Issue - meetings

The Leader of the Council submitted a report on Service Plans for 2011/12.  The Committee was invited to make recommendations on them to the Executive.

The Service Plans were produced every year by Heads of Service and set out the key actions that needed to be undertaken to deliver the corporate priorities and key objectives of the Council in line with the budget.

Members raised queries on a number of issues which were addressed by the Officers present.  These included savings on IT and Facilities (additional savings could be obtained through shared services); minimising use of paper by Members (this would be considered by the ICT/C3W Member Group); the slow operation of Members’ computers (investment was being made in servers to improve this); and, increasing the amount recycled (it was hoped including mixed plastics from May 2011 would encourage more recycling generally).

Officers undertook to give written replies on how many people had replied to the residents’ survey in terms of the percentage that consider the Council provides VFM (to Councillor J Mayes), whether the affordable homes target for the District is realistic(to Councillor R Beeching) and details of what was entailed in 11 - LCS02 (Reduce costs or improve VFM (Value for Money) by identifying and implementing an improved structure for Environmental Health and Licensing and Community Safety Services to meet the challenges of the MTFP(Medium Term Financial Plan) and its relationship to the review of Community Safety (to Councillor M Newman).

The Joint Committees decided to recommend approval to the Executive of the Service Plan activity for 2010/11.

RESOLVED – that the Executive be informed that the Joint Scrutiny Committees consider the Service Plan activity for 2011/12 now submitted should be approved.