Archived decisions

Hampshire Action Teams (HATs)

Terms of Reference

Purpose

To enhance democratic accountability and service improvement by:

· supporting members in their capacity as community leaders; and

· enabling Hampshire County Council to be more locally responsive and visible while retaining its strategic overview and overall responsibility for the administrative County of Hampshire.

Objectives

· To provide effective local monitoring / scrutiny of Hampshire County Council and its services.

· To provide an accessible forum for the community to raise local concerns and a direct route for ensuring they are fully considered by the Cabinet.

· To consider and prioritise local needs and activities in relation to County Services (e.g. local transport needs, subsuming the active work of the former Highway and Transport Advisory Panels (HTAPs) and Transport Strategy Panels (TSPs) at a local level).

· To act as a democratically accountable link between local communities, Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), district councils, towns, parishes, other partners and the County Council.

Terms of Reference

· To receive and scrutinise such County Council reports as are local to the area served by the HAT and to make appropriate representations to the Executive Member concerned or to the Cabinet.

· To act as the HTAP and TSP for their area and to co-opt for these agenda items such non-voting District and Parish Council elected members as the members of HATs decide are appropriate.

· To act as the primary consultees for their area on:

o School reorganisations and development

o Any changes of a county wide nature in respect of school term times, transport, admissions policy

o Social care residential home development and reorganisation.

o Environment Department reorganisation affecting their area, policy changes impacting on service delivery and quality.

o Recreation and Heritage reorganisation and development of facilities.

o Such other policy changes as the Cabinet or Executive Member may decide.

o To administer and be accountable for such budgets as may be delegated to HATs for local investment in infrastructure (protocols to be agreed).

· To conduct community consultation as may be requested by Cabinet or Executive Members and to report the results to the requesting authority (Executive Member or Cabinet).

· To conduct such consultation with the community as the HAT decides and to report results as appropriate.

· To act as advocates for their community to the Executive, including issues such as persistent community problems of safety, transport, road and traffic.

· To liaise with the County Council's representatives on LSPs, Crime and Disorder Partnerships, Children's Plan, and present a view to Cabinet on performance and effectiveness.

Method of Operation:

Membership:

· A HAT will consist of all the County Councillors in the HAT area.

· Each HAT will have a Chairman who will lead the group and act as their spokesperson.

· Individual HATs are free to invite and/or co-opt other organisations to work with them on specific tasks on a non-voting basis.

HATs Structures

· HATs will operate on District Council Boundaries, or clusters of them

· Each year HATs will hold a formal meeting in public to determine an annual programme and priorities.

· Prioritisation of Highways projects and any other direction setting activities delegated to HATs will be undertaken in formal meetings open to the public. Voting rights will be confined to elected County Councillors only with the chairman having the casting vote right.

· It will be for HATs to determine their standard working practices and methods of operation. However it is anticipated that HATs will wish to experiment with a variety of forms in order to maximise community and partner engagement and to reflect distinctive local circumstances and priorities. These might range from:

o Inviting representatives of a partner group / authority to a meeting or working group to represent their organisation on an issue to setting up electronic networks with partner representatives so that they can be quickly included and consulted on issues on which the HAT is working; or,

o Going out into the community to find out what they think about issues to setting up local events for people to come to (using local recreation staff / facilities) through which local views could be sought by Members.

· HATs may establish sub- and task and finish groups as appropriate.

Engagement with HCC Structures

HATs Chairmen can use the following structures to take forward issues arising from the HATs:

· Executive Members:

_ will receive public reports from HATs Chairmen outlining any recommendations arising from HAT(s) which fall directly within their portfolio area (e.g., highways projects recommendations or `direction setting' issues upon which the HATs have undertaken local consultation).

· Cabinet:

_ Will receive public reports from HATs chairmen, individually or jointly, on issues and recommendations.

· Submissions from a HAT (via the Chairman) will be considered by the appropriate Executive member or Cabinet within a maximum period of three months and a formal response given.

· The Scrutiny Function:

_ HATs Chairmen (individually or jointly) can raise issues from local monitoring of service performance and/ or the local outcomes of decision or policy implementation with PRC Chairmen to request further exploration of the issue.

_ Requests can be to specific PRCs where they fall clearly within their remit and do not require intensive extra work OR as task & finish thematic reviews via the Scrutiny Coordination Panel. Any such request would be considered favourably with prioritisation taking into consideration the extent to which communities have been impacted.

_ HATs Chairmen can also recommend to the Scrutiny function any topics which they believe warrant external review due to the impact of the work of another public organisation on communities within Hampshire.

· HATs Chairmen will produce an annual report to the County Council on their activities, on issues of a county nature, and recommendations they agree upon.

Officer Support

Each HAT will be supported by a HAT Co-ordinator based in the Hampshire County Council Policy Unit. The role of the Co-ordinators will be to:

· Provide members with research and policy analysis to support the work of the HATs.

· Provide members with advice and support to enable maximum community and partner engagement in the HATs.

· Provide members with advice and information to enable effective joint working with LSPs and other partners.

· Ensure that the business of HATs is effectively planned, managed and organised.