To consider the proposed action plan to ensure that the Council, with the Primary Care Trust (PCT) and its other partners, is well-placed for the new system of Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).

The Committee considered the proposed action plan to ensure that the Council, with the Primary Care Trust (PCT) and its other partners was well-placed for the new system of Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).

The Head of Policy and Performance presented the report.  He drew attention to action 4.12 of the Plan referring to the establishment of strengthened scrutiny arrangements to demonstrate through its work programme how the Scrutiny function’s role contributed to the CAA process.

In the ensuing discussion the following principal points were made:

·         In response to a question about the resourcing for scrutiny the Head of Legal and Democratic Services informed Members of recent recruitment to Democratic Services and the resources allocated from all Directorates to supporting Scrutiny.  The closer working arrangements with the Primary Care Trust and recent legislation would necessitate consideration of the future role of scrutiny and the support it required.

·         That the Plan did not take sufficient account of the need to engage more directly with Parish Councils.  The only reference to Parish Councils appeared at action 2.3: establish stronger more effective links with neighbourhoods and parishes.  The entry at 2.3 of the Plan also referred to Parish Plan action plans being made available to services.  However, very few Parish Plans had been prepared and the perception was that the Council’s response to those that had been had been low-key.

·         Action 8.1 referring to the communication of the CAA programme made no specific reference to Parish Councils and should do so.

·         The Head of Legal and Democratic Services noted that a lot of the Council’s communication to the Parish Councils was through Herefordshire Association of Local Councils (HALC).  He added that the Parish Agreement setting out the Council’s working relationship with HALC and Parish Councils generally was currently being reviewed and might be something Members would like to scrutinise.

·         Members observed that not all Parish Councils were Members of HALC and that the extent to which HALC was considered representative of all views was debatable.  Whilst it might be convenient for the Council to seek to communicate through HALC it was essential that there was more direct engagement with individual Parish and Town Councils.  It was proposed that the CAA programme should be developed to reflect this point.

·         The Head of Policy and Performance said that it was recognised that action needed to be taken to develop the relationship with Parish Councils.  He suggested that in addition to considering the Parish Agreement the issue of the Council’s wider working relationship with Parish Councils might also be something worth scrutinising.

He added that account had been taken of the Parish Plans that had been submitted to the Council and Service Plans should reflect aspects of them.

He also noted that partners were to be consulted on the draft CAA programme and confirmed that this consultation would include Parish and Town Councils.

·         The objectives in the CAA preparation programme of improving well/having prospects for improvement in the direction of travel assessment in 2009-10 and to be consistently above minimum requirements, performing well in the use of resources assessment in 2009-10 were welcomed.

RESOLVED: That the Comprehensive Area Assessment programme be developed to better reflect the need to engage more directly with Parish Councils.