Test Valley Borough Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee Meeting

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Gregori, Parker, K Brooks and Hasselmann.

There was no public participation.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no urgent items for consideration.

Councillor MacDonald proposed and Councillor Matthews seconded the minutes of the meeting held on 9 October 2024.  Upon being put to the vote the motion was carried.

Resolved:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 9 October 2024 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

There were no call-in items.

Members of the Committee requested that the call-in process be circulated following the meeting and that a briefing session be held to run-through the process.

There were no urgent decisions.

The Chairman introduced Terry Bishop, CEO of Unity, who gave the Committee an update of on the work being undertaken to support the voluntary and community sector across Test Valley.

Unity is governed by 12 trustees represented from the voluntary, education, housing, health, statutory services and the business community.  It is a non-profit charity part-fund by Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC) and Hampshire County Council (HCC), working with local organisations to support vulnerable members of the Test Valley community.  However, it was reported that HCC would soon be withdrawing their funding for infrastructure work meaning Unity will need to look to see where savings can be made in order to provide their own in-house services to enable them to keep providing the value-added support they currently supply.

Unity work in partnership with many organisations across the borough who help to provide feedback from the voluntary sector which helps to inform their priorities.

Members were given an overview of each of Unity’s areas of work which were as follows:

·  Community

·  Finance

·  Digital

·  Health and Care

·  Mobility

·  Transport

·  Volunteering

·  Youth

In response to Members questions the following responses were supplied:

·  The role of Unity has not changed over the years, but services have had to expand in order to bring in income.

·  A decrease in spending for supporting the volunteer sector has not been to the detriment of services due to funding and the organisations success is best measured through talking to volunteer groups and asking questions.

·  The withdrawal of HCC funding will mean Unity going through a restructure process to reallocate resources in order to minimalise impact.

·  Unity provide a range of different services for different groups most of which are free of charge in order to support the wider charity sector.  Social media, e-News and public notices are used to signpost and provide further guidance on the support that can be provided.

·  Unity work in partnership with 6 CVSs (Councils for Voluntary Services) across Hampshire, all of whom meet regularly to discuss how best to work together.

·  Unity work with partner organisations to identify projects across the borough in order to make the business more sustainable.

·  There were 30 volunteers recruited directly within Unity and around 200 volunteers recruited on behalf of voluntary groups last year.

·  Although support from the Council is already excellent, further support could be provided by keeping Unity informed of new emerging groups and sharing Unity’s contact details.

The Chairman thanked Terry for a very informative presentation and requested that the committee’s thanks be conveyed to her team for all their hard work.

Consideration was given to a report of the Chairman, which enabled members to keep the Overview and Scrutiny work programme under review alongside an update on current activity of the committee.

The following Panels were discussed:

Budget Panel – met on 4 November and reviewed the Fees and Charges schedule.  The next meeting will be 13 January.

Housing Panels – the first meetings will be held on 10 December.

Waste collection – a briefing note went out to Councillors and will come back to committee next year.

Tourism roundtable – a meeting has taken place.

Rural matters – a meeting will be held on Wednesday 4 December

The Chairman brought members’ attention to the fact that the Committee were now putting recommendations forward to Cabinet, the latest relating to regeneration and climate and emergency.

Councillor MacDonald proposed and Councillor Gidley seconded the recommendations set out below.  Upon being put to the vote, the motion was carried.

Resolved:

1.  That the current Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme (updated for October 2024), as shown in Annex 1 to the report, be approved.

2.  That the update on Panels, shown in Annex 2 to the report, be noted.

Consideration was given to a report of the Head of Strategy and Innovation which set out the draft digital strategy.  The digital strategy is a high-level set of aims and objectives around how the council will further use digital technology to enable access to services in a way that meets the needs and expectations of residents and service-users now and into the future.  It also set out a commitment to the community leadership role the council can play in supporting wider digital inclusion amongst our different communities across Test Valley.

In developing this strategy, it is recognised that there is an ever-increasing expectation and need to move forward with this work at a greater pace to meet current digital standards and be an organisation with the skills and capacity to provide excellent digital services for our communities and workforce.

The report outlined the steps taken to produce a new digital strategy and the proposed areas of focus, priorities and outcomes and to invite Councillors to comment and discuss these ahead of its submission to Cabinet for approval in January.

The following priorities form the basis of the new strategy:

·  Resident/customer centric approach to digital services - provide easy and fit for purpose digital access to our services and information.

·  Digitally enabled workforce (Enabling our staff to work in a modern and efficient way, to respond to our communities needs and provide high quality services.)

·  Effective and responsible use of data

·  Digital inclusion and accessibility (Support our communities and partners with digital skills and enable digital access to services)

The Committee recognised the relevance and focus of the proposed priorities set out in the draft strategy. However, to scrutinise the draft strategy in more detail the committee would have liked to have seen a greater level of detail in regards timelines, performance indicators and resource implications.

The Head of Strategy and Innovation explained that the document was still in the early stages and that the detail would follow subject to the direction of travel that the priorities point towards being approved.  The strategy will be underpinned by a comprehensive programme of work which the committee could review at a later stage.

Councillor Daas proposed and Councillor MacDonald seconded the recommendation set out in the agenda: 

1.  That the draft Digital Strategy (attached as an Annex to the report) is noted and endorsed.

2.  That the draft Digital Strategy be recommended to Cabinet.

Upon being put to the vote the motion fell.

Following further discussion, the committee agreed that they would like to see more detail in the digital strategy including:

·  Action planning, setting out specific projects

·  Resource planning

·  Timelines

·  Benchmarking and best practice

The strategy will be considered by Cabinet in January and it was confirmed that feedback given by the committee will be shared with cabinet as part of the report that goes forward. 

Consideration was given to a report of the Head of Finance and Revenues which set out the consultation methodology and results for a proposed Council Tax Support Scheme (CTS) for adoption in 2025/26.

The Head of Finance and Revenues advised the committee that the Council Tax Support Panel had met several times prior to a public consultation exercise being undertaken and a further meeting was held to review the outcomes from that consultation. The committee were asked to recommend that the scheme be presented to Cabinet for approval before being presented to full Council in January.

Nearly 400 responses were received from the consultation, which was perceived as enough to be representative in order to move the scheme forward. Councillors were signposted to the comments received and the mitigation responses made by officers.

The Revenues and Welfare Team Leader thanked Councillors for their support with forming the draft scheme and advised that the public consultation on the proposed scheme had been open to residents, or those otherwise affected by the scheme, between the beginning of September 2024 and the end of October 2024.  The following groups were contacted to invite response:

·  All working-age Council Tax Support recipients (as at 9 September 2024).

·  A sample of 2,630 Council Taxpayers, including 612 pension-age households in receipt of Council Tax Support.

·  Approximately 2,500 people on the Test Valley housing register.

The consultation was further publicised via social media, resident, councillor and staff newsletters and through a press release published in the Andover Advertiser.

The responses showed that more residents agreed with the proposed scheme than disagreed on every principle and that the main concern from residents was whether they would lose out and receive less support.  It was advised that very few will be worse off.

The Vice-Chairman thanked the team for their comprehensive work.

Councillor Hughes asked that for those few who would be worse off would the Council take a pro-active approach and contact them directly to signpost them for support where needed.  The Revenues and Welfare Team Leader agreed that they would be guided by the committee.

Councillor MacDonald proposed and Councillor Gillies seconded the recommendations below.  Upon being put to the vote the motion was carried.

Recommended to Cabinet:

1.  That the Committee consider the responses to the consultation carried out on proposed amendments to the Council’s Council Tax Support Scheme for 2025/26.

2.  That a Council Tax Support Scheme for 2025/26, based on the scheme that was publicly consulted, be recommended to Cabinet for approval.