Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed all those present to the meeting, with a particularly warm welcome extended to guest speakers, Inspector Simon Outen and Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Davison from Lincolnshire Police.

Meeting of the Challenge and Improvement Committee held on 11 October 2016

(a)     Meeting of the Challenge and Improvement Committee held on 11 October 2016 (CAI.33 16/17)

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Challenge and Improvement Committee held on 11 October 2016be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

Members may make any declarations of interest at this point and may also make them at any point during the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made at this point in the meeting.

Matters Arising Schedule setting out current position of previously agreed actions as at 7 November 2016

The Committee gave consideration to the Matters Arising Schedule, setting out the current position of previously agreed actions, as at 7 November 2016.

Officers indicated that were continuing to liaise with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner regarding organising a separate informal meeting for lead Members to meet with the Commissioner, the outcome of which would be fed back to the Committee.

In respect of the green item entitled, “school/colleges – scrutiny session”, Officers provided a further update advising that three organisations to date had accepted the invitation.  Officers would continue to chase up outstanding responses in preparation for the next meeting.

RESOLVED that the Matters Arising Schedule as at 7 November 2016 and the verbal updates, detailed above, be received and noted.

                  Committee will have the opportunity to discuss the work of Lincolnshire Police together with a number of keys areas of police work both operationally and strategically, to enhance member and officer understanding and further promote effective partnership working with Lincolnshire Police.

This will enable informed consideration of the issues affecting West Lindsey and enable Members to seek assurance of the work in place to ensure that efforts to reduce crime and promote community safety in West Lindsey are effective.

                  Inspector Simon Outen, together with Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Davidson will be in attendance and make short presentations to the Committee, addressing those matters previously identified, and detailed in Appendix A to this agenda. 

                  This will be followed by a period of supplementary questioning from the Committee.

Committee had the opportunity to discuss the work of Lincolnshire Police together with a number of key areas of Police work both operationally and strategically, to enhance Member and Officer understanding and further promote effective partnership working with Lincolnshire Police.

It was hoped this would enable informed consideration of the issues affecting West Lindsey and enable Members to seek assurance of the work in place to ensure that efforts to reduce crime and promote community safety in West Lindsey were effective.

Inspector Simon Outen, together with Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Davison were in attendance and made presentations to the Committee, addressing those matters previously identified, and which had been detailed in Appendix A to the agenda. 

Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Davison addressed the Committee first, in relation to Integrated Offender Management.  During his presentation he provided an overview of the IOM scheme, and an insight into the volume and profile of the IOM cohort living and / or offending in the West Lindsey area, during which it was noted that

•      Assisting Rehabilitation through Collaboration (ARC) was the Lincolnshire approach to Integrated Offender Management. ARC was a multi-agency team committed to the rehabilitation of the most complex and prolific offenders in Lincolnshire. This being the top 2%.

•      Clients were selected through police statistical analysis and would have committed 8 offences in the last 12 months regardless of crime type.  Each client would  have an Exit Strategy agreed by all engaging agencies which would be based on the Pathways out of offending.

•      The clients progress would be discussed frequently and once each Exit criteria had been achieved they would be de-registered from ARC and managed by generic probation if statutory or signposted to charity agencies for further support if non – statutory.

•      ARC currently had a total of 46 clients including those currently in custody.

•      Of those, 7 were within West Lindsey and as at 3 November 2016 were in the community, with the majority of the offending being shop thefts.

•      It was anticipated that due to the geographical make up of WL there would always be clients in the area similar to those in neighbouring districts such as East Lindsey, North Kesteven, compared to the majority being in Lincoln, especially in the city centre and surrounding area.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Davison was asked to provide assurance of the effectiveness of measures and partnerships in West Lindsey to achieve long term desistance and advised that ARC had a rejuvenated focus into offender management and was not managing to full capacity yet.  Also as this was a new strategy, performance measurements and evidence for effectiveness were not available at the current time.  The Schemes formal launch was not until 13 December 2016.  Future evidence which would be captured would include, the offending patterns and frequency 12 months prior to adoption, compared to the 12 months after de-registration from ARC, in order to effectively understand the longevity of ARCs involvement and desistance from crime.

Detective Chief  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

Members gave consideration to a report which detailed a request from the Prosperous Communities Committee for them to undertake a Commission into Health Services, in accordance with the brief / scope attached to report CAI.35 26/27. 

The Committee were also asked to determine the Membership of and appoint Members to serve on the Commission Group again in accordance with the brief / scope which had been attached to the report.

The following Members were proposed and seconded: -

Councillor G Bardsley

Councillor D Rodgers

Councillor S Bibb

Councillor T Young

Councillor A White

Councillor O Bierley

The current Health Champion, expressed her dissatisfaction and the lack of respect that had been shown to her and her position, in not being appointed to the Group.

Officers indicated that the size of the Committee was up for debate and if Members wished to increase the number of Members to serve upon it they could do so.   The Health Champion declined the invitation to join.

The Town Council were considered a key stakeholder that should be engaged.

It was also suggested that planning and housing should be integrated into the scope and Visiting Member Councillor Bibb, undertook to take this back to the Commission once established.

RESOLVED that: -

(a)     the request from the Prosperous Communities Committee to undertake a Commission into Health Services, in accordance with the attached brief / scope subject to the amendments detailed at 2.4 – 2.7 of the report, be accepted;

(b)     the Councillors outlined above be appointed to serve on the Commission Group with the ability for the Group to co-opt up to two independent/ lay members if considered appropriate as the work progresses; and

(c)  an interim position update report be submitted to the Challenge and Improvement Committee in May 2017.       

The Governance and Civic Officer presented a report setting out the items of business due to be considered through the committee system and asked Members to identify any reports that they wished to be brought before the Challenge and Improvement Committee for pre-scrutiny.

The Committee indicated they were interested in the Quickline Monitoring Report, however on explaining the report scheduled was to review the loan arrangements, it became apparent that Members were more concerned with Broadband Provision across the District.

In response, Officers advised that a position update report was due to the Prosperous Communities Committee in December, which would propose further work be undertaken.  It was important that Policy committees were permitted to discharge their functions in the first instance.

Following further concerns being raised regarding the level of service provision being offered by Quickline to its customers, it was suggested that they be invited to attend a future meeting.

RESOLVED that the Forward Plan be noted and that Quickline be invited to attend a future meeting of the Committee and this be added to the work plan

The Work Plan for the business of the Challenge and Improvement Committee was presented.

Two amendments were proposed namely that: -

·         Inspector Outen’s next update be scheduled for May 2017, as opposed to February at present; and

·         One of the Democracy Working Group update reports be removed from the February meeting, as this was a double entry.

RESOLVED that the Work Plan, subject to the amendments detailed above and the additional items requested throughout the meeting (minute 55 and 56) being incorporated, be noted.