NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

 

15 July 2026

 

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

 

The Corporate & Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee oversees corporate performance, governance, transformation, workforce matters, partnership activity, and resilience planning across the Council.

 

Since my last statement to Council, the Committee has met once on 15 June 2026 to consider the following items of business:

 

·         Transformation Update

·         Workforce Annual Report

·         Annual Review of Councillor Budgets 2025/26

·         Localities Services Annual Update

·         Draft Community Transfer Policy & Community Grow Policy

·         Call-in: Creation of a £7m Reserve for Brierley Homes

 

The update on transformation activity across a range of areas within the council highlighted the progress in developing core enabling capabilities such as data and finance systems, implementing new platforms to support service delivery, improving the customer experience, supporting operational improvements to ensure the future sustainability of a number of service-led programmes.  The Committee agreed to align its future updates for the remainder of this municipal year to those larger cross-cutting transformation priorities.

 

As part of our consideration of the Workforce Annual Update, we focused on issues around staffing numbers, hybrid working and staff sickness levels.  We noted that previous improvements in sickness levels appear to have flatlined.  Given that this is a year-on-year issue, we will be taking a more in-depth look at the measures being employed to drive down sickness absences at our next meeting.

 

The Committee was pleased to note the overall spend of the locality budgets in 2025-26 and went on to consider the work of the Localities Service over the last year.  Overall, their annual update was positive, but we have asked that future annual updates also include detail on the challenges over the year and the priorities for the year ahead.

 

We also looked at the governance arrangements for agreeing Town Investment Plans and suggested that Town Council endorsement should be sought alongside that of the relevant Area Committee, as they will be a key player in their delivery.

 

The Committee welcomed the draft Community Transfer Policy and the Community Grow Policy.  We noted the categories under which the council would not support the transfer of an asset and agreed it would be helpful if the definition of what constituted a ‘significant’ impact on capital or revenue income could be better clarified.  We also recognised the potential difficulties around assessing social value.  We suggested the Council may want to investigate whether there was any interest from Parish and Town Councils in taking over the running of smaller local assets such as garages and village allotments etc.  Finally, we stressed the importance of consulting with local councillors to draw on their knowledge of their local area.

 

 

In regard to the call-in of the Executive decision to note the creation of a £7m Reserve for Brierley Homes. The Committee heard from the lead signatory and the Executive Member for Finance and Resources and went on to consider all of the information provided and the options available to the Committee.  A vote was taken, and it was agreed that the Executive decision to earmark a £7m reserve for Brierley Homes be endorsed, thereby requiring with no further action on the Call-in.

 

 

COUNCILLOR ANDREW WILLIAMS