Agenda item

The Leader of the Council, Mr D R Parsons CC has been invited to attend for this item.

The Chairman welcomed Mr. D.R. Parsons CC, the Leader of the Council, who had kindly agreed to attend the meeting to answer questions on a range of issues including the performance of the Executive in the last municipal year.

The Commission considered the written questions to be put to the Leader which had been drafted by members of the Scrutiny Reference Group and Chairmen of Scrutiny Committees together with a written response thereto from the Leader.  Copies of the questions and answers are filed with these minutes.

In response to questions and comments the Leader advised the Commission as follows:

(i)         Relationships with District Councils had reached a low ebb during the recent debates about the possibility of local government reorganisation.  At that time he had made it clear that he was committed to the three tier structure of local government in Leicestershire.  In the last few months relationships had improved and good progress had been made on issues such as the Community and Neighbourhood agenda, decriminalised parking enforcement and waste management.  He hoped progress would be made on concessionary travel.

(ii)        Partnership working was key to delivering effective local services.  To that end, he would wish to acknowledge the commitment of the statutory, voluntary and business sector to “Leicestershire Together”.  This had enabled the successful negotiation of the Local Area Agreement.

(iii)       The County Council would continue to pursue its campaign to get ‘fair funding’ for Leicestershire.  He hoped that the Police Service would join the County Council in this campaign as they too were underfunded.

(iv)       The County Council faced a difficult financial situation in the coming financial year.  The Medium Term Financial Plan listed low priority service areas and details of possible service reductions would be submitted to Scrutiny later in the year.

(v)        Whilst he welcomed the effort and commitment of staff in achieving CPA four stars, he was committed to continuous improvement and hence the decision to implement a Change Management Programme.  He believed that the County Council was unique as the only authority with ‘four stars’ that had embarked on such a Change Management Programme.

(vi)       Cabinet Lead and Support Members had now been provided with job descriptions and targets.  He would consider when and how to make that information available.  Cabinet Lead Members did not exercise executive powers and it was his view that decisions should be taken in public by the Cabinet collectively and in a democratic manner. 

(vii)      The role of Cabinet Support Members was to provide support to certain individual Cabinet members in achieving their aims and objectives.  Responsibility for particular issues or projects are allocated to support members.

(viii)     He noted that some authorities had an arrangement where one or two opposition members are invited to attend all Cabinet meetings although he was note aware that this arrangement had worked successfully.

(ix)       He would give further thought to the question of all party working group on Waste Management.

(x)        He welcomed the work undertaken by scrutiny, particularly the work done by scrutiny review panels.  He believed that the continued success of scrutiny would depend upon scrutiny members acting as ‘critical friends’ and not politicising the scrutiny process.  It was also important that Scrutiny developed its practice in examining the work of external bodies.

(xi)       Proposals for engaging with communities would be available for consideration by scrutiny later in the year.  The proposals had been published by Leicestershire Together and were available.  He commended the commitment of all partner agencies.  A Partnership working group had been set up to develop the proposals and identify some early pilots.

The Chairman and members of the Commission thanked the Leader for his attendance and the frankness of his answers.