COMMITTEE REF: OSB/03/16 NOTICE OF MEETING OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY BOARD Date : THURSDAY, 24 MARCH 2016 Time : 18:00 Place : COUNCIL CHAMBER TOWN HALL, LUTON Councillors: M. DOLLING (CHAIR) HOPKINS BAKER (VICE-CHAIR) KEENS RAFIQ (VICE-CHAIR) MALIK FRANKS MOLES GREEN RODEN Quorum: 3 elected Members Contact Officer: EUNICE LEWIS (01582 54 7149) EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURE Committee Rooms 1, 2, 4 & Council Chamber: Turn left, follow the green emergency exit signs to the main town hall entrance and proceed to the assembly point at St George's Square. Committee Room 3: Proceed straight ahead through the double doors, follow the green emergency exit signs to the main Town Hall entrance and proceed to the assembly point at St George's Square. Page 1 of 118 AGENDA Agenda Subject Page Item No. 1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE 2 MINUTES 2.1 17th February 2016 - Public Minutes 4 - 7 2.2 - 2nd February - To Follow 2.3 - 17th February - Private Minutes (Members Only) 3 CHAIR'S UPDATE Chair to report on issues since the last meeting. 4 DISCLOSURES OF INTEREST Members are reminded that they must disclose both the existence and nature of any disclosable pecuniary interest and any personal interest that they have in any matter to be considered at the meeting unless the interest is a sensitive interest in which event they need not disclose the nature of the interest. A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest must not further participate in any discussion of, vote on, or take any executive steps in relation to the item of business. A member with a personal interest, which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member’s judgment of the public interest, must similarly not participate in any discussion of, vote on, or take any executive steps in relation to the item of business. Disclosable pecuniary interests and Personal Interests are defined in the Council’s Code of Conduct for Members and Co- opted members. 5 URGENT BUSINESS The Chair to report on any business which is considered to be urgent and which should be discussed at the meeting in accordance with Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972 and to determine when, during the meeting, any such business should be discussed. 6 REFERENCES FROM COMMITTEES AND OTHER BODIES REPORTS 7 Report - Call - In Luton Cultural Services Trust 8 - 25 Report by: Service Director - Policy and Performance Page 2 of 118 8 Progress Update on Barnfield College - Oral 26 - 26 Report Report by: Tim Eyton-Jones, Principal & CEO of Barnfield College 9 Luton Adult Learning Annual Self-Assessment 27 - 89 Report Report by: Tom Molloy - Luton Adult Learning 10 Declaration of Air Quality Management Area 90 - 103 (AQMA) And Amendments To Existing AQMA Report by: Liz Bailey, Team Manager, Food, Safety & Environment 11 Luton Skills and Employability Strategy 2016- 104 - 106 2020 - Report Report by: Paul Adams - Service Manager (Public Protection & Economic Growth) 12 Report of OSB Work Programme 107 - 118 Report by: Democracy & Scrutiny Officer 13 LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972, PART VA To consider whether to pass a resolution under Regulation 21(1)(b) of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2000 to exclude the public from the meeting during consideration of the item(s) listed below as it is likely, that if members of the public were present during the transaction of the item(s), exempt information within the meaning of the Paragraph(s) of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 indicated next to the item, would be disclosed to them. Page 3 of 118 AGENDA ITEM 2.1 MINUTES OF THE OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY BOARD (OSB) 17th FEBURARY 2016 at 6.00 P.M PRESENT: COUNCILLORS Councillor M. Dolling (Chair), Councillor Baker (Vice Chair) Councillor Rafiq (Vice Chair), Franks, Green, Hopkins, Keens, Malik, Moles and Roden PUBLIC ACTION 10. MINUTES (REF: 2.1) Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 13th January 2016 be taken as a correct record and the chair be authorised to sign them. 11. CHAIR'S UPDATE (REF: 3) The following updates were made: The Asset Management Plan was a private and confidential document sent out in error and published on the website as a public document, which has now been removed. The presentation by the Service Director, Fixed Assets will be taken in private under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972. Following the special OSB meeting on 2nd February 2016 the Police and Crime Commissioners sent a letter of apology to Councillor Franks regarding the Governments shift to give PCCs the responsibility to take over Fire and Rescue Services. Bedfordshire PCC now takes the view the suggestion is not completely off the agenda. Ofsted Inspection– the Chair was interviewed as Chair of the Children’s Services Review Group and will invite the Director of Children and Learning to report the outcome back to a future meeting once the final report is published. Recruitment of Social Workers Task and Finish Group – has been delayed due to the mini restructure of the Democracy Team and the forthcoming PCC elections. The Democracy and Scrutiny Team Leader will meet with Cllrs Hopkins and Green on Monday (22nd) to seek clarification for the Task and Finish Group, and an expression of interest email will be sent out to all non-executive members. The Equalities Objectives and Equality Charter – this item will be reported to the next meeting (24th March). Cllr Hopkins advised her amendments were passed to the Equalities and Diversity Manager to incorporate into the document. Resolved: That the above updates be noted. Page 4 of 118 12. CORPORATE PERFORMANCE 2015-16 QUARTER 3 (REF: 8) Israr Siddique, Corporate Senior Performance Analyst presented the report (Ref: 8) which requested the Board to make any comments to convey back to the Executive on 7th March 2016. The following advise were given to the questions and comments raised by Members: The reason for some indicators having no target set was due to figures being reported on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. For example, the Decent Streets (Ref 1) target is set twice a year to coincide with surveys carried out. The last survey took place in January and the results of that will be reported in the Quarter 4 Performance report. The Board needs to decide how it wishes such indicators should be reported in the future. Some indicators figures were found to be an amalgamation across the quarters which were then repeated (e.g. Ref 7 – Net profit achieved through external trading). To make such indicators more meaningful in future reports they will have a supplementary dialogue and table to show the different areas with break downs. Officers were in the process of developing the 2016/17 indicators to be drawn from a number of different sources such as the prospectus in terms of what works and what does not work and the Council’s priorities. Members will be consulted and have the opportunity to include indicators on things reported on during the year e.g. social workers and agency costs. Public opinions on council services was measured historically through a general satisfaction survey through the citizens panel and Officers to explore this further. Resolved: (i) That the Quarter 3 performance report be commended to the Executive meeting on 7th March 2016 (ii) That the number of children looked after per 10,000 population aged under 18 (Ref 23) be reported to a future meeting of the Children’s Services Review Group in more detail. 13. REVISED COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE (REF: 9) Bren McGowan, Partnership Manager presented the report (Ref 9) which requested comments on the draft revised corporate complaints procedure. He advised the business intelligence review brought together staff dealing with complaints into one area. The council’s complaints procedure was currently a three stage process and where complainants remained dissatisfied they could then approach the Local Government Ombudsman. Page 5 of 118 The draft complaints procedure reduces the three stage process down to two stages investigation and review which would allow Service departments to work towards a resolution outside of the corporate procedure. This was to allow the corporate procedure only to be issued for complaints which cannot be resolved informerly. The following comments were made on the Draft Complaints Procedure: The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) view is 12 weeks allows sufficient enough time for council’s to deal with a complaint. Under the current procedure complaints can take up to 20 weeks. The reduction advocated in the draft is in line with the LGO’s guidance by reducing to a two stage process which would ensure decisions are reviewed and provides sufficient safeguard to check that the response is appropriate and allow complainants speedier access to the LGO. It was agreed to reduce from 3 to 2 stage complaints procedure. The LGO guidance of a complaint is defined as “an expression of dissatisfaction about a council service (whether that service is provided directly by the council or by a contractor or partner) that requires a response. There is no difference between a ‘formal’ and an informal complaint. Both are expressions of dissatisfaction that require a response.” The above definition was difficult to understand and the Officer to develop a more simpler worded definition. To allow 20 working days ‘where operationally possible’ at both stages. It was agreed to allow 20 days for each stage. The proposal includes a discretionary statement which allows the council not to investigate at stage 2 but to refer the complainant to the LGO Categorisation of complaints as many complaints may fall into multiple categories and officer may define similar complaints in different ways.