NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

26 February 2025

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIR OF THE CORPORATE & PARTNERSHIPS OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

Since the Chairman’s last statement to Council on 13 November 2024, the Corporate & Partnership Overview and Scrutiny Committee has met once on 2 December 2024, when the Committee considered the following items of business:      

· Transformation Update

· Workforce Update

· Council Plan 2024-28 Development Update

· Resilience & Emergencies Annual Update 2023-24

· Report on Notices of Motion at full Council in November 2024

The Committee received the transformation update from the new interim Director of Transformation giving her perspective on progress.  This included an overview of the two-stage approach being taken to deliver fundamental change within the organisation i.e. convergence (bringing together the 8 legacy councils into one new Authority and carrying out the necessary restructuring of staff) and transformation (delivering ambitious improvements to deliver the MTFS savings and ensure the successful long-term operation of the Council).  The Committee was pleased to note the Council’s ability to deliver the convergence work inhouse to date, which would have proved costly if external consultants had been used.  Members were keen to understand the IT Architecture road map for the convergence works and requested it be included in their next Transformation update. 

The focus of the workforce update was on attendance levels and wellbeing in the Environment Directorate. The Committee noted the factors thought to be influencing the higher than expected non-attendance levels in the Environment Directorate and the actions taken to date to address them.  In particular the planned moved to a 4-day week in waste (4x10hr days) The Committee agreed to monitor the effectiveness of the range of actions taken and requested a further update in 12 months’ time.

The Committee received a progress report on the development of the Council Plan 2024-28 but agreed that without the draft Plan to consider alongside the report, it was not possible to comment and/or contribute.  The Committee deferred consideration of the Plan to its March 2025 meeting and requested that future annual updates be timed to allow for the inclusion of the draft Plan.

The Committee considered the Resilience & Emergency related incidents that had taken place during 2023-24 and were disappointed to note the decreasing number of Community Emergency Plans in place.  Members also noted the development of a new Community Resilience Policy and the intention to invite Members to some community resilience workshops to be held in early 2025.

Finally, the Committee considered a report presenting information in response to two Motions received at full Council in November 2024.  The first of those concerned Youth Council Engagement and the second around understanding the potential impact of decisions made by the Council on local communities.  In both cases, the Committee having considered the information provided, agreed to recommend that neither Motion be supported – see the Committee’s Motions report shown elsewhere on this meeting’s agenda

COUNCILLOR ANDREW WILLIAMS