Agenda item

4.1  Members gave consideration to 4 reports as follows:

Draft index for the Council’s Constitution

Part 2 of the Constitution - Article 7

Part 4 of the Constitution - O&S Procedure Rules

Part 4 of the Constitution- Call-in procedure rules.

4.2  The Chair stated that the purpose of the time was to discuss and collate the views of Panel Members to present to the Constitution Committee for consideration as part of its review of the Constitution.  She welcomed for this item:

Dawn Carter-McDonald (DCM), Director of Legal, Democratic and Electoral Services 

Louise Humphreys (LH), Head of Legal and Governance

4.3  DCM introduced the reports and LH gave an overview.  She explained that a major focus was to ensure use of plain english.  The Committee had Members from all parties as well as officers from legal and governance. They were not changing how the Council operated and not proposing substantive changes to the Committees, nor were they seeking to amend issues around balance of power. The focus purely was on amending wording to improve clarity and increase public accessibility. The timetable was for the revised Constitution to be adopted in July of this year, preceded by a public engagement. She added that this timeframe was tight but was achievable in their view. A key task relevant to Scrutiny was their intention to extract the O&S procedure rules on Call In, for example, and to make that available in a more accessible and public friendly format as the public would benefit from greater clarity on how ‘call-in’ works.

4.4  The Chair commented that the Panel needed to look at how the document makes the Scrutiny function more accessible to the public and to consider how it assists Scrutiny to work more collaboratively.  She explained that there continued to be a vacant position as Vice Chair of the Scrutiny Panel which had remained vacant for 6 years as it had not been taken up by the Main Opposition Group. She noted that the members of the, now, Second Opposition Group were present at this meeting and she welcomed Cllr Garbett and Cllr Binnie-Lubbock.

Questions from Members of Scrutiny Panel

4.5  Members agreed that a separate document on Call In would really assist and the issue was one of presentation particularly about how easy it was to access on the Council’s website. Members agreed that this is where the focus needed to be.

4.6  Members asked whether Health in Hackney Scrutiny Commission’s formal powers to refer an issue to the Secretary of State was delegated to HiH or if it was a reserved power by Full Council, noting that changes to a Statutory Regulation had altered this in the past. DCM undertook to come back on this.

ACTION:

Director of Legal, Democratic and Electoral Services to clarify whether the formal powers to refer a health matter to the Secretary of State sits with Health in Hackney or is a reserved function of Full Council.

4.7  The Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums highlighted for Members some of the provisions in the paper where Members’ guidance was sought:

Re pt 18 on p23 to consider whether to retain the requirement to inform the Monitoring Officer of requests for officers attendance at Scrutiny. Currently the team goes directly to the officers. The Chair proposed this be reworded so it is not a formal procedure but that a check and balance requirement remains

Re pt 3.1 under Call-in, the number of days, currently ‘x’ needs clarifying.  LH explained that the Working Group will resolve this and the procedure is that it is 5 days after the publication of the Decision Sheet, which is normally the day after the committee meeting took place.

Cabinet has created a number of Commissions under its own aegis and, to avoid confusion among the public, Members’ should consider that ‘Scrutiny Commissions’ be renamed as ‘Scrutiny Committees’. 

Members also needed to give further consideration whether ‘Living In Hackney Scrutiny Commission’ could be renamed. ‘Climate Homes and Environment ‘was one of a number of options under consideration.

4.8  Members asked if there could be greater clarity on the scopes of LiH Commission vis a vis SEG Commission in relation to consideration of issues resulting from large regeneration schemes because the Commission with a remit for Housing would also need to be involved.

4.8  Cllr Garbett (Green Party), present as a guest, commented that ‘Climate’ was missing from the scopes and there needed to be a stronger narrative on this.  ‘Living in Hackney’ as a name was not clear to residents and the option of ‘Climate Homes and Economy’, for example, would not include policing, which also needed to be included. Members also asked if residents who had contributed to the Scrutiny Survey early last year could be updated on actions taken.

4.9  Members asked about the power of Scrutiny to “call in” the police.  The Head of Scrutiny reminded the Panel that Living in Hackney only has the power to scrutinise the Community Safety Partnership and that oversight of delivery by the police is the remit of Safer Neighbourhoods Board, which is a body created under the Metropolitan Police.

4.10  There was a discussion on possible new names for Living in Hackney SC. Members commented that the current name was too vague. That framing of ‘homes’ as a distinct item was also problematic. There was a view that a standalone commission on Housing would allow more time for longer and more in depth pieces of work where issues could be explored in more depth and with more robust follow up. Currently the pressures on the agenda meant that it was a challenge to cover housing to the extent needed as well as policing and environment etc.  Members added that housing issues took up 90% of case work of some councillors. Some basic benchmarking with neighbouring boroughs demonstrated that some had dedicated commissions and one had up to 10 committees. The Chair commented that this was outside the remit of this item but some important points had been made.

4.11  Members commented on the cross commission work on climate change which had been done last year. The Chair commented that cross cutting issues need to be considered and embedded and led at Scrutiny Panel where necessary.  Members commented that the burden on each commission should be looked at. One of the concerns was that policing should be across CYP and LIH as it needs an ‘whole  family’ approach on such aspects as mental health and transition to adult services. It was suggested that Members might like to agree areas of work suitable for a joint commission and how that might be accommodated. A Member commented whether a Task and Finish Group might be an option to carry out a deep dive into particular areas.

4.12  Members commented that 8 years previously they had reduced the number of Commissions from 5 to 4 and this was partly driven by a desire to have a dedicated officer resource for each Commission. It was noted that Hackney had the best resourced Scrutiny function  in London and creating an additional commission would mean fewer resources for existing commissions. 

4.13  The Head of Scrutiny commented that the previous external review of the function had recommended 1:1 officer support per Commission and there was no budgetary scope to increase the size of the function. She added that currently Task and Finish Groups come out of the Scrutiny Panel. Other options might be for LiH to devote a year to Housing issues alone, for example. Likewise on Community Safety, while there was no impediment on doing joint pieces of work but that the specific statutory responsibility would need to sit formally with one Commission/Committee.  On Climate Change each Commission had done a piece of work on it and this would be drawn together at the next Scrutiny Panel meeting.

 4.14  The Chair of LiH commented that devoting a whole year on LiH to Housing was not practical but how best to handle housing issues within the framework needed further examination.

4.15  The Chair thanked Members for their comments on the constitutional reviews aspects and stated that what is needed is a flexible collaborative scrutiny function that hears the voices of the public and the Scrutiny function needs a Council Constitution that assists with this.  It was important to remind ourselves too that Scrutiny is a central part of the Mayoral system and scrutiny cannot exist without it and there needs to be a robust system of checks and balances, she added.

4.16  DCM thanked Members for their helpful input. LH undertook to provide a response and to give the issues raised further consideration at the Constitution Committee.  DCM praised the excellent meeting which had been done on the ‘Child Q’ issue between LiH and CYP and commented that it had worked well to address a single issue which had cross cutting ramifications.

4.17  The Chair thanked the officers for their reports and attendance and stated that she would be across the issues as she was also a Member of the Constitution Committee.

RESOLVED:

That the reports and discussion be noted.