Agenda and minutes

In the absence of the Chair, Councillor N Akhtar, in accordance with the Constitution, Councillor J Clifford, Deputy Chair of the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee chaired the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 5 March, 2018

(b)  Matters Arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 March, 2018 were agreed and signed as a true record.

There were no matters arising.

Briefing Note of the Deputy Chief Executive, Place, and the Coventry City of Culture Trust

The Scrutiny Board received a Briefing Note and presentation at the meeting which outlined the City’s preparations to be UK City of Culture 2021 following the award of the title in December, 2017.

The Scrutiny Board were updated on the following key work strands supporting the preparations:-

• Great Place Scheme and Cultural Destinations – Coventry was awarded Great Place and Cultural Destinations funding from Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.  Partnership activity across these grant funded programmes is being considered by the Great Place Project Manager at the Coventry City of Culture Trust. This activity will support the City’s build up programme and preparations from 2017 to 2020. The current work streams supported by this funding, including the development of Coventry’s Destination Management Plan, were detailed.

•BBC – The Director General of the BBC, Lord Tony Hall, visited Coventry in March with key staff and spoke openly about the BBC’s commitment to supporting the City of Culture and collaborating with the City on new commissions.

•British Council – The British Council want to establish clear benchmarks for Coventry’s international profile and have committed to funding a whole city audit which will be led by the two universities.

•Arts Council England (ACE) – Discussions have started around ACE’s support for 2021.

•Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) - The Trust has met with the HLF to discuss the £3m revenue commitment HLF made to the City of Culture programme before the award of the title.

•Cultural Capital Plans – The Trust has supported the City Council in developing a brief for an overview of cultural capital plans with a view to helping direct and prioritise bods to potential funders of capital schemes.

•Media Value – The Coventry City of Culture media value achieved since commencing bidding for the title now stands at over £27.7 million.

•Recruitment – Chenine Bhathena has recently been appointed as the Creative Director and recruitment for the Executive Director is currently being undertaken. Laura McMillian has now taken up the position of Director of Operations and Legacy at the Trust.

•Public Meetings – A series of public meetings are being held across Coventry and sign up for attendance has been high. The contents of the meetings includes what the UK City of Culture is; the journey so far; what happens next; and how the public can get involved. A public summary of the Bid has been published outlining the next steps in preparing for 2021 and copies of this were available at the meeting.

•Visit of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Independent City of Culture Judging Panel – An update and the positive feedback on progress made so far following the visit on 24 April, 2018 was provided.

The Scrutiny Board questioned the officer and Trust representative on a number of issues including:-

  •Work on destination management and developing the “Coventry brand”

  •City Council preparations, particularly in relation to ensuring the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

Briefing Note of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Scrutiny Board considered a Briefing Note which detailed progress of the development of a Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Plan (HIAMP)

The Asset Management Policy and Strategy are high level documents that aligns the Council’s asset management processes and procedures with corporate goals and objectives. Since the approval and publication of both Policy and Strategy the Highway Group has continued to work to produce a revised and updated HIAMP, which will enable the Authority to meet strategic goals in the most effective manner having regard to statutory requirements.

The HIAMP has been reviewed and updated. However, before it can be finally completed and put forward for approval, the HIAMP needs to reflect the 36 recommendations of the 2016 Well Managed Highway Infrastructure, a Code of Practice (CoP). The new CoP supersedes the previous suite of CoP documents by incorporating Roads, Structures and Street lighting codes. The 36 recommendations of the new CoP were appended to the Briefing Note and replace the 175 that were in the old CoP.

The overarching principle of the new code of practice is the adoption of a risk based approach. This involves a functional hierarchy review of both carriageways and footways to ensure that the current categorisations are still relevant, a review of defect levels, defect categories and defect repair response times. In addition to this the HIAMP review and implementation will ensure that the City Council are able to achieve a “stand alone” Band 3 status for the next self-assessment submission (2019/20), which will ensure the maximum level of capital funding from the Department for Transport (DfT). To achieve this, the Council will be required to be at Band 3 in at least 18 of the 22 incentive questions. In 2015/16, the Council achieved 10 of the 22 and in 2016/17 this had increase to 22. Therefore only 3 more areas were needed to meet the Band 3 requirement.  

The work is expected to be completed by Autumn 2018 which will be in line with DfT requirement for authorities to have implemented the CoP by October 2018.

The Scrutiny Board questioned the Cabinet Member and officers on aspects of the Briefing Note including:-

  •The involvement of and consultation with external stakeholders

  •The use of innovative and new ways of working

  •Work undertaken by the utilities and the amount of control the City

   Council has in relation to the timing and quality of work undertaken on

   the City’s roads.

RESOLVED that the Scrutiny Board note the progress and actions with regard to the Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Plan.

Outstanding issues have been included in the Work Programme

The Scrutiny Board noted that all outstanding issues were dealt with in the Scrutiny Board’s Work Programme.

Report of the Scrutiny Co-ordinator

The Scrutiny Board noted a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place) which detailed the Board’s Work Programme for 2017/18.

Any other items of urgent public business which the Chair decides to take as matters of urgency because of the special circumstances involved

There were no other items of public business.

On behalf of the Chair, Councillor Akhtar, Councillor Clifford indicated that Councillor K Mulhall was attending his last meeting of the Scrutiny Board before retiring as a Councillor. Councillor Clifford paid tribute to all of the work undertaken by Councillor Mulhall and, on behalf of the Scrutiny Board, wished Councillor Mulhall all the very best for the future.