The Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee of Stockport Council was scheduled to meet on Thursday 29 May 2025. The agenda included the election of a chair and vice-chair, and the approval of previous minutes.

Election of Chair and Vice-Chair

The committee was scheduled to elect a chair and a vice-chair for the period until the next Annual Council Meeting.

The Remit of Scrutiny Committees and Cabinet Portfolios

A key item on the agenda was the consideration of a report from the Assistant Director for Governance regarding the remit of scrutiny committees and their subsequent reporting arrangements. This was in light of the Cabinet Portfolios agreed by the Leader of the Council and reported to the Annual Council Meeting on 20 May 2025. The Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee was asked to note the report and consider the distribution of portfolios to scrutiny committees as detailed in Section 2.7 of the report.

The report outlined changes to cabinet portfolios for the 2025/26 municipal year. For example, the Communities, Culture & Public Protection portfolio, formerly Communities, Culture & Sport, now includes responsibilities for fly-tipping, which has moved from the Parks, Highways & Transport Services portfolio. A new responsibility of Licensing Lead and Live Well Lead has also been added to this portfolio.

The Economy, Regeneration & Skills portfolio, previously Economy, Regeneration & Housing, has seen the removal of Planning and Housing Capital & Strategic Housing, which have been moved to the Housing and Environment portfolio. The Housing and Environment portfolio has also gained street cleaning and gulley maintenance from the Parks, Highways & Transport Services portfolio.

The Parks, Highways and Transport Services portfolio has seen the addition of a new responsibility for Bee Network Lead, and the designation of responsibility for Active Travel has been added for clarity. A new responsibility for Road Safety has also been introduced. Fly-tipping and street cleaning and gulley maintenance have been removed from this portfolio.

The Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care portfolio was formerly Health & Adult Social Care.

The report detailed the proposed reporting arrangements, indicating which scrutiny committee each cabinet portfolio would be constitutionally accountable to. For instance, the Leader of the Council's portfolio and the Deputy Cabinet Leader's portfolio would report to the Corporate Resource Management & Governance Scrutiny Committee. The Communities, Culture and Public Protection portfolio would report to the Communities and Transport Scrutiny Committee, while the Parks, Highways and Transport Services portfolio would also report to the Communities and Transport Scrutiny Committee. The Children, Families & Education portfolio would report to the Children & Families Scrutiny Committee. The Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care portfolio would report to the Adult Social Care & Health Scrutiny Committee. Finally, the Economy, Regeneration & Skills portfolio and the Housing and Environment portfolio would both report to the Economy, Regeneration and Climate Change Scrutiny Committee.

The committee was also asked to consider whether the current titles of the scrutiny committees remained appropriate in light of the changes to the cabinet portfolios.

The report noted that while there had been a realignment of functions between portfolios, these largely did not cross existing scrutiny committee reporting arrangements, with functions mostly moving between cabinet portfolios that already reported to the same scrutiny committee. Therefore, no further changes to reporting arrangements for 2025/26 were proposed.

The report was accompanied by a link to the Council's website where the cabinet portfolio responsibilities are updated: https://democracy.stockport.gov.uk/documents/s247661/Cabinet%20portfolio%20responsibilities%20May%202025.pdf.

Minutes of Previous Meeting

The committee was scheduled to approve as a correct record and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 11 November 2024. The minutes from the previous meeting indicated that the draft Scrutiny Annual Report 2023/24 was discussed. Comments made included that the report did not fully capture the breadth of scrutiny activities and that consideration should be given to the process of undertaking scrutiny reviews. It was also requested that scrutiny committees be provided with further assistance in selecting review topics and that some reports were too lengthy for meaningful discussion. The previous meeting's minutes indicated that the report was to be approved for submission to the Council Meeting, subject to the inclusion of additional information and a foreword drafted by the Chair.

Call-In

The committee was scheduled to consider any call-in items. A call-in is a process by which a decision made by the Cabinet can be scrutinised by a committee if a sufficient number of councillors request it.