NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

21 FEBRUARY 2024

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’, Young People’s and Climate Change 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 24 November 2023 focussed upon the scrutiny of the Executive Q2 Performance and Finance Management Report, ahead of the members of the Board attending the meeting of the Executive at 11am on Tuesday 28 November 2023.  Some of the issues raised at the Executive meeting by members of the Scrutiny Board are highlighted below:

· The increased demand for Translation and Interpretation Services, what was driving that demand and whether there was capacity in the system to meet it

· The long-term impact of the continued use of Reablement Team capacity to provide domiciliary care

· The relative performance of the North Yorkshire with regard to the take up of NHS Health Checks

· The ability of Children and Young People’s Services to manage and respond to rising demand in the longer term, particularly for Early Help Assessments and Children and Families Assessments

· What is driving the recent increase in school suspensions

· The continued acute shortage of educational psychologists and the impact that this is having on the timeliness of EHC assessments and the development of any planned support

· What more can be done to reduce residual waste and to improve the management of the residual waste that there is, reducing the need for the use of landfill

· The measures being put in place to increase the completion rate for responsive repairs to housing stock.

Updates were also provided by the Climate Change Champion, the Older People’s Champion and the Young People’s Champion on key elements of their work over the past 3 months.  The themes covered by the updates included:

· Discussions around water quality, specifically the River Nidd

· How the achievement of net zero emissions targets can be supported and accelerated

· The work of the Corporate Parenting Group

· Recent increases in the number of unaccompanied asylum seekers and the associated challenges around housing and accommodation

· The Chief Medical Officer’s annual report, which is focussed health in an ageing society

· The refresh of the ‘Bring me Sunshine’ dementia strategy

· Falls prevention and the support that can be made available to care homes that have a high incidence of falls

· The roll out of and take up of COVID and Flu vaccinations by older people.

Members of Scrutiny Board also held a discussion about the work of the Board and how this could become more focussed upon the practice of and delivery of the scrutiny function in the new Council, the development and co-ordination of the scrutiny committee work programmes and the links with the work of the Area Constituency Committees.    

Members of Scrutiny Board are next due meet at 10am on 16 February 2024.  At that meeting, the Executive Q3 Performance and Finance Management Report will be scrutinised.

COUNCILLOR KARIN SEDGWICK

6 February 2024