Members received the draft Annual Report to Council as submitted by the Chair, Councillor Osborne.  In accordance with Article 6, Paragraph 6.3 (d) of the Constitution, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) was required to report annually to the Council on their workings and make recommendations for future work programmes and amend working methods, if appropriate.

The report covered the period from April 2023 through to the end of March 2024 and gave examples of the various subjects that the OSC had considered during this period, as well as the informal meeting held in January 2024 to consider in detail the outcome and recommendations of the Scrutiny Improvement Review, carried out by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny in July 2022.

The Chair noted that (MBE) would be added after Councillor J. Barnes’ name in paragraph 14 when the report was submitted to Council. The Chair thanked Members, particularly those new to the Committee, for their input into the many debates that had taken place over the year and for the support of officers and Democratic Services.  The Task and Finish Groups that had been established continued to do a lot of good work with regard to the individual tasks that they had been set.  The Chair thanked the Members of these Task and Finish Groups, as well as outside representatives and officers for their time and input.

It was noted that as the OSC acted as a critical friend to the Cabinet (Executive), it was preferable that items be scrutinised by the Committee before being taken to Cabinet. A recent item had been reported to Cabinet first, but this had been due to the tight timescales involved.

Members of the Committee paid tribute to the Chair and thanked him for his good chairmanship.

RESOLVED: That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s draft Annual Report, as amended, be approved and recommended to Council.