At a meeting of Milton Keynes City Council, councillors agreed to support a campaign for council tax exemptions for the terminally ill, and to address waste management issues around flats. The council also adopted an Executive Scrutiny Protocol, received the Scrutiny Annual Report 2024-25, and appointed a co-optee to the Standards Committee.

Marie Curie Campaign for a Council Tax Exemption for the Terminally Ill

The council resolved to support the Marie Curie campaign for a council tax exemption for the terminally ill. They also agreed to congratulate Manchester City Council on becoming the first council to implement such a scheme for their local residents.

The council requested that the Cabinet bring forward proposals to establish a council tax exemption for those with a terminal illness, or a partner or family member within the same household, who have less than 12 months to live, as part of the Local Council Tax Reduction Scheme¹.

Bins

The council agreed to address issues of waste management around flats. The council noted the high performance of waste collection teams and the officers who manage the contract with Suez. They regretted the lack of cooperation from some management companies of flats, whose inaction causes waste to build up and overflow onto car parks or pavements.

The council believes this is both an eyesore and a health risk, and has asked the Cabinet and Chief Executive to continue working proactively to require management companies to fulfil their responsibilities, and to use environmental and enforcement powers to end the build-up of waste.

Executive Scrutiny Protocol

The council adopted the Executive Scrutiny Protocol as an annex to the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure rules in the Constitution. The protocol aims to reflect the relationship between the council's Cabinet and its Scrutiny Committees, to encourage good working relationships and ensure that Scrutiny can make an effective contribution to decision making.

The aims of the protocol are to:

• Enable Scrutiny Councillors, Cabinet members and officers to understand their powers, roles and responsibilities in relation to the scrutiny function to maximise the effectiveness of the council's decision-making structure.
• Promote a culture of mutual respect, trust and courtesy between scrutiny and Cabinet members to ensure open and constructive debate with a focus on proactive, evidence based and outcomes focussed scrutiny.
• Support focused, transparent and timely scrutiny of council business to enable scrutiny committees to influence council decision making in a meaningful way.
• Lead, support and enable the training and development of scrutiny councillors, with an aspiration, that all involved have an opportunity to continually improve their skills and knowledge.

The protocol sets out the roles and responsibilities of the Cabinet and Scrutiny committees, and the principles that should underpin their work. It also sets out ways of working together, including communication and engagement, scrutiny work planning, scrutiny committee chairs, scrutiny meetings, task and finish groups², policy development, performance monitoring and strategic risks, scrutiny recommendations, and information.

The protocol also describes the role of the Scrutiny Coordination Panel, which is an informal meeting comprised of the scrutiny chairs, the chair of Audit Committee and a representative of each political group with no scrutiny chairs.

Scrutiny Annual Report 2024-25

The council received the Scrutiny Annual Report 2024-25. The report outlines the scrutiny arrangements at Milton Keynes City Council, the work that has taken place to improve the effectiveness of scrutiny over 2024/25 and a summary of the issues scrutinised by each Committee during that period.

The report notes that improving the effectiveness of scrutiny is an ongoing process, with activity in 2024/25 focused on:

• Continuing to encourage Planning Groups to focus on opportunities for pre-decision scrutiny and to prioritise work programmes.
• Recommendation trackers trialled in all Committees to ensure that actions were followed up and responses received.
• Guidance issued regarding scoping and Chairing Task and Finish Groups and to assist committee members to form recommendations.
• Drafting started on an 'Executive Scrutiny Protocol' to help establish the relationship between scrutiny councillors and the Cabinet and to prove a framework for effective working.

The report also notes that towards the end of 2024/25 a number of changes to the council's scrutiny arrangements were proposed, which had been prompted by a recommendation of the recent Local Government Association (LGA) Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC), to improve the council's scrutiny arrangements, and a recommendation from the Budget and Resources Scrutiny Sub-Committee on 8 April 2025 that led to the Monitoring Officer issuing a report about the council's call-in arrangements.

As a result of those reviews, the following changes were agreed by Council at its meeting in May 2025:

• The existing Policy, Performance and Scrutiny Management Committee was dissolved and an additional thematic scrutiny committee, Community and Partnerships Scrutiny Committee, was formed.
• An informal Scrutiny Co-ordination panel was established to provide strategic direction and set accountability for the thematic committees about their work programmes and the responsibility of Scrutiny Chairs was increased both from a procedural and accountability perspective.
• Changes to Call-In provisions were made to ensure that the call-in process was used proportionately, was owned by scrutiny and could be advanced quickly and efficiently.

Appointment of Co-optees to the Standards Committees

The council approved the appointment of Tara Jefferies of Great Linford Parish Council to the Standards Committee of Milton Keynes City Council, from 18 September 2025, for a period of 4 years.

Other Matters

• Councillor Joe Hearnshaw, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, agreed to provide a written response to a member of the public regarding potential school closures, particularly infant schools.
• The council noted the Ward Based Budgets 2025-26. All councillors have a budget of £1,000 to spend on ward-based issues. For the period 1 March 2025 to 31 August 2025, applications totalling £3,593.50 have been approved.
• The council noted the Quarterly Report on Special Urgency Decisions.
• Councillor Jennifer Wilson-Marklew, Cabinet Member for Public Realm, agreed to provide written responses regarding the timing for refreshing the white lines along Newport Pagnell High Street and whether this work would include the free shopper’s car parks, and regarding issues that had been reported with the 33 Bus service. She also agreed to ask officers to provide appropriate communications to councillors and residents regarding any upcoming bus strikes, and to investigate any inconsistency in messages regarding replacement of underpass lighting.
• Councillor Peter Marland, Leader of the Council, agreed to ask officers to consider an appropriate way to mark the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.