Agenda and minutes

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Venue: Committee Room 'B' - The Diamond Jubilee Room, County Hall, Preston

Contact: Gary Halsall  Tel: 01772 536989, Email  gary.halsall@lancashire.gov.uk

Media

Webcast: View the webcast

Items
No. Item

County Councillor Lorraine Beavers replaced County Councillor Azhar Ali for this meeting.

1.

Apologies

Minutes:

Apologies were received from County Councillor John Shedwick.

2.

Disclosure of Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

Minutes:

None were disclosed.

3.

Minutes of the Meeting held on 4 June 2018 pdf icon PDF 71 KB

Minutes:

Resolved: That the minutes from the meeting held on 4 June 2018 be confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

 

5.

Task and Finish Group Request - Strengthening Flood Prevention and Preparedness in Lancashire pdf icon PDF 82 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

At the request of the Chair the Committee agreed that this item be considered prior to Item 4 (Prevent).

 

The Chair welcomed County Councillor Keith Iddon, Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, who introduced the task and finish group request to the Committee on behalf of County Councillor Erica Lewis.

 

The purpose of this task and finish group is to bring together the expertise of all flood risk management authorities, local flood and emergency response groups, and residents to better understand how the County Council as Lead Local Flood Authority and all other flood risk management authorities can better support residents to:

 

·  Be prepared for flooding;

·  Respond to flooding;

·  Recover from flooding; and

·  Understand what we can do together to reduce flood risk.

 

In considering the purpose of the task and finish group a number of requests were made to include additional matters in its remit. These included:

 

·  Reviewing Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS);

·  Alley gates and gully cleaning;

·  Contingency funds from developers; and

·  Road closures.

 

A request was also made to double the membership from seven members to 14.

 

Resolved: That;

 

1.  The request to establish a task and finish group on Strengthening Flood Prevention and Preparedness in Lancashire be agreed; and

2.  The task and finish group request be submitted to the Internal Scrutiny Committee for approval at its next scheduled meeting on 16 November 2018.

4.

Prevent pdf icon PDF 92 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed Pam Smith, Equality and Cohesion Manager CT/Prevent; Chris Coyle, Senior Manager Children's Social Care; and Detective Chief Inspector Scott Waddington, to the meeting.

 

The report presented updated the Committee on Prevent delivery across Lancashire including the Channel process. In June 2018 the Government launched their revised and strengthened CONTEST strategy. CONTEST was the UK's long term counter terrorism strategy. The updated strategy continued to include the 4 P's: Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare. The aim of Prevent was to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism, safeguarding individuals and communities. A copy of the presentation is set out in the minutes.

 

It was reported that prevent awareness training and workshops raising awareness of prevent (WRAP) were delivered by the council at no cost.  The Committee was informed that when the Prevent Duty became law in 2015 the government allocated £10k to each Tier 3 local authorities to help mainstream prevent and this was used to upgrade the Prevent for Schools P4S (preventforschools.org ) website.  A question was asked in relation to a previous allocation of funding to deliver prevent work. This had been used to roll out of a bespoke training programme for women to build their confidence as community leaders and raising awareness about prevent in communities. This programme was deemed an example of good practice by the Home Office. It was confirmed that currently the council did not have a budget for project work. Officers emphasised that training on the prevent agenda continued to be delivered to officers and members free of charge. The Committee was also informed that the Home Office also allocated funding around a tier process for those areas deemed to be at highest risk.

 

It was reported that over 1.5m frontline staff had been trained in spotting the signs of radicalisation. Bite size briefings on the prevent duty/channel process and personal security and online safety were also delivered to councillors.

 

On the role of councillors, it was confirmed that councillors were well placed to listen to and understand constituents’ concerns, and as community leaders could share not only their understanding of sources of community tension with the local authority, but to spread good news through their communities. Members were handed a copy of the role of a councillor document. A copy of this is set out in the minutes. In summary the role of councillors would be to:

 

·  Safeguard communities as community leader;

·  Listen and understand constituents concerns;

·  Challenge narratives of radicalisers and extremists;

·  Understand how to signpost concerns (concern@lancashire.pnn.police.uk);

·  Promote positive messages about community activities and relationships.

 

 

The Prevent Duty was placed on officers and councillors at County and District council level.

 

A query was raised in respect of social media activity and whether referrals of incidents to the Channel Panel of this nature was the appropriate place. It was reported that there was a moral and personal responsibility to refer. Prevent was about safeguarding if members felt an incident was inappropriate then advice was to report it (notice, check  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

6.

Chair's update

Verbal update

Minutes:

The Chair informed the committee that he was awaiting a response from the Secretary of State about water companies not being statutory consultees on planning applications.

 

Following two informal sessions with members of the Committee, the Police and Crime Commissioner had taken the decision not to proceed with any changes to the fire governance arrangements in Lancashire, at this time.

 

An invite would be issued to Transport for the North to present at a future meeting of the Committee. Network Rail and Northern Rail would also be invited to attend this meeting.

 

Members were informed that a Bite Size Briefing on Universal Credit would take place on Tuesday 30th October 2018. County Councillor Gillian Oliver agreed to act as rapporteur and to report back to the Committee in January 2019.

 

The House of Commons had launched a new Brexit Digest for people to receive updates on the process of Brexit through the House of Commons.

 

Resolved: That the Chair's update be noted.

7.

External Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 2018/19 pdf icon PDF 81 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The report presented set out the External Scrutiny Committee's Work Programme for the municipal year 2018/19.

 

On renewable and alternative energy topic scheduled for winter/spring 2019, an assurance was given that interested parties would be invited to participate.

 

In terms of the topic on the impact of Brexit on advanced manufacturing a request for the impact on agriculture as well was raised. It was decided to leave this until after the Brexit decision in March 2019.

 

Resolved: That the report be noted.

8.

Urgent Business

An item of urgent business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.  Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Member’s intention to raise a matter under this heading.

Minutes:

There were no items of Urgent Business.

9.

Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of the External Scrutiny Committee will be held on Tuesday 22 January 2019 at 10.30am at County Hall, Preston.

Minutes:

The next meeting of the External Scrutiny Committee would take place on Tuesday 22 January 2019 at 10.30am in Cabinet Room B (The Diamond Jubilee Room) at the County Hall, Preston.