Scrutiny Committee

On Wednesday afternoon I attended a meeting of the City Council's Scrutiny Committee. I managed to get a guarantee that parents would not have to apply every year for a travel pass for their children to get to school. I was concerned that this would unnecessarily put a barrier in the way of children getting to school.

I raised my concerns that equality impact assessments are not carried out with the same level of robustness across all council departments. I was given an assurance that this should be the case and I will be keeping an eye on this in the future.

I was surprised to find out that the length of time taken to re-let council houses is rising. Until the end of September last year the average time to re-let a council house in 98.7 days. It also appears that many of the initiatives which the current Convenor implemented has added to the length of time taken. Performance in this area must improve.