NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

17 May 2023

STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF SCRUTINY BOARD

Scrutiny Board brings together the Chairs of the six thematic overview and scrutiny committees at the Council and the Older Peoples’ and Young People’s Champions.  It provides an opportunity for a whole council view of scrutiny activity, which avoids gaps and overlaps and helps establish a lead committee for areas of joint interest.  It also provides a forum in which the key performance issues for the Council can be reviewed and items for further scrutiny identified.

The scrutiny function was created to act as a check on and balance to the executive and it is a statutory requirement for all authorities operating executive arrangements.  There has been one meeting of Scrutiny Board since my last statement to Council.

The meeting of Scrutiny Board on 17 February 2023 focussed upon the scrutiny of the Executive Q3 Performance Monitoring Report, ahead of the members of the Board attending the meeting of the Executive at 11am on Tuesday 21 February 2023.  Some of the issues raised at the Executive meeting by members of the Scrutiny Board are highlighted below:

· The increase in contacts and referrals to children’s social care provision and whether the increase was linked to the pandemic and people not accessing the help and services that they needed early on

· The take up of free school meals and an assessment of the success of the recent media campaign

· The increase in suspensions from school and the reasons for this increase

· The reduction in volunteer hours and the impact that this may have upon some service’s ability to continue to deliver at the same level

· The increase in the patronage for the YorBus (demand responsive) pilot in quarter 3 and the reasons for this increase and the impact that this then has upon the overall cost and viability of the service

· The performance of the Highways Service with regard to the 99% KPI target for ‘Highway dangerous defects to be made safe within 2 hours timescale’ and whether this target is realistic

· The issue of retention of international recruits to adult social care services

· What has been the driver for recent increases in outbreaks of Covid-19.

The Older People’s and Young People’s Champions provided an update on key aspects of their work over the past three months.  A common theme was work that is underway to better understand the experience of living in North Yorkshire as an older person or a young person.

Members of Scrutiny Board are next due meet at 26 May 2023.  At that meeting, the Executive Q4 Performance and Finance Management Report will be scrutinised.

COUNCILLOR KARIN SEDGWICK

2 May 2023