Scrutiny Programme Board 4th January 2012 Part 1, Declarations of Interest, Minutes

Present Councillors Cllr Andrew Hodson (Chair) Cllr Simon Mountney (Vice-Chair) Cllr Patricia Glasman (Spokesperson) Cllr Ann Bridson (Spokesperson) Cllr Ron Abbey Cllr Chris Blakeley Cllr Pat Hackett Cllr Adam Sykes Cllr Jerry Williams Officers Mark Delap, Committee Clerk Surjit Tour, Head of Legal and Member Services Another Wirral Council officer Two members of the public. … Continue reading “Scrutiny Programme Board 4th January 2012 Part 1, Declarations of Interest, Minutes”

Present

Councillors
Cllr Andrew Hodson (Chair)
Cllr Simon Mountney (Vice-Chair)
Cllr Patricia Glasman (Spokesperson)
Cllr Ann Bridson (Spokesperson)
Cllr Ron Abbey
Cllr Chris Blakeley
Cllr Pat Hackett
Cllr Adam Sykes
Cllr Jerry Williams

Officers
Mark Delap, Committee Clerk
Surjit Tour, Head of Legal and Member Services
Another Wirral Council officer

Two members of the public.

The Chair, Cllr Andrew Hodson said good evening to everyone and commented on the fact that Cllr Bridson was looking better since he’d last seen her, but was not looking 100%.

Cllr Ron Abbey said there’d been no improvement in the Chair.

The Chair, Cllr Andrew Hodson said it had been three weeks since he’d seen Cllr Bridson and she looked a lot better. He asked those present to turn their mobile phones off. Cllr Hodson then asked councillors if they had any declarations of interest to make.

1. Declarations of Interest

Cllr Patricia Glasman asked for advice on a declaration of interest.

Cllr Tony Smith arrives late and apologised for being late.

Cllr Patricia Glasman says that it is about her role as Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the work of the Health and Wellbeing Board.

Surjit Tour replied that it was up to Cllr Glasman if she wished to declare an interest.

2. Minutes

The Chair, Cllr Andrew Hodson asked if members of the Committee were happy with the minutes [of the meeting held on the 8th September 2011]

Cllr Bridson said on page three, the top item there was a summary of complaints made against councillors that had led to a vibrant discussion. She said she had asked for costs to be presented, this had been agreed and noted.

Surjit Tour said he was happy to give to councillors this information as soon as possible.

Cllr Bridson said it was important the public knew how much they were spending when making inappropriate complaints.

Cllr Blakeley said it had been referred to the Standards Committee.

Surjit Tour said he would check it and apologised.

Cllr Chris Blakeley said it had gone to the last Standards Committee meeting, however some final costs had yet to be decided.

The Chair, Cllr Hodson said he wanted it minuted.

Council (Wirral Council) 12/12/2011 Part 4 Agenda Item 3 (Petitions), Agenda Item 4 (Minutes), Agenda Item 5 (Leader’s Announcements)

Agenda Item 3 Petitions

Cllr Lesley Rennie presented a petition of 92 residents of Wallasey who wanted improvements to road safety in reference to a primary school.
Cllr Stuart Wittingham presented a petition of 58 from Ackers Road, Woodchurch.

Edit: 20/12/2011 Apologies to Cllr Steve Williams as this blog post initially incorrectly stated that he presented the petition of 58 from Ackers Road, Woodchurch when this should have been Cllr Stuart Wittingham. [7]

Cllr Harry Smith presented a petition of approximately 600 from Pensby & Thingwall about road safety at a primary school there. He said this was a rolling petition.

Cllr Harry Smith took his petition to the one of the committee clerks.

Agenda Item 4: Minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on the 11th October 2011 were agreed and the minutes of the meeting held on the 17th October 2011 were agreed.

Agenda Item 5: Leader’s Announcements

Cllr Steve Foulkes said on a high note he thanked Madam Mayor for hosting the Queen on her recent visit and wished that more councillors could have been invited. They had invited the voluntary sector and the Armed Forces to a one hour lunch and it had been a “great day”. He thanked Cllr Tom Harney and Cllr Jeff Green and said they had not had a royal visit for some time. Cllr Foulkes was proud of what we showed the Queen and made a plea to councillors to think.

As Leader of the Council, the corporate governance reforms were proceeding. There was a deadline of April 2012, which depended on the ability of the Corporate Plan which was linked to the 2012/13 Budget. He said it hadn’t happened before that the Corporate Plan had to be taken to a Scrutiny Committee. However a compromise had been reached. There would be a special meeting of the Scrutiny Committee and a special Council meeting by the 9th January 2012. This would allow things to be read and for issues to feed back into the 2012/13 Budget.

Madam Mayor thanked Cllr Steve Foulkes.

Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 17th November 2011, Declarations of Interest, Minutes (15/9 and 27/9), Early Voluntary Retirement/Voluntary Severance and Organisational Change Part 1

Present:

Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem) (Chair)

Cllr Ron Abbey (Labour)
Cllr Darren Dodd (Labour)
Cllr Chris Jones (Labour)

Cllr James Keeley (Conservative)
Cllr John Hale (Conservative)
Cllr Steve Williams (Conservative)
Cllr Wendy Clements (Conservative) deputy for Cllr Tony Cox (Conservative)

LATE:
Cllr Paul Doughty (Labour) (missed declarations of interest (item 1) (all) & minutes (item 2) (all))
Cllr Alan Brighouse (Lib Dem) (missed declarations of interest (item 1) (all), minutes (item 2) (all), financial monitoring statement (item 3) (missed Cllr Phil Gilchrist’s comments & part of Chris Hyams’ introduction) (Vice-Chair)

The Chair Cllr Phil Gilchrist started the meeting by referring to guidance issued by email on filming of meetings (which was permitted). He asked for declarations of interest, none were declared. Cllr Phil Gilchrist pointed out that for the councillors who were late they would have to declare any interests once they had arrived.

He asked if the minutes of the meeting held on the 15th September were agreed? The committee agreed the minutes of the meeting held on the 15th September.

He asked if the minutes of the meeting held on the 27th September were agreed? The minutes of the meeting held on the 27th September were agreed.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist signed the minutes of the meetings held on the 15th & 27th September to show they were agreed.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist welcomed Cllr Wendy Clements to the meeting. He said he wanted to change the agenda order.

Cllr Paul Doughty arrived.

Cllr Phil Gilchrist said he wanted to consider Agenda item 16 (Early Voluntary Retirement/Voluntary Severance and Organisational Change) first. He asked Chris Hyams, Head of Human Resources and Organisational Development to introduce the report.

Corporate Governance Committee (Wirral Council) 16th November 2011 Part 1, Declarations of Interest, Minutes

Corporate Governance Committee

Chair (Cllr Steve Foulkes)
Cllr Phil Davies
Cllr Adrian Jones
Cllr Anne McArdle
Cllr Ann McLachlan

In attendance (right to speak, not to vote or make decisions)
Cllr Jeff Green
Cllr Tom Harney

Officers
Ian Coleman, Director of Finance/Deputy Chief Executive
Jim Wilkie, Chief Executive
Bill Norman, Director of Law, HR & Asset Management
Others including committee clerk etc

The agenda and reports can be found here.

The meeting started with an apology from Cllr Foulkes who said he was “sorry to be late”. There were no declarations of interest. The committee then discussed the minutes of the Corporate Governance Committee held on the 26th October 2011.

Bill Norman mentioned that Cllr Tom Harney had communicated with him about the minutes which were in draft form. The draft minutes gave the impression that both Cllr Tom Harney and Cllr Jeff Green had been recorded in the minutes as members of the committee. However this would be changed to “in attendance”.

Cllr Steve Foulkes said he wanted “to set our stall out”, “not force to votes” and hoped the invite [to Cllr Tom Harney and Cllr Jeff Green] would be accepted in the spirit it was given. He then went on to talk about the “rules of engagement” and how they would “shape decisions”.

Cllr Adrian Jones said it would be “nice to get consensus”.

Cllr Steve Foulkes said he accepted the suggested changes [to the minutes]. The minutes with changes were agreed and the committee considered item 3 Work Program, Progress and Associated Issues.

Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee 8th November 2011 Part 1, Howard Cooper retires, Minutes, Declarations of Interest, Site Strategy Review

The agenda and reports for this meeting can be found here.

Present
Non-voting reps/co-optees (who are part of the committee)
Sue Lowe
Diane Hill (LINKS)
Sandra Wall (Older Peoples Parliament)

Councillors (part of the committee)
Cllr Mike Hornby
Cllr Geoffrey Watt
Cllr Sheila Clarke
Cllr Cherry Povall
Cllr Patricia Glasman (Chair)
Cllr Denise Roberts
Cllr Paul Doughty
Cllr Joe Walsh
Cllr Pat Williams
Cllr Bob Wilkins

Officers (there to advise the councillors and co-optees)
Howard Cooper (Interim Director of Adult Social Services, Wirral Council)
Kathy Doran, (Chief Executive NHS Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral (West Cheshire))
Gary Doherty (Acting Chief Executive, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)
Peter Herring (Chief Executive, Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust)

The Chair Cllr Glasman said that Howard Cooper was retiring in December. She thanked him for stepping in last Autumn.

Howard Cooper said she was very kind and that he had enjoyed working on the huge changes over the last year and if he was stuck for what to do on a Tuesday night he knew where to come.

Cllr Glasman introduced the people on the committee, then moved to declarations of interest. Cllr Sheila Clarke declared a personal interest in item 8, Cllr Hornby declared an interest in item 5, Cllr Patricia Glasman also declared an interest in item 5.

The minutes were agreed, due to the long agenda the couple of items from the last meeting that required responses could be raised at the end of the meeting or taken up by email. The minutes were agreed.

Cllr Glasman started with the site strategy report including the report on the vascular site strategy review. She asked the committee to listen to the report, make any queries on items except vascular, then they would take questions, followed by the clinician’s report and Kathy Doran’s report.

Gary Doherty started by asking Tina Long and Sue Green to give an introduction to the report.