Agenda and minutes

None.

To receive questions / statements from the public, if any.

None received.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 9^th April 2025.

Please note that the minutes will follow.

The Monitoring Officer explained that due to resourcing pressures in the Democratic Services Team, the minutes for the April meeting would go to the June meeting for approval.

Members are asked at this stage to declare any interests that they may have in any of the following items on the agenda. The Code of Conduct for Members requires that declarations include the nature of the interest and whether it is a disclosable pecuniary interest.

None received.

To determine any other items of business which the Chairman decides should be considered as a matter of urgency pursuant to Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

None received.

To consider any petitions received from members of the public.

None.

To consider any requests made by non-executive Members of the Council, submitted to the Democratic Services Manager with seven clear working days’ notice, to include an item on the agenda of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

No matters were brought forward.

To consider any responses of the Council or the Cabinet to the Committee’s reports or recommendations:

The Chairman informed members that there had not been any recommendations to Cabinet.

The Chairman invited the Deputy Leader, Cllr W Fredericks, to present this item.

She began by thanking officers for their hard work and invited members to speak.

Cllr S Penfold thanked officers for adding the previous RAG status for comparison. He referred to action 27 (page 17) – Fakenham Banking Hub. He said that the action related to Fakenham but the comments included in the report related to North Walsham. He asked for an update on progress with this project in Fakenham. Cllr Fredericks replied that success had been achieved in North Walsham and Holt and comments were included to provide context. She said that negotiations were still ongoing regarding a banking hub in Fakenham and confirmed that it was being actively pursued. She added support from local members would be welcomed.

Cllr C Cushing, local member for Fakenham, said that he had previously raised this in Cabinet meetings. He added that he had discussed the issue with Jerome Mayhew MP and he explained that a banking hub could not currently be set up in the town as there was a Building Society that would accept cash deposits from residents. One option would be ‘Cash Access UK’ as the Nationwide Building Society did not accept deposits from businesses. One plan that was being pursued by Mr Mayhew, was to push for a permanent post office in the town and for this to have a Cash Access UK facility. He questioned whether this action should be included in report as it was not within the remit of NNDC to set up a banking hub. Cllr Fredericks thanked Cllr Cushing for his update and agreed that the Council’s role was mainly lobbying but said that it was important to support the business community, even if this meant indirectly.

Cllr L Vickers, local member for Fakenham said that she had recently attended a meeting with Jerome Mayhew MP and there was an upcoming meeting with the Mayor of Fakenham and the Council’s Business Development Team to discuss other funding to improve Fakenham town centre.

The Chairman asked if there was any other work underway, in addition to lobbying. Cllr Fredericks replied that the Portfolio Holder for Sustainable Growth would be able to provide more information on this. The Director for Communities (DFC) added that he would provide further information in writing. He added that a lot of businesses had moved online in recent years and the scope of the original objective had been broadened to reflect this and the changing environment and needs of businesses and residents.

Cllr Penfold suggested that it could be worth changing the language used from banking ‘hub’ to ‘facility’. He then referred to action 40 (page 19) ‘Review the Council’s approach to asset commercialisation’ and asked what was planned for the physical assets linked to the Deep History Coast project, now that the Tourist Information Centre in Cromer had been sold. The Chief Executive replied that there had been discussions with Norfolk Museums Service (NMS) but they were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

To note the upcoming Cabinet Work Programme.

The Democratic Services Manager updated members on the Cabinet work programme.

To review the Action Tracker and make any recommendations where issues are still outstanding.

The Committee considered the Action tracker and received an update from the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Benefits on the current status of the recommendations made by the Homelessness Task & Finish Group to Cabinet.

The Chairman reminded all members of the committee that it was important to review the tracker regularly and monitor the actions.

The Annual Work Programme has been reviewed and a draft schedule has been prepared, with suggested topics as well as standard, cyclical items.

Members are invited to review the proposed work programme and suggest topics for inclusion for the forthcoming year, taking into consideration the guiding principles (Appendix A) and the changes agreed by the Committee in July 2024 (Appendix B).

The Chairman invited the Assistant Director for Legal & Democratic Services to provide an update on the work programme.

Cllr Holliday asked about the scheduling of scrutiny of the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) process and whether this could be brought forward to the June meeting. The Chief Executive replied that June was too premature to consider this. Feedback from MHCLG had just been received, at a meeting with Norfolk partners. A lot of preparatory work was needed and a procurement for a strategic partner to assist in this was underway, as well as several themed workstreams focussed on service delivery and reform. These would commence in early June.

He said that he would write to all members advising how this would move forward in the coming weeks and it was unlikely that there would be anything substantive to share at the June meeting of the committee, given that the majority of the work would not commence until early in the month. He went onto say that he was intending to hold a briefing for town and parish councils towards the end of June and then a workshop briefing in July for members, ahead of a formal special meeting of Full Council in September (date tbc) which would be a co-ordinated meeting across the partnered Norfolk councils to agree the final submission to central government.

The Chairman thanked the Chief Executive for the update. He acknowledged that there was a lot of work to be done and it was accepted that a consensual approach would be preferable. The planning and delivery of this was a considerable amount of work in a short period of time. He added that it would be helpful if the Committee could understand the timescales and how the work would be achieved over the next 4 months. The Chief Executive acknowledged this and said that the timescales were set by central government. He assured members that work was progressing at pace, in line with the criteria set out by Government.

Cllr S Penfold suggested that the NWHAZ update should come to June instead of July and that it would be difficult to accommodate scrutiny of LGR prior to September. Cllr Housden agreed. The Chief Executive confirmed that a final submission for LGR would go to Full Council in mid-September and an all-member briefing would be held in July.  It was not possible or beneficial to bring a report to Overview & Scrutiny before then, for the reasons given earlier and a workshop for all members may be a better approach.

It should be noted that work was also progressing towards the creation of a new Mayoral Combined Authority, which would be taking up officer time too in the coming months.

Cllr Housden asked if there were elements of the LGR process that could be extracted and then considered by the Committee. The Chief Executive replied that further discussions would be needed before he was able to respond on this.

Cllr Fredericks suggested that the workshop briefing took place first  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

To pass the following resolution, if necessary:

“That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph _ of Part I of Schedule 12A (as amended) to the Act.”