Agenda item

4.1  The chair briefly outlined the role of the sub-committee, which is to scrutinise any council activities or any third party activities which impact on the borough within the Environment, Transport, Communities and Citizenship field. The objective of the scrutiny should be to make cross-party recommendations which enable the council and its partners to operate more effectively, possibly by filling a gap or looking at an issue in a new way.

4.2  The chair explained from experience, the extent of activity the sub-committee could reasonably hope to achieve during the year, in order to reach a position by next May to make recommendations to the main overview and scrutiny committee (OSC).

4.3  He explained that in the current climate any realistic recommendations would need to be cost neutral or to actually save the council resources.

4.4  It was agreed that the main issue for this first meeting was to agree scrutiny topics which members of the sub-committee will need to commit their time to, firstly by filling out the scoping form, and secondly through a time commitment of approximately 5 or 6 days per topic.

4.5  The sub-committee discussed a range of potential scrutiny topics from the list compiled by OSC, outlining  reasons for favouring various options and the added value that could be gained as follows:-

-  Recycling Targets: how the council will achieve the culture change necessary to achieve the targets. Focused on best practice from elsewhere, moving away from consumerism and possible recycling incentives

-  Roadworks: the road permit network scheme and its impact on the borough

-  The Edges of the Borough: looking at cross-borough collaboration at the edges of the borough especially on traffic calming, TFL services, enforcement issues

-  East London Line: how can the council speed up access to better transport in the borough

-  Allotments: the potential for the creation of more allotments on housing estates, innovative use of land, healthy eating projects etc

4.6  It was agreed that for the possible scrutiny areas of roadworks and the East London Line it would be important to gather more information on the current plans before a scoping paper could be prepared.

4.7  On transport issues generally it was agreed that this issue could be a background topic at this stage, gathering information and best practice to be brought forward as appropriate.

4.8  It was agreed that scoping proformas would be prepared by Councillor Neale on Recycling, Councillor Hamvas on the edges of the borough, and the chair on allotments by the Thursday 15 July deadline to facilitate a work planning meeting between the chair and Councillor Hamvas to plan the research work needed over the summer recess.

4.9  The chair confirmed that the next meeting would take place on 13 October 2010. In the meantime, forward agenda planning diary dates would be agreed and all members were welcome to attend these meetings if they are available.

The meeting closed at 8.10pm.