Agenda item

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services presenting the recently revised Terms of Reference of the Inner North East London (INEL) Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee (HOSC).

The Deputy Chairman also welcomed Robert Brown, Senior Scrutiny Policy Officer at the London Borough of Newham, to talk to the report. Mr Brown highlighted that the INEL HOSC incorporated the London Borough of Newham, Tower Hamlets, the London Borough of Hackney and the City of London Corporation. The Committee had not now met since November 2017 but the plan was now to ressurect more regular meetings over the next few years.

Members were informed that a revised Terms of Reference document was attached to the report for comment and that a new protocol was also in place to help Members to have a better understanding of what types of issues could come to HOSC meetings.

Mr Brown confirmed that the City of London Corporation had one representative on the Committee and that, at present, this was the Chairman of this Committee, with the Deputy Chairman as a substitute. It was highlighted that this, however, may change given that HOSC meetings were evening meetings and that this often proved problematic for the Chairman. The Deputy Chairman state that it may be that he therefore become the City’s representative on the HOSC with a new substitute appointed. He clarified that it was not necessary for the City’s representative to be either the Chairman or Deputy Chairman of this Committee and that this would therefore be a matter for Members to decide in due course. It was noted that it would be preferable for the City to have a consistent attendee at these meetings going forward.

In response to questions, Mr Brown clarified that meetings of the HOSC took place in Stratford at the Old Town Hall. He added that key issues that the meetings would be considering in the coming months included the Estate Strategy in April 2019 and the NHS Long Term Plan in September 2019 which would be a joint Inner North East London (INEL) and Outer North East London (ONEL) meeting. It was also noted that David Maher and Selena Douglas would be invited to attend all future meetings.

With reference to the proposed revised terms of reference, Members requested that the contributors be referred to as authorities as opposed to boroughs.

Members suggested that it would be helpful to be provided with a meeting schedule for the year ahead in advance. The Deputy Chairman added that he would like all Members of this Committee to be sent the papers for future meetings for information and that he would welcome any input they may have to feed in to this meeting.

The Committee noted the proposal around the London Borough of Waltham Forest joining the INEL HOSC to reflect structural changes to the Clinical Commissioning Groups. Members were generally supportive of this noting that it was correct that the Committee should have scrutiny powers over Whipps Cross.

Mr Brown thanked the Committee for their input and highlighted that there had also been proposed amendments to the terms of reference from other contributors and that these would therefore be reflected in a final version of the document which would be referred to the next HOSC meeting for final approval.

RESOLVED – That Members note the report.