Minutes:
NOTED the dates of future meetings and agenda items to be discussed as follows:
Virtual Meetings
Thursday 28 May 2020
· Call-In – Sourcing of the Road Gully Cleaning Services
· Update on Community Resilience Work Undertaken During Covid-19
Thursday 4 June 2020
· The Re-Opening of Primary Schools in Enfield
Thursday 2 July 2020
· Update from Public Health on Covid-19
Thursday 30 July 2020
· Agenda items to be confirmed.
It was agreed that all future virtual Overview & Scrutiny meetings will commence at 6:00pm.
Members made the following comments:
(i) Councillor Aramaz felt that presentations for future OSC virtual meetings should be limited to 10 minutes to allow Members adequate time to scrutinise the reports discussed. He said it was important to adapt to this new ‘normal’ to ensure that every decision the Council makes is scrutinised properly and effectively. He also sought assurances that other Committees were intending to hold regular meetings in order to uphold democracy and accountability.
(ii)
Councillor Georgiou referred to earlier discussions
and felt that it was important that the workstream on Meridian
Water should go ahead so that scrutiny on this project could
continue. He asked that a date for this be agreed as soon as
possible to look at the issue of
Covid-19 in relation to this project and how this might affect the
project timescales.
(iii) Councillor Smith agreed that the Meridian Water workstream should go ahead but also felt that there should be a timescale for all other major panels including Health Scrutiny and Crime Scrutiny. He also asked for an update at a future OSC meeting on the Food Distribution Hub that had been set up in the Borough to ensure vulnerable people had access to food and other essential goods during the Coronavirus outbreak.
(iv) Councillor Georgiou suggested Members should plan how to re-open some of the workstreams and other panels and have discussions with officers about how to take this forward.
(v) The Chair, Councillor Erbil noted the above comments and advised that with regards to the re-starting of workstreams it was important to look at officer resources to see if this could be achieved as many Council staff had been moved to other key areas to deal with the Covid-19 situation. In view of this the Chair felt it might be necessary to prioritise the importance of each workstream as to when they should re-start.
(vi) Councillor Georgiou felt that it was up to the Overview & Scrutiny Members to decide when and what workstreams re-start as OSC should decide what it scrutinises.
(vii) Councillor Taylor stated that if it is dependent on officer resources then there needed to be a demonstrative reason if workstreams did not continue. He felt that if Members are available and willing as well as officers being available then the workstreams should go ahead.
(viii) Claire Johnson, Head of Governance & Scrutiny agreed to refer this matter to the Monitoring Officer for further clarification and update Members at the next meeting of OSC.
Action: Claire Johnson, Head of Governance & Scrutiny