MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE HELD AT COUNTY HALL, NEWPORT, ISLE OF WIGHT ON THURSDAY, 22 JUNE 2006 COMMENCING AT 6.00 PM

Present :

Cllrs Geoff Lumley (Chairman), Anne Bishop, William Burt, Deborah Gardiner, Heather Humby, Brian Mosdell

Co-opted Voting Members Present:

Mr Anthony Marvin, Mrs Sue Poston

Apologies :

Mr Bob Blezzard

1. MINUTES

RESOLVED:

THAT the minutes of the meeting held on 18 May 2006 be confirmed.

2. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

There were no declarations of interest.

3. PUBLIC QUESTION TIME

There were no public questions.

4. ELECTION OF VICE CHAIR 2006/7

Members noted that the Full Council had agreed on 24 May 2006 to revise the Constitution to allow the appointment of a Vice Chairman for Scrutiny to become the responsibility of the Scrutiny Committee itself. The Scrutiny Committee was therefore required to elect a Vice Chair for the year 2006/7.

Mrs Sue Poston was nominated to be Vice Chair for the year 2006/7. There were no further nominations.

RESOLVED:

THAT Mrs Sue Poston be elected Vice Chair of the Scrutiny Committee for the year 2006/7.

5. WIGHTCARE ENQUIRY – SC06/06

The Chairman introduced the final report of the Wightcare enquiry. This was the first enquiry to be completed by the Scrutiny Committee since the new Council was elected in May 2005. The Chairman thanked Councillor Deborah Gardiner and Councillor Brian Mosdell who had worked alongside him on the task and finish group.

Mr Tony Marvin proposed an amendment to recommendation 2.2 of the report as follows

‘The Wightcare Service is apparently more expensive than that of the private providers. The Committee question the calculation of the relative unit costs of all the providers and therefore recommend that a detailed analysis of the costs of an in-house service is undertaken to ensure like is compared with like. The Committee also recommends that other options are considered, for example establishing an (arms-length) social enterprise (potentially in tandem with the local Health care trust). This could be beneficial in terms of retaining the value added elements of this service, for example responsiveness and flexibility, and one able to accept private payers’.

The Committee accepted the amendment.

Members of the task and finish group stated that the enquiry had been a difficult task as it had been a struggle to obtain information. There had been difficulties understanding why there were discrepancies between the unit costs of the private sector and the unit costs of Wightcare. The task group indicated that they would have appreciated more time to complete the enquiry but they were restricted by a deadline to ensure the report was with the Cabinet Member for Island Health, Housing and Community Wellbeing by the end of May 2006.

Concerns were expressed by Members of the Committee that not all of the background information was available on this enquiry.

One of the recommendations of the Committee was to defer the decision to transfer Wightcare to a private provider during this financial year to allow a fuller review of the financial circumstances of Wightcare and its availability to compete more favourably with the private sector providers, and for an extensive consultation with service users and their families/carers.

The Committee formally adopted the report which would be forwarded to the Cabinet Member for Island Health, Housing and Community Wellbeing for consideration.

RESOLVED:

THAT the Committee formally adopt the report subject to the amendment to recommendation 2.2 and forward to the Cabinet Member for Island Health, Housing and Community Wellbeing for consideration.

6. STRATEGIC PARTNERING – SC07/06

The Committee considered the termination of the Strategic Partnering enquiry as the Council were no longer looking into a Strategic Partner following on from the report from PA Consulting which recommended that the Council use a strategic transformational partner to assist with changes to the organisation.

The Committee agreed to terminate the Strategic Partnering enquiry. The Committee would look into undertaking a new enquiry later in the year on strategic transformational partnering.

RESOLVED :

THAT the Strategic Partnering enquiry SC07/06 be terminated.

7. FORWARD PLAN

The Committee reviewed the Forward Plan. The Committee enquired as to the status of a previous suggestion regarding the addition of a serial number to each item on the forward plan to enable items to be tracked. The Committee were assured that this was being looked into.

RESOLVED:

THAT the Forward Plan be noted.

CHAIRMAN