Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Rooms 2 & 3, Trafford Town Hall, Talbot Road, Stretford M32 0TH

Contact: Alexander Murray, Governance Officer 

Items
No. Item

1.

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 107 KB

To note the Membership of the Committee for the 2022/23 Municipal year, including the appointment of Chair and Vice Chair, as agreed at the Annual Council Meeting 25th May 2022.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Committee Membership for the Municipal year 2022/23 be noted.

2.

COMMITTEE TERMS OF REFERENCE 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 115 KB

To note the Committee’s Terms of Reference for the 2022/23 Municipal year as agreed at the Annual Council Meeting 25th May 2022.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Committee’s Terms of Reference for the 2022/23 Municipal year be noted.

3.

MINUTES

To receive and, if so determined, to agree as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings held on the 7th February 2022 and the 9th March 2022.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

As the Minutes were sent out on the day of the meeting Councillor Carter asked that they be deferred to the next meeting to enable people to review them properly and the Committee agreed.

 

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held be deferred to the next meeting.

 

4.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members to give notice of any interest and the nature of that interest relating to any item on the agenda in accordance with the adopted Code of Conduct.

Minutes:

No additional declarations were made.

5.

QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC

A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to public questions submitted in writing to Democratic Services (democratic.services@trafford.gov.uk) by 4 p.m. on the working day prior to the meeting. Questions must be relevant to items appearing on the agenda and will be submitted in the order in which they were received.

Minutes:

No questions were received.

6.

SCRUTINY REVIEW IMPLEMENTATION 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 288 KB

To note the attached report and discuss the implementation of the outcomes of the Scrutiny review in the 2022/23 Municipal year.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair introduced the item and informed the Committee of the review which had been completed in the previous municipal year. The Chair drew the Committee’s attention to the many recommendations within the report which would be implemented over the next two years. The Chair informed the Committee that some recommendations had started to be implemented but had not been completed due to the short amount of time between Annual Council and the first meeting of the Committee. In response it had been agreed that the first meetings for the Scrutiny Committees in the 2023/24 Municipal year would be held later in the year to allow sufficient time for work programming to be completed.

 

Councillor Thompson asked whether training could be provided for Committee Members. The Governance Manager responded that training was available for new councillors and in house training would be available later in the year.

 

Councillor Axford was disappointed that the meeting with the Leader had not been held prior to the meeting. The Chair responded that he shared Councillor Axford’s frustrations. However, a meeting had been held with other Executive Members and Lead Officers where they provided input to the work programme and he and the Vice Chair would meet with the Leader in two weeks’ time.

 

Councillor Carter asked that the rejection criteria include if the Committee were unable to influence the area under consideration.

 

Councillor Thompson asked what the arrangements were for cross working between the Scrutiny Committees. The Governance Manager responded that once each of the three Scrutiny Committees had agreed a work programme they would be circulated to all Scrutiny Members.

 

Councillor Zhi noted the importance of the budget scrutiny process and asked whether training could be offered to Scrutiny Members. The Governance Manager agreed that training would be arranged for the Committee Members and spoke of the need to review to the Budget Scrutiny Process with the Corporate Leadership Team and Executive Members.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the amendment suggested by Councillor Carter be made to the selection criteria form.

 

7.

SCRUTINY COMMITTEE WORK PROGRAMME 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 373 KB

To consider and amend the draft Scrutiny Committee Work programme for the 2022/23 Municipal year.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair introduced the draft work programme which contained items carried forward from the previous year and items that had been suggested by Executive Members and officers.

 

Councillor Carter asked what the aim of the meeting was. Officers responded that the meeting was to discuss the topics within the work programme along with any suggestions for items that Members wanted to put forward. A further discussion of the topics would be held at an informal meeting after the Chair and Vice Chair had met with the Leader.

 

The Chair then went through the items listed in the work programme. The Committee discussed each item and assigned scores for importance and impact. As the Committee went through the list Members noted they did not have enough information about many of the suggested items to agree a score. The Governance Officer made note of those items to message officers after the meeting to gain more information for the informal meeting of the Committee.

 

Councillor Carter asked that the information be checked against the motion by Council for the item for the Cost of placing all Parks into a Field of Trusts, as it appeared to be inaccurate.

 

The Committee agreed to continue to receive quarterly updates about homelessness via email with reports presented by exception if there was cause for concern.

 

The Chair suggested a piece of work be done as a Task and Finish Group around match days at Old Trafford. The Task and Finish Group would investigate the problems the local community faced around anti-social behaviour associated with events at the venue. The Chair suggested that input would be needed from Manchester United, Council Officers, Residents, and Fans to adequately address the issues. The Committee agreed to form a Task and Finish group and that Councillor Walsh would Chair the group.

 

Councillor Carter suggested the Urmston Active Neighbourhood as an item for the work programme. The Urmston Active Neighbourhood was first consulted on before the pandemic and there had been a lot of frustration within the community about the lack of progress so far and it looked as though there would be additional delays. The Committee agreed to add the item to the work programme.

 

Councillor Coggins informed the Committee that a review by the Trafford Climate Commission had shown Trafford was falling far behind the action plan the Council had agreed. Councillor Coggins suggested that it be an item on the work programme as it aligned with the Council’s priorities and there were several actions the Council could take to improve performance. The Governance Officer asked Councillor Coggins to share the information from the Trafford Climate with the Committee. The Committee agreed to add the topic to the work programme.

 

Councillor Frass proposed a series of possible topics for the Committee to consider. The first was the takeover of Trafford Housing Trust by LNQ and the lack of democratic oversight in social housing. It that the Corporate Director of Place would be contacted to provide more information. The second  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.