Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Greenslade after the meeting.

There were no disclosures of interest, but it was noted that all councillors had a stake in how services were delivered.

Introduction

The Chair introduced the topic of the Task Group which had been proposed by the Managing Director. The Task Group was not concerned with the economics of service delivery but the political implications and how Members retained democratic influence. There were various responses to the new economic reality and officers were looking for solutions based on economics; it was for Members to ensure that democratic accountability remained. He added that although this was a one-off topic group this would be a continuing theme for Members and would doubtless generate other subjects for subsequent scrutiny. He invited Members to give their initial views.

General discussion

Councillor McLeod said that she felt that the Task Group needed a baseline to work from indicating what the Council was currently doing.

Councillor Bell felt that this was an important topic and noted the different models being pursued by the London Boroughs of Barnet and Lambeth. He added that it was very important to look at other local authorities.

Councillor Martins advised that he felt the scope was too narrow and the broader context of localism needed to be taken into consideration. The Task Group needed to consider how the Council could engage with communities.

Councillor Jeffree agreed with Councillor McLeod. He felt it was important to formulate a view of where the Council should go. Cost was an important consideration but was one-dimensional; value for money was what was needed. Some services could be out-sourced more easily than others. He added that he would like the Task Group to have an agenda, written or unwritten, which said that their starting point was to keep all services in-house, the second option would be to share services with one or more councils and the last resort would be to outsource.

The Vice Chair said that the end point should be democratic accountability. He felt it was worth considering a range of approaches as this would allow Members to have a strong argument about why a certain approach was or was not suitable for Watford.

The Chair noted that there was not time to cover everything in this review. Localism was a very large topic which merited its own review. The Task Group could highlight areas which needed further investigation.

Councillor Bell said that the key issue was to look at the accountability of different service delivery models and the kind of accountability for Members.

The Chair said he could see a hierarchy of services; for example it may matter less to residents if pest control was outsourced than if refuse collection was outsourced.

Councillor McLeod asked if the Task Group could have a breakdown of what was outsourced or delivered in another way at present.

The Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer informed the Task Group that the meeting of Cabinet in February had been cancelled. The Task Group was therefore aiming to produce a final report for the meeting of Overview and Scrutiny on 7 March 2012.

Councillor Johnson noted that this was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The Task Group agreed to invite the Executive Director Services and the Executive Director Resources to the next meeting.

ACTION- The Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer to circulate past reports by the Call-in and Performance Committee on SLM and WCHT

The Chair suggested that before the second meeting the Task Group consider which other local authorities to look at, including one which was similar to Watford.

Councillor Bell suggested looking at the authorities in Watford’s CIPFA family.

The Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer asked what questions Members had for the Executive Director Services and the Executive Director Resources. It was decided to use the seven bullet points in the Managing Director’s briefing as a guideline and that the Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer would circulate them for general comment before submitting them.

The Chair suggested asking how much influence the Council had in its current contracts.

The Vice Chair said that one example could be whether the Council could decide to change the pricing structure at the leisure centres.

It was agreed that the Committee and Scrutiny Support Officer would circulate the dates.