Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Arun Civic Centre, Maltravers Road, Littlehampton, BN17 5LF. View directions

Contact: Carley Lavender 

Media

Items
No. Item

112.

Apologies

Minutes:

Apologies had been received from Councillor Jones who was being substituted by Councillor Blanchard-Cooper. Councillor Turner also advised that Councillor Lloyd was currently stuck in traffic but was on route to the meeting.

 

113.

Declarations of Interest

Members and Officers are invited to make any declaration of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on this agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the items or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

 

Members and Officers should make their declaration by stating:

 

a)             the item they have the interest in

b)             whether it is a pecuniary/personal interest and/or prejudicial interest

c)             the nature of the interest

 

Minutes:

(Councillor Lloyd arrived at the meeting at approximately 18:04pm)

 

Councillor Blanchard-Cooper declared a personal interest in Item 7 [Key Performance Indicators 2022-2026 - Quarter 4 End of year performance report for the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.] as he had a family member who worked within the Customer Services Team.

 

114.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 94 KB

The Committee will be asked to approve as a correct record the minutes of the Corporate Support Committee held on 19 January 2023.

Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 19 January 2023 were approved by the committee and signed by the Chair.

 

115.

ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEETING IS OF THE OPINION SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS A MATTER OF URGENCY BY REASON OF SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Minutes:

There were no urgent items to be discussed at the meeting.

 

116.

Public Question Time pdf icon PDF 66 KB

To receive questions from the public (for a period of up to 15 minutes)

Minutes:

The Chair confirmed that there was 1 public question from a member of the public who had submitted their question in advance of the meeting in accordance with the Councils Constitution. He invited the Committee Manager to read out the question received on behalf of the questioner.

 

The Chair provided a response to the question received and then drew Public Question Time to a close.

 

(A schedule of the full questions asked and the responses provided can be found on the meeting’s webpage at: Arun District Council)

 

117.

Meeting Start Times 2023/24

The Committee are required to agree their meeting start times for the remaining meetings of the municipal year 2023/24.

Minutes:

The Chair proposed that the start times for the meeting of the Committee for the remaining year be at 6pm, this was seconded by the Vice Chair.

 

          The Committee

 

                     RESOLVED

 

                     That the start times for 2023/24 be 6pm.

 

118.

Key Performance Indicators 2022-2026 - Quarter 4 End of year performance report for the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. pdf icon PDF 101 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

(Councillor Blanchard-Cooper redeclared his personal interest in this item, specifically relating to KPI CP7)

 

The Group Head of Organisational Excellence was invited by the Chair to present her report to members. She explained for newer members that the council had a number of key performance indicators that measured the operational performance for the period 2022-2026 which allowed the council to measure trends. She confirmed that there were new indicators, therefore no comparison was available for these and that these had been noted in the report. Each committee had its own indicators which were shown in the appendix, specifically there were 10 indicators reporting to this committee. In summing up she explained that Policy and Finance Committee had responsibility for overseeing performance across the council, which is why they received all the indicators within their report.

 

          The Chair then invited members to make comments and ask questions, he requested that all questions for the KPIs detailed on the first page (CP1, CP2, CP3 and CP4) were asked first and once those had been dealt with the KPIs on the following page could be put for discussion.

 

          Clarification was sought by one member who was querying if complaints for Housing were fed into this committee as he wanted to check on the status of a report that had been requested at a previous Audit & Governance Committee relating to a Housing Complaint where the Ombudsman had disapproved of the action taken by the council. The Chair confirmed he understood what report the member was referencing, however he suggested that this update was provided outside of this committee.

 

          It was asked about CP4 why there were no targets set and was the 2.2% referenced the target for future years. It was confirmed that yes, 2.2% would become the future target and therefore the target that was currently being worked towards.

 

          Finally, it was asked about CP6 that the Compliance for Health and Safety seemed low and why was this. The Group Head for Organisational Excellence confirmed that the Corporate Management Team (CMT) were also concerned about this indicator, they had now agreed for this indicator to be reported to them annually n order for them to review. 

 

            There were no other questions asked for this item.

119.

Council Vision 2022-2023 Annual Report pdf icon PDF 94 KB

The Council Vision 2022-2026 was approved at Full Councill in March 2022. To support the Vision, we have a comprehensive set of measurable performance indicators which allow us to identify how well we are delivering across a full range of services.   Two kinds of indicators were agreed at the Policy and Finance Committee on 17 March 2022.  The first of these are the subject of this report, the ’Vision Indicators’ and this is the first annual report on them.  

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Group Head of Organisational Excellence was invited by the Chair to present her report to members. She advised that the council’s vision was set by members and agreed at Full Council in 2022. She confirmed the report was reported to all Committees and was grouped by each council vision theme rather than specific committee responsibility. The purpose of the report before members at the meeting was to allow for a focused discussion on those areas pertinent to the Corporate Support Committee.

 

The Chair then invited discussion on the vision document first and once all comments had been made on that discussion would move on to the appendix. Members discussed the picture on page 25 of the vision document of West Beach in Littlehampton. Discussion was centre around providing access for all to the beaches in the district. Reference was made to the Beach Access Working Party meetings that had taken place throughout the year alongside comments from one member who advised that there was a group in East Preston who had recently met with a design engineer who had presented a modular design that may be useable to get wheelchair users on to the beach. Final comments from members were to give thanks to those who had worked on the vision document. The Group Head of Organisational Excellence confirmed that reviews of the indicators were ongoing, whilst the vision had been agreed and set for the four-year period, there was a degree of flexibility within the indicators that may see changes should that be decided by members.

 

Moving discussion on to the appendix that contained the indicators, Councillor Turner advised members that he had raised a question outside of the meeting about the fact that there was no obvious mention of veterans or armed forces covenant throughout the Council Vision, he specifically listed CV6, CV7, CV8, CV13, CV34 and CV36 where he believed mention could or should have been made. He asked for his question and answered to be added to the minutes ((Public Pack)Question and Answer from Councillor Turner - Corporate Support Committee 27 June 2023) He stated in response to the answers he had received and thanked the Group Head of Organisational Excellence for her detailed response. He continued to advise that veteran’s and their families were a significant part of the community, stating over 10% of the Council chamber having veterans in their own families. There were many initiatives available to the veterans of the armed forces, most at no cost to the council. To raise awareness, he advised that some of the initiatives were Op Courage, The Veterans Trauma Network, Op Chavasse which was a clinic in Brighton available to people with musculoskeletal issues. The Armed Forces covenant was a positive not a negative and he hoped that people who were drafting the detail would now have the awareness to bring forward veterans’ issues. He then advised that he would share the veterans information pack he had would be shared with all members  ...  view the full minutes text for item 119.

120.

Review of the Elections held on 4 May 2023 pdf icon PDF 118 KB

The report reviews the arrangements for the Elections which took place on 4 May 2023.   It provides information, feedback and considers lessons learned.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

In introducing this item, the Chair reminded members that should anyone want to make any comments regarding Voter ID, it was important that members kept those comments related to management of the process which was what the Council had control and influence over, rather than any discussion on opinion of the change implemented by Central Government. The Chair then invited the Electoral Services Manager to present the report.  She confirmed that the report provided members with a review of the Arun District and Parish elections that took place on 4 May 2023, it included statical information about the elections and feedback that had been collated. Feedback had been sought from a large number of people who were involved in the election process and confirmed that the feedback was still being collated currently.

 

          The Chair thanked the officer for the report and stated that it was important to recognise the incredible amount of work undertaken by the election team and the wider individuals who also helped ensure the execution of the election. He then took questions and comments from members where feedback for the location of the Poling Station for Hotham Ward was given, it was stated that the location was unsuitable for disabled access, it was cold for those who worked in the station all day. It was requested that the station location was reviewed prior to any further election taking place. The Chair also stated that the other Poling Station in Hotham was at the University, but he found that there was only 30 minutes of free parking before individuals were issued with a parking ticket, he requested that the arrangements for this was also reviewed.

 

          Councillor Lloyd was then invited to speak where she stated that she felt the feedback felt a bit unbalanced. She explained that although problems would come up throughout the day, she thought the staff that she interacted with worked incredibly hard, were as professional and engaging at the start of the day as they were at the end of the day. She expressed her thanks to all involved. Other members of the committee were supportive and in agreement with the comments made by Councillor Lloyd.

 

The comment in the report at paragraph 4.12, that stated large enough venues to allow for in-person appointments could not be booked, was queried given that there were large areas of the Civic Centre building that were thought not to be being used during this time.

 

Regarding paragraph 4.22, it was acknowledged that staffing the election had its difficulties, and therefore what preparation was being undertaken now to ensure that this issue was not repeated when the next election arrived.  The Electoral Services Manager advised that in 2021 a lot of staff that had been on the staffing database requested to be removed from the database, staff were put off by the introduction of voter ID. However, a lot of feedback has been received from a lot of the new staff found for the election had been positive.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 120.

121.

Work Programme 2023/24 pdf icon PDF 72 KB

The work programme for the municipal year 2023/24 is attached for members review and comment.

Minutes:

The work programme for 2023/24 was received by the committee and noted.

 

122.

Outside Bodies Update Report

Minutes:

The Chair confirmed that there were no update reports for this meeting.