Issue - meetings

The Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive and Director of Customer and Community Services submitted a report detailing delivery against the improvement plan agreed by the Executive in June 2013 following the Council’s Peer Challenge and an “Executive Away-day”, the detail of which was set out in the report now submitted and supporting Essential Reference Papers.

The Corporate Planning and Performance Manager provided Members with a summary of the background to the report and an update on the status of the actions up to September 2013.  The Chairman, on behalf of Members, congratulated the Officers in moving forward the actions in the East Herts Improvement Plan, the detail of which was set out in Essential Reference Paper “B” of the report now submitted. 

It was noted that while Action 26 (Hold an Open Day in the Planning Department to raise members; awareness of the planning process) did not take place, eight other training events linked to planning had taken place this civic year with more than 121 attendees.  The Scrutiny Officer advised that five other events were planned before the end of the civic year and referred to the substantial efforts provided by Planning Officers in supporting the Member training process.  Members indicated their support for these additional five events to be included in the evidence for the progress report.

Councillor J Wing expressed his concerns regarding the reporting style of the information and stated what refinements he considered, could be made to make it more user friendly.  The Chairman stated that he found the reports to be informative and did not have any problems with the information as submitted.  Councillor J Mayes supported the Chairman’s comments.

The Chairman, on behalf of the Committee congratulated the Corporate Planning and Performance Manager for the detailed report.

The Committee received the report.

RESOLVED – that (A) the Monitoring Report be received; and

(B)  the Executive be advised that Members support the inclusion of the five training events to be held during the time frame of this progress report and that these be included in the evidence for the action referred to in the report now submitted.