply of services and public infrastructure.

Participatory budgeting small grants schemes have been set up using money allocated from a variety of sources including neighbourhood renewal funds, community council precepts, local strategic partnerships, neighbourhood management funds, new deal for communities funds and housing funds.

Participatory budgeting could be applied to some local authority main stream budgets. Part of these budgets could be “top-sliced” and allocated to wards or neighbourhoods to be spent according to residents’ priorities. In this way residents would influence the Council’s departmental priorities.

Most local authorities carried out a yearly budget consultation with the public, but this was often limited to paper correspondence and had a limited time scale. If the consultation process started at the beginning of the budget year, instead of the end, there would be scope to apply a participatory budgeting process.

The report set out in more detail the other possible options for using a participatory budgeting approach, how the participatory budgeting process benefited Local Government, benefits to citizens and the private sector and how the process was managed abroad.  A number of examples of how the participatory budgeting process had been successful in the U.K. were also provided.

This report was welcomed as a pre-cursor to the Scrutiny Review of Participatory Budgeting to be commenced shortly.  It was suggested that the South Yorkshire Police Authority scheme of participatory budgeting be looked at as part of this review.

Resolved:-   That the contents of this report be noted.

Further to Minute No. 80 of the meeting of the Performance and Scrutiny Overview Committee held on 23^rd October, 2009, consideration was given to a report which provided information about the Government’s national CONTEST Counter-Terrorism Strategy and Prevent Strategy and the progress made in Rotherham to respond to this agenda.

The report set out in more detail the four main workstreams of the Strategy known as Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare.  Local partners were responsible for delivering the Prevent workstream, the aim of which was to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. CONTEST made it clear that Prevent built on and was linked to the Government’s wider work to create strong, cohesive and empowered communities, based on a commitment to common and shared values.

Further information was provided on:-

·              The Threat.

·              Scale of the Threat.

·              The Prevent Strategy.

·              The Prevent Framework.

·              Rotherham Partnership’s Response.

·              The Next Steps.

The Rotherham Prevent Action Plan was based on the priorities for Rotherham identified by the Guardian Group in accordance with the Prevent Strategy, taking into account the local context.  Rotherham’s Counter Terrorism Local Profile was also informing the local Prevent agenda, so that activities were in line with and proportionate to local circumstances.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the progress made against the Prevent agenda be noted.

(2)  That a presentation be made to this Scrutiny Panel on this initiative, possibly by Councillor Hussain, Cabinet Member for Community Development and Engagement.

Resolved:-  That the minutes of the meeting of the Democratic Renewal Scrutiny Panel held on 17^th September, 2009 be approved as a correct record for signature by the Chairman.

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meetings of the Cabinet Member for Community Development and Engagement held on 14^th September and 12^th October 2009.

Resolved:-  That the contents of the minutes be noted.

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meeting of the Performance and Scrutiny Overview Committee held on 9^th October, 2009.

Resolved:-  That the contents of the minutes be noted.

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meetings of the Members’ Training and Development Panel held on 17^th September, 2009.

Resolved:-  That the contents of the minutes be noted.