Agenda and draft minutes

Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee are asked to consider whether they have an interest in any matters on the agenda and, if so, to formally declare that interest.

Councillor Stella Smith declared a personal interest in any item relating the Mosses Centre as she is a director at the Nursery and Pre- School.

A period of 30 minutes has been set aside for members of the public to ask questions on matters considered at the last meeting and set out in the minutes or on the agenda for tonight’s meeting.

There were no member of the public present to ask questions under this item.

Following the receipt of a Notice of Call-in within the required deadline, from Councillor Caserta calling in the decision of the Cabinet set out in Minute CA.05 of the meeting held on 13 November 2019, a meeting of the Committee has been convened in order to consider the matter in accordance with the reasons set out on the Notice of Call-In.

In considering the matter, the options available to the Scrutiny Committee are as follows:

1. The Scrutiny Committee decides not to offer any comments on the Notice. In this situation the decision of the Cabinet will stand.
2. The Scrutiny Committee decides to offer comments or objections, which will be referred back to the Cabinet at the meeting arranged for 29 January 2020.
3. The Scrutiny Committee may refer the Notice, without comment, to the Council. The matter will then be considered by the Council on 22 January 2019 (a standard item appears on all Council summons to consider referrals from Scrutiny Committees). Any comments or objections from Council will be referred back to the Cabinet at the earliest opportunity, in accordance with the Council Constitution.

The Cabinet will be required to consider any objections and comments but will not be bound by them unless"it is contrary to the Policy Framework or contrary to or not wholly consistent with the Budget" (Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules - Paragraph 16(g) of the Council Constitution).”

A copy of the original paperwork considered by Cabinet, along with the decision Minute and Call –in notice are attached.

The Scrutiny Committee considered a called-in decision of the Cabinet meeting held on 13 November 2019 in accordance with the Council Constitution.

The Cabinet had made the following decision:

Delegated decision

Cabinet agrees to:

1.     Approve the use of the Community Asset Transfer arrangements and invite interest from community and voluntary sector organisations to the management and use of Children’s Centre buildings.

2   That a report be presented to Cabinet in early 2020 setting out the outcome of the Community Asset Transfer application process, and making recommendations in respect of the future management arrangements for each Children’s Centre

Reason for the decision:

The proposed arrangements focus on how the Children’s Centre buildings can continue to serve their respective communities, whilst exploring alternative models for the management of those buildings, both to build community capacity and resilience, and to enable the broader delivery of services.

A Call – In Notice had been submitted by Councillor Caserta, Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, setting out the reasons for the Call In of the decision. The reasons are set out below:

·         To understand the financial implications and social hardship that will be caused by transferring centres to private ownership.

Councillor Caserta invited Councillor Tariq, Cabinet Member – Children and Families, Karen Dolton, Executive Director Children and Young People and Sandra Bruce, Assistant Director Early Help and School Readiness to respond to the reasons highlighted:

Councillor Tariq explained that the Children’s centres as key Council assets can make a greater contribution to communities through more effective arrangements for their management and use, moving away from the delivery of constrained core services to a much broader community driven offer over an extended day.

The proposed arrangements set out within the report focus on how the Children’s Centre buildings can continue to serve their respective communities whilst exploring alternative models for the management of the buildings both to build capacity and resilience and to enable the broader delivery of services to the 0-19 population.

It was reported that the proposed alternative management arrangements would be put in place at the following Children’s Centres:

Bury East Hub (Hazel Wood High School)

Radcliffe Hub (Coronation Road)

Radcliffe Spoke (Radcliffe Hall CE/Methodist Primary School)

Prestwich Spoke (Butterstile Primary School)

Bury West Hub (Woodbank Primary School)

It was proposed to use the same Community Asset Transfer approach that was used when the management of a number of former library buildings was transferred to community and voluntary sector groups and two schools. It was reported that lessons from that process will be addressed as part of the review arrangements that will be put in place for the Children’s Centre buildngs. Two key considerations would be reflected in the revised Community Asset Transfer Toolkit:

·    As the majority of Children’s Centres are on school sites, and in many cases located integral to the school site. It is important to ensure that future use of those buildings is complementary to the schools use and does not introduce unmanageable safeguarding risks.  ...  view the full minutes text for item OSC.283