PAPER E
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PLANNING TOURISM AND LEISURE SERVICES SELECT
COMMITTEE – 6 FEBRUARY 2004 AMENDMENTS TO WORK PROGRAMME REPORT OF THE HEAD OF LEGAL AND DEMOCRATIC SERVICES |
REASON FOR SELECT
COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION
At its meeting on 28 January 2004, the Executive, in considering a
report into the Externalisation of Wight Leisure, resolved to ask this Select
Committee to add the following terms of reference to its Work Programme.
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ACTION REQUIRED BY THE SELECT COMMITTEE To consider adding the following terms of reference to the Work
Programme of the Select Committee: (i) As an exercise in policy development,
to receive information about the work of the Project Group and make
recommendations to the Executive to assist the work of that Group in the
development and delivery of leisure services. (ii) As an exercise in scrutiny, to receive
information from those responsible for implementing the Action Plan at Appendix 1 to this report in order to
make recommendations as to whether sufficient steps have been taken to
achieve the objectives of that Plan. |
BACKGROUND
The history of the proposal to externalise Wight Leisure and the
circumstances in which that process was halted and examined in detail are set
out in the report dated December 2003 authored by Tony Hall, Paul Wilkinson and
John Lawson. That report was the
subject of a debate at 28 January Executive, a meeting which resolved to
receive the report and to endorse the Action Plan set out as an appendix to
this report.
The intention of the draft terms of reference suggested to this Select
Committee is to ensure that the work of a project group, established by the
Executive on 28 January, and the work programme of this Committee are
complementary and designed to achieve the corporate objective of developing and
improving leisure services.
Although the Select Committee always retains unfettered discretion to
determine its own work programme, it is suggested that the Council has spent
sufficient time investigating and publicly debating the circumstances of the
failed externalisation programme. The
District Auditor, in his Annual Audit Letter, has concluded that sufficient
attention has been devoted to past failings.
The priority, as reflected in the draft terms of reference is to,
firstly, respond to requests from the project group to assist the development
of proposals to improve delivery of leisure services and, secondly, to
challenge those responsible for delivering the action plan to ensure that the
objectives of learning from past mistakes, delivering improved corporate
processes and service improvements are achieved in accordance with that plan.
It is therefore suggested that the Select Committee, taking into
account other demands on its time, write into its work programme agenda items
(i) scoping and (ii) progressing these terms of reference with such additions
as members of the Select Committee may wish to add to them.
RELEVANT PLANS,
POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
The service under question is a valuable contributor to the objectives
of the Community Strategy which concern social inclusion, healthy living and
tourism. Equally, the role of scrutiny,
and the need for focused, challenging and productive debate within Select Committees
has been the subject of comment by OFSTED, the IDEA Peer Review Team and the
report into Wight Leisure under discussion.
CONSULTATION
PROCESS
This paper concerns the establishment of effective working
relationships between the Executive and the Select Committee in relation to the
particularly difficult issue of leisure services. Such consultation has not been undertaken other than within the
Local Authority.
FINANCIAL, LEGAL,
CRIME AND DISORDER IMPLICATIONS
Other than to reassert that effective overview and scrutiny is both a
discrete statutory obligation under Section 21 Local Government Act 2000 and an
essential tool in delivering best value for the purposes of the 1999 Local
Government Act, there are no legal implications. The recommendation raise no financial or crime and disorder
implications.
APPENDICES
ATTACHED
Executive
report dated 28 January 2004.
Report
into Wight Leisure Externalisation dated December 2003 by Tony Hall, Paul
Wilkinson and John Lawson.
Contact Point : John Lawson, Head Of Legal And Democratic
Services, F 3216, e-mail [email protected].