At the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel (CYPSP) meeting held on 7th March, there was strong resistance from the chairman, Cllr George Cameron, to proposed amendments to the minutes from the February meeting put forward by panel member, Dave Miller.
Mr Miller was concerned that vital pieces of information (see below), that he felt should be recorded within the minutes of the Scrutiny Panel’s meeting, had been omitted.
Amendments submitted to officer
He’d submitted the amendments to the officer in charge of preparing the minutes, who had in turn spoken with the chairman.
What followed was an email from the officer (see below) to all members of the panel stating why the amendments would not be accepted and when the item arose at the beginning of the CYPSP meeting on 7th March, the amendments received no seconder and were dismissed.
Resistance from Cllrs Gary Taylor and George Cameron
It was clear by the email from the officer to all members that Cllr Gary Taylor (who had chaired the February meeting in Cllr Cameron’s absence) and Cllr George Cameron were against the amendments being added to the minutes.
The email read:
Mr Miller has submitted a number of amendments to the minutes of the meeting held on 5 February. I have discussed these with the Cllr Gary Taylor who was in the chair for that meeting. He has indicated that he does not believe that these should be supported and the minutes should be confirmed as printed
Mr Miller has been previously advised that minutes do not provide a verbatim record of what was said and who said this.
Whilst it is entirely up to the panel to decide upon whether the minutes should be amended as requested by Mr Miller the chairman, Cllr George Cameron, will move the minutes as printed.
Cllr Cameron has requested that the panel should be advised of this matter so that it can concentrate on the main issue on the agenda relating to safeguarding.
Why were the amendments suppressed?
Surely if the amendments had been forwarded in advance and all members had seen them, it would take no longer to say ‘yes we agree’ than what actually happened, when they had to vote that the minutes not be amended.
The amendments Mr Miller proposed to be put on record, but were not, are as follows:
Public question time to be inserted
– Mr XXX raised a question with relation to the inadequate rating from Ofsted following inspection of the Local Authority’s role in the protection of children. The chairman did not consider the question to be appropriately worded and declined to provide a response.Minute 35
– A member, not on the panel, questioned whether members were aware of a child death that occurred in late 2012, which may be relevant to the consideration of the LA’s safeguarding discussion, and that it would be regrettable if they were not. The panel were provided with Officer advice of the procedures for such cases, without considering any specific events. (see OnTheWight report of this item)Minute 36
– The Chief Executive quantified a budget provision of an additional £50k to support Cowes Enterprise College exit Special Measures.Minute 37
– The rating for raising educational standards had changed from red in quarter 2 to amber. This was said to be due to an improved approach by schools to their predictions for attainment, amongst other factors.– A member of the panel sought clarification of the national secondary attendance rate, given the report stated that our figure of 88.7% was below average. Upon provision of the answer (94%), the panel considered that it would be desirable for future reporting to be clearer.
Minute 38
– Upon challenge, it was accepted that the Phase Five school capital programme would be a cabinet decision, not a delegated decision as listed in the forward plan.Minute 39
– An oral question from Councillor Roger Mazillius was put to the chairman in relation to the appointment of a school improvement partner, specifically, the claim that another LA had ceased to be interested in partnering with our LA because of, predominantly anonymous, daft comments on local news websites. The Chief Executive, at the request of the chairman, advised the panel that some local authorities may wish to not risk their reputation by working with the Isle of Wight Local Authority, and hence the council had still to identify a suitable authority. (See OnTheWight report on this item)
Cllr Mazillius said he understood Mr Miller’s wish to elongate the minutes to give more detail, but that operations have in the past meant minutes are “reduced down to actions and not down to personal comments”. He added that a new administration may wish to revise this procedure in future.
For those who wish to see the minutes of the February meeting, they are embedded below for your convenience.
Image: Moppet 65535 under CC BY 2.0
