NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

16 July 2025

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

The Corporate & Partnerships Overview & Scrutiny Committee scrutinises the Council’s corporate organisation and structure, resource allocation, asset management, procurement policy, equalities, people strategy, performance management and the implementation of corporate initiatives. Also, partnership working, community development, community engagement, community strategies and community safety.

Since the Chairman’s last statement to Council on 21 May 2025, the Corporate & Partnership Overview and Scrutiny Committee has met twice.  The first time on 9 June 2025 and again on 16 June 2025.  At the first meeting we considered the following items of business:      

· Transformation Update

· Corporate Services Performance Update

· Workforce Annual Update

· Annual Review of Councillor Locality Budgets 2024-25

· Localities Programme Funding

· North Yorkshire Refugee Resettlement Annual Update

· Notice of Motion on the provision of a Disposable Assets Register

The transformation update provided a progress update on ongoing activity within the council, with a specific focus on the Council’s draft Corporate Property Strategy.   The update on the draft Strategy provided us with an overview of its four strategic aims, the 2035 ambition for each and their planned deliverables by 2030, and we considered the key progress to date.  We will be considering the full draft Corporate Property Strategy at our next formal meeting in September 2025, prior to its approval.

We also considered the number of double devolutions deals completed since LGR, recognising that each case was unique and often complex due to the parties involved, requiring a period of negotiation for each.  We were pleased to note that the work to date was well ahead of where was forecast for this stage.

The Committee considered its first Corporate Services performance update and suggested that future quarterly performance reports would benefit from the inclusion of some benchmarking data.

In regard to the annual workforce update, we noted the Council’s intention to carry out a series of post-implementation reviews to ensure the service restructures were delivering the required results. We will be receiving an update on those reviews in six months’ time.  We also requested an analysis of the Council’s working from home arrangements for our December 2025 meeting.

We considered the annual review of Councillor Locality Budgets 2024-25, noting the breakdown of the organisations and types of projects/activities that had been supported throughout the year.  We were pleased to note that the majority of members had fully spent their budget, thought to be as a result of scheme being extended from January 2025 to March 2025.

We went on to consider the Localities Service expenditure and how the range of programmes delivered by the Localities Service were funded, noting the income sources for each of the three Service areas i.e. Communities, Parish Liaison and Local Devolution, and Migrant Programmes and the profile of the spend.

The annual update on refugee resettlement across North Yorkshire in 2024-25, relating to the United Kingdom Resettlement Scheme (UKRS) and Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme reflected on what a busy year it had been, and we noted the progress made.

Finally, we considered information in response to a Notice of Motion given at Full Council in February 2025 proposed by Councillor Kevin Foster stating that the council should provide a comprehensive register of its disposable assets worth £100K or more by 30 June 2025.

Whilst we agreed in principle, we recognised the enormous amount of officer time it would require in order to produce the register, and that it could be subjective as to what would be defined as a disposable asset and how an asset’s value might be assessed.  We also agreed that Members were the most knowledgeable about their individual divisions and therefore best placed to identify local assets that might be suitable for disposal.

Having reflected on Members views, Councillor Kevin Foster confirmed that in the first instance, he would like to take the suggestion of member involvement in identifying assets for disposal to his Area Committee for discussion.  He also confirmed his intention to withdraw his Notice of Motion.

At our second meeting on 16 June 2025, the Committee met with the Deputy Mayor for York & North Yorkshire to consider the recently published Police & Crime Plan 2025-2029 and the Fire & Rescue Plan 2022-2029.

Members took the opportunity to question the Deputy Mayor on a range of related issues which included:

· Where the additional PCSOs and police officers would be located;

· The powers given to PCSOs;

· Cross-border crime

· The use of mobile speed cameras in the county, as opposed to fixed cameras;

· The future of rural fire stations across the county

The Committee next meets on 29 September 2025.

COUNCILLOR ANDREW WILLIAMS