Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Members.

Apologies were received from Cllr P Miles.

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications. 

There were no substitute members

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

Cllr M Haines declared a local interest in Agenda Item 7, Covid-19 Recovery – Community and People as she was a member of the Access to Food Working Group in relation to the feedback provided from Faithworks Wessex. She would stay and participate in the item.

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meetings held on 24 August 2020.

The minutes of the meetings held on Monday 24 August at 2.00pm and 6.00pm were agreed as correct records.

To note and commnet on the attached action sheet which tracks decisions, actions and recommendations from previous meetings.

The Board’s current action sheet was noted.

To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution, which is available to view at the following link:

https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1

The deadline for the submission of a public question is 4 clear working days before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a public statement is midday the working day before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.

There were no public questions, statements or petitions received for this meeting

For the Board to consider any issues raised by the Chairman which are not dealt with elsewhere on the agenda.

The Chairman updated the meeting on the current focus of the Overview and Scrutiny Board meetings in that it had recently been taking a deep dive into listening mode to look at issues concerning Covid-19 recovery. Previous meetings had focused on tourism & economy, and transport & infrastructure with feedback from partner organisations. This meeting would look at this issue from the aspect of ‘community and people’. Including partner organisations but also the Council response to this issue.

The Chairman advised that, due to the presenting officer’s other commitments related to Covid-19 and if there were no objections, the Board would consider the first part of agenda item 8 prior to agenda item 7

To consider observations on the impact of Covid-19 and prospects for future reset and recovery from invited representatives of community and voluntary organisations including:

•       Citizens Advice – Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

•       Community Action Network

•       Faithworks Wessex

The following Cabinet Portfolio Holders are also invited to attend the Board meeting for consideration of this item:

•       Councillor Lewis Allison, Portfolio Holder for Tourism, Leisure and Communities

•       Councillor Vikki Slade, Leader of the Council

The purpose of this scrutiny is to listen to a wide range of stakeholders to gain a greater understanding of the wider effects of Covid-19 and to take into account the views of the external stakeholder in future scrutiny of the impact of Covid-19, in line with the Board’s role as enabler of the voice and concerns of the public. 

The Director for Community, gave a presentation to the Board which provided an update on the current situation and included information concerning community issues within the BCP area, including:

·     The level of domestic abuse and BCP Council’s work in preventing domestic abuse, which included a helpline and online support. It was noted that there was an 8 percent increase in cases on last year.

·     Anti-Social Behaviour reports to the police were up by 30% on last year, this included breaches of Covid regulations. Reports to the Council team were also up. These could be treated as related to the current situation including neighbour disputes and Covid breaches.

·     The Anti-Social Behaviour team had been undertaking significant work concerning a number of areas, including working with licensed premises and shops on reopening to tackle street-based ASB, begging and issues linked to licenses premises

Together We Can, including the partnership working to provide direct support in more than 4000 cases in response to over 14,000 calls received to the telephone helpline.

It was noted that the volunteers had done an excellent job in supporting shopping, delivering information postcards phone call support for those self-isolating.

The initiative also secured funding for community and voluntary sector groups, supported several initiatives to target food poverty, and introduced a financial resilience helpline to provide a simple route to talk about debt, finance and benefits.

Work was going on in conjunction with Public Health Dorset to develop contingency plans under the Local Outbreak Management Plan if shielding were reintroduced.

The Director advised that everyone had worked so hard and so fast to support vulnerable people in our community at a difficult time and expressed her thanks to all involved. Through the initiative strategies had been put in place to strengthen the voluntary and community sector. 

The Chairman thanked the Director and team for all the work which has been done and opened the meeting up to questions from the Board, during which time a number of issues were raised including:

·       Whether Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS) officers could be deployed in Charminster as there had been a recent outbreak of Anti-Social Behaviour in the area.

·       The Director advised that although CSAS resources were limited the Council did now have the power to use CSAS officers over the whole BCP  area rather than in specifically targeted areas. It as noted that it was hoped to move some resource to the area. The Director asked the Councillor to keep the Council and Dorset Police updated on the situation and encourage residents to report and instances of ASB.

·     A Councillor raised a query concerning the Domestic Abuse Helpline and the Financial Resilience helpline as he wasn’t able to easily access the numbers through the BCP website. The Director expressed her disappointment in this as they were extremely important. The Councillor was advised that a link to the helpline would be posted for Board members, but they would also look at the accessibility of these.

·     A Councillor commended staff for their work.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55.

To consider observations on the impact of Covid-19 and prospects for future reset and recovery on the following issues:

·       “Together We Can”

·       Community Resilience

·       Impact on staff / working from home

The following Cabinet Portfolio Holder is also invited to attend the Board meeting for consideration of this item:

•       Councillor Vikki Slade, Leader of the Council

The purpose of this scrutiny is to listen to a wide range of stakeholders to gain a greater understanding of the wider effects of Covid-19 and the impact that this has had on the community and BCP Council Employees.

The Director Organisational Development outlined to the Board that the COuncil had taken public health approach as to where staff should be working. It was noted that staff should be working from home whenever possible and should continue to do so in the future. Many of workforce were able to work successfully from home. However, this did not mean that the offices were closed, they remained open with appropriate covid measures in case. More vulnerable employees were also being supported.

Significant technology support was required including providing over 4500 laptops to enable home working, Microsoft Teams telephony for customer service staff was in place. Exposure to mobile phones would be reduced when Teams telephony was introduced in the next few months. However, it was noted that remote working didn’t suit everyone’s home circumstances but for most staff it had been a welcome feature and will impact how they continue to work in the future.

A staff survey conducted in June received 1900 staff responses. Ninety percent of responses showed that staff either enjoyed, really enjoyed or found working from home ok the main reasons given were the convenience and time to focus without office environments. IT issues were a concern in some cases, but it was unclear if this was related to equipment, broadband, other bandwidth use within the household.

The Council were supporting staff during this period with a number of wellbeing measures, including Counselling for members of staff who require it. The pace of change from a largely traditional office-based environment had been significant. Roll out of ICT had been rapid and vital. Overall the changes had been well received which allowed for greater opportunities in future for a more flexible approach to working.

A Councillor commented that they fully understood the issues members of staff have had working from home as he needed to access the Council buildings due to not having a suitable place to work from home. It was noted that since lockdown there had been difficulty in obtaining timely responses to generic Council email addresses and emails appeared to get trapped in an endless loop. It was noted that with lots of people working from home as individuals there have been challenges, certainly in the transition period. Previously embedded and generally infallible ways of working needed to be changed to ensure they continued to work with the new conditions.

In response to a question it was explained that the previous technology used by the customer contact centre only worked within an office based environment. Microsoft Teams with telephony had been rolled out so that customer contact staff could continue but the system did not work in the same way. The current system could not be used remotely and the Council was working on procuring a new system that could be used with remote working.

A COuncillor asked about those who hadn’t been able to work from home and how they have coped with work and the impact on their mental health. The Corpriate Director  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56.