Agenda and minutes

Purpose: To elect a Chairman of the Committee, to serve until the first meeting of the Committee following the Annual Meeting of the Council in 2023.

Melanie Carr, Principal Democratic Services and Scrutiny Officer for North Yorkshire County Council welcomed everyone to the meeting, and confirmed that as it was the first meeting of the committee in this Council, the first item of business would be the election of a Chairman.

There were two nominations for the positon of Chairman of the committee - Councillors Clive Pearson and Liz Colling.  Votes were taken and on a show of hands Councillor Clive Pearson was elected as Chairman of the committee to serve until the first meeting of the committee following the AGM in May 2023.

Resolved –

That Councillor Clive Pearson be appointed Chairman, to serve until the first meeting of the committee following the AGM in May 2023.

Purpose: To elect a Vice-Chairman of the Committee, to serve until the first meeting of the Committee following the Annual Meeting of the Council in 2023.

Councillor Clive Pearson asked for nominations for the Vice Chairman of the Committee, to serve until the first meeting of the Committee following the Annual Meeting of the Council in 2023.

Councillor Liz Colling was nominated and seconded, and following a vote it was

Resolved -

That Councillor Liz Colling be appointed Vice Chairman, to serve until the first meeting of the Committee following the Annual Meeting of the Council in 2023.

Resolved –

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 16 March 2022, having been printed and circulated, be taken as read and confirmed and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

TheChairwelcomedeveryoneto the meeting and Members introduced themselves.  Apologies were received from Councillors Tony Randerson and Rich Maw.

There were no declarations of interest.

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice and provided the text to Melanie Carr of Democratic Services (contact details below) no later than midday on 7 June 2022. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item.  Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:

·           at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);

·           when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chairman who will instruct those taking a recording to cease whilst you speak.

There were no public questions or statements.

Considered - A report by Daniel Harry, Democratic Services and Scrutiny Manager, North Yorkshire County Council regarding the work of the Area Constituency Committees.

Some of the key points highlighted in the report were:

·         There were six Area Constituency Committees coterminous with the six Parliamentary constituencies within North Yorkshire.  Each committee met formally in public four times a year

·         Work to develop a new way of working for the area committees was underway as part of the Local Government Review ‘Localities’ work stream

·         It was envisaged that a series of informal, development meetings would be held to enable councillors to build up their understanding of the constituency area and the new operating model of the area committees in the new unitary authority

·         The role of the committee was to improve the quality of life for people in their area by acting as a ‘critical friend’ to policy makers

·         The committee owned its own work programme, with support provided for its development by Democratic Services.  The emphasis was upon items that were: relevant; in the public interest; value adding; and being scheduled in a timely and efficient way

·         There were opportunities for the committee to lead on local scrutiny, on a matter identified by one of the Council’s five thematic overview and scrutiny committees. 

Members discussed a number of issues:

·         The meetings of the Area Constituency Committees currently scheduled were those that were ‘business as usual’.  As such, there was a work programme to be delivered over the course of the next three meetings in 2022/23;

·         A member working group was to be setup in July/August to engage a broad range of councillors on the development of the Area Constituency Committees to further the discussions about the shape and form of the new iteration of the Area Constituency Committees;

·         There was a need for all members to work with the Executive and portfolio holders on the development of the Area Constituency Committees;

·         The Committees did not need to be careful overloaded with roles and responsibilities as the scope could become unmanageable.  However, more devolution of decision-making was welcomed e.g. planning and licensing decisions;

·         An interest was shown in holding hybrid meetings but issues with connectivity were recognised and some members felt that meeting in person would help establish relationships, particularly for the new NYCC Councillors;

Resolved – That the report be noted.

Considered - A report by Daniel Harry, Democratic Services and Scrutiny Manager, on the data profile for the Scarborough & Whitby Area Constituency Committee.

Melanie Carr, Democratic Services & Scrutiny Officer, introduced the report and confirmed the area profile had been produced to enable members to better understand the area covered by the committee, and to identify ongoing issues that may be worthy of further consideration.

Members agreed that the use of averages skewed the data and had the potential to hide some specific localised issues.  It was suggested that a profile of the individual divisions would be more helpful but they accepted the date it may not be possible to breakdown the data to that level.

In particular Members raised:

·         Concerns about the impact of the increased cost of living and its affect on families, and the rise in fuel poverty.

·         The cost of housing and the variation in prices across both Scarborough and Whitby.

·         The time lags in the data and therefore its relevance in some cases – it was suggested the report should be re-presented once the new census data was available.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

Considered - A report of the Assistant Chief Executive (Legal and Democratic Services) regarding appointments to Outside Bodies.

Melanie Carr, Principal Democratic Services and Scrutiny Officer introduced the report, drawing Members’ attention to the list of appointments to Local Bodies, as detailed in Appendices A and B of the report.  Committee members were asked to work through the list asking for nominations, seconders and then moving to a vote, where necessary.

The following appointments were agreed unanimously:

Resolved – That the appointments listed above be approved.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service - Risk and Resource Model 2022/25 Consultation - Consultation document provided by  the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner

Considered - A report by Daniel Harry, Democratic Services and Scrutiny Manager, North Yorkshire County Council presenting a Risk and Resource Model 2022-25 consultation on behalf of the Police Fire and Crime Commissioner.

Melanie Carr - Principal Democratic Services & Scrutiny Officer, introduced the report, which set out the risks across North Yorkshire and the Fire and Rescue Service resources that were in place to address and reduce those risks across given areas.  She also confirmed the closing date for the consultation was 14 August 2022 i.e. before the next meeting of the Committee.

Members noted the request to consider how best to respond to the consultation and County Councillor John Ritchie expressed concern about the proposals, particularly the proposal to reduce evening cover given the effect it would have on response times.  He therefore proposed that an additional meeting of the Area Constituency Committee be arranged so that Members had the opportunity to fully consider and discuss the proposals, in the company of the Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner, the Chief Fire Officer and representatives from the Fire Brigade Union and National Farmers Union. 

Having noted the timeframe for formal consultation responses, it was

Resolved - That Committee would submit a formal Committee response to the consultation, following their requested additional meeting.

Considered -

The report of the Assistant Chief Executive (Legal and Democratic Services) asking Members to review the draft Work Programme for 2022-23, taking into account the outcome of discussions on previous agenda items and any other developments taking place across the area.

Members put forward a range of ideas for future work programme items as follows:

·           Aging Population – provision and accessibility to locally based services

·           Cost of Living & Fuel Poverty, related to housing stock issues

·           Health Deprivation – an area profile on health inequality was requested for the Committee’s next in September 2022;

·           Educational issues – improving attainment at key stage 4, free schools meals etc – it was noted that an annual update on Schools, Educational Achievement &

·           Finance was already scheduled for the Committee’s next meeting in September 2022;

·           The cost of housing and other housing issues;

·           Cyber Crime

·           Reduction in Bus Services and its impact on residents’ lives;

·           Public transport connectivity & Integrated transport for rural areas

Resolved - That the Democracy Officer update the work programme to reflect the decisions made during the meeting.