Agenda and minutes

County Councillors Julie Gibson, Paul Rigby and David Westley replaced County Councillors Alyson Barnes, George Wilkins and John Shedwick respectively.

Apologies were received from County Councillor Miles Parkinson

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.

None were disclosed

Regarding Item 6 on Newton Europe Consultants it was pointed out by Members that the resolution requesting the final report from Newton Europe Consultants had been missed from the minutes.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 17 June 2016 at 10:00am be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

The Chair welcomed Karen Cassar, Highways Asset Manager; Rebecca Makinson, Highways Asset Management; and Steve Berry, Department for Transport to the meeting.

Steve Berry updated the Committee on the background to highway maintenance funding. Local highways maintenance was identified in the 2015 spending review as a priority and funding would be increased over the next 5 years. An important component of this was achieving efficiency savings through incentivised funding. Between 2015 – 2021, the Government would make £6 billion of capital funding available for local highways maintenance. £578 million of this amount had been set aside to incentivise local authorities to carry out cost effective improvements. A further £250 million had been made available through the Pothole Action Fund.

Steve pointed out that a number of authorities did not have a TAMP in place. Without effective asset management plans there was concern that local authorities' most valuable asset, their road networks, would be inefficiently maintained even under optional funding conditions.

The Department for Transport had provided authorities with a self-assessment questionnaire in January 2016. Three potential bands had been identified in the self-assessment.:

·  Band 1 – Innocent to Understanding

·  Band 2 – Basic to Competent

·  Band 3 – Proficient to Advanced

The self-assessment bands were based on the maturity of the authority in key areas. The criteria for the bands were as follows:

·  Band 1 had a basic understanding of the key areas and was in the process of taking these forward

·  Band 2 could demonstrate outputs that supported implementation of key areas

·  Band 3 could demonstrate outcomes had been achieved in key areas as part of continuous improvement

The questionnaire was divided into 22 questions and covered the following sections:

·  Asset Management

·  Resilience

·  Customers

·  Benchmarking and Efficiency

·  Operational Delivery

Responses had been received from every eligible authority. There were 115 responses in all.

In July the DfT was in consultation with the sector and the Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP) would consider the pattern of scores to establish:

·  Were there any obstacles which were preventing authorities from progressing up the bands

·  The DfT would meet those in Band 1 to better understand their challenges

·  How would HMEP and others from the sector be able to help

DfT would run a series of workshops around the country during the autumn which would reflect on the lessons to be learnt from the first year of self-assessment.

Regarding future work for LCC going forward with the DfT, Challenge Fund money would be made available from 2017/18. This was for large maintenance schemes. In 2017 there would be another £50 million for the Pothole Action Fund.

Copies of Steve's presentation are attached and a link to the speech from Andrew Jones MP Challenges to Asset Management is attached:

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/challenges-in-highways-asset-management

Questions and comments by the Committee in relation to the report were as follows:

·  Members enquired how the fund was monitored so that local authorities used the money for what it was intended. It was pointed out there were two sides to highways  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Chair welcomed Phil Durnell, Head of Service Highways; and Christine Entwistle, Senior District Lead Officer (Area North), to the meeting.

The report presented was in response to the Scrutiny Committee's request for an update on service response times to Member enquiries. The report provided an overview of the current resources, communication arrangements and performance levels.

The Committee was informed that in 2010 Highways employed 12 Public Realm Managers and 12 District Lead Officers. Since 2010 the Highways Service as part of its contribution in achieving the sizeable budget savings the County council had to make, had to date lost 110 posts from the Public Realm and Business Support teams, these were the people that would have historically dealt with Member enquiries.

In 2014 Public Realm Managers had reduced to four and District Lead Officers reduced to five and as stated above significant reductions of technical staff who supported them in carrying out their role with remaining staff overwhelmed with the volume of workload, and performance levels had suffered accordingly.

Following Member feedback in August 2015 and service recognition that Members needed to have a direct link to Highways. The Highways Service had to continue to operate with a team based approach to working to ensure that no individual officer had unacceptable levels of workload. It was agreed to provide a heightened service to Members. In September 2015 Highways Direct was launched and managed by the highway service district lead officer team which was bolstered by an additional officer reassigned from another team in highways.

Members had a direct telephone number to their district lead officer for urgent queries. There was also a dedicated email address highwaysdirect@lancashire.gov.uk the use of which ensured prioritisation of Members highway casework and provided improved response time of 15 working days as opposed to 20 working days to other stakeholders. In 2014/15 the Highways Service responded to Member enquiries within 15 working days in just 47% of cases with the average length of time 17 working days.

Since the implementation of Highways Direct in September 2015 the service had performed at consistently high levels and received many compliments from Members in the level of service provided.

Questions and comments by the Committee in relation to the report were as follows:

·  With regard to further changes in resources the Highways Service was looking to do more in house and be less reliant on contractors. It needed to keep a core workforce and staff.

·  The Committee enquired if the service given to Members impacted on the service given to the public, and how could Members help the service. The service had invested in an online defect reporting system. The public could go online and track the progress of repair works and read what the officers' comments were regarding the progress. Through transformation there would be more investment in this system which would enable people to get automatic updates when they emailed in.

·  Some Members felt that although they were responded to within 15 days when using the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Chair welcomed Andrew Mullaney, Head of Planning and Environment to the meeting.

Andrew explained that the Scrutiny Committee had made recommendations following a review by the Planning Matters Task Group formed at the request of CC Liz Oades.

The Task Group was formed because concerns had been expressed by some district councils regarding the scope, content and timeliness of LCC responses to consultations on planning applications from district councils, particularly regarding education, highways and flood risk management.

District Councils were consulted on the draft recommendations, which had been subsequently modified following feedback.

The report presented by Andy set out the response from the Cabinet Member for Environment, Planning and Cultural Services to the Committee's recommendations. Some of the recommendations related to the portfolios of the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, and the Cabinet Member for Children. Young People and Schools. Where appropriate their views had been sought.

Resolved: That,

1.  The Committee note the support for all the recommendations from the Cabinet Member for Environment, Planning and Cultural Services

2.  The recommendation on Flood Risk Management be passed to the Flood Risk Management Team so it can report back to the Scrutiny Committee at the October meeting.

The Work Plan was presented to the Committee regarding upcoming topics and future topics not yet scheduled as well as an update on ongoing Task Groups and Task Groups that had recently been established.

The Committee agreed that a report on Hate Crime be scheduled for the meeting on 23 September replacing the Crime and Disorder which would be rescheduled to the meeting on 13 April 2017.

It was noted that the TAMP Task Group last met on 8 July 2015. The Chair requested that the various groups put forward new members for this task group and meet in October or November.

Resolved: That,

1.  The Committee approve the 2016/17 work plan

2.  The Committee agree that a report on Hate Crime be scheduled for the meeting on 23 September replacing the Crime and Disorder which will be rescheduled to the meeting on 13 April 2017

3.  The various political groups put forward new members for the TAMP Task Group to meet in October or November.

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.

There were no items of Urgent Business

The next meeting of the Scrutiny Committee will be held on Friday 23 September at 10:00am at the County Hall, Preston.

The next meeting of the Scrutiny Committee will take place on Friday 23^rd September 2016 at 10.00am in Cabinet Room B (The Diamond Jubilee Room) at the County Hall, Preston.