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RECOMMENDED – T H A T the minutes of the meeting held on 9th September, 2025 be approved as a correct record.
No declarations of interest were received.
The reference from Cabinet of 4th September, 2025 as contained within the agenda, was presented by the Operational Manager for Corporate Communications. The Officer advised that the report presented to Cabinet brought to the attention of Cabinet the Council’s progress against the equality objectives of the Strategic Equality Plan 2024-2025, and other actions taken to improve equality for people living and working in the Vale of Glamorgan. The report also summarised what Council services had done to collect and analyse equality data on how people with protected characteristics had used their service(s). The Council’s specific duties included the requirement to publish an annual report for the previous year, by 31st March each year, to demonstrate the progress made on equalities issues that were contained within the Council's Strategic Equality Plan and any associated equalities activity. Therefore, to allow the Council to meet its reporting duty under the specific duties for Wales and continue to make progress towards meeting the public sector equality duty, the report had been referred to the Scrutiny Committee for consideration. The Officer also drew the Committee’s attention to Appendix 5, which was a detailed report on employment information. The employment data was not submitted in time for the previous Cabinet meeting cycle and as such, neither Appendix 5 nor the summary within the main report were included in the previous Cabinet report. However, the information had now been included and submitted for the Scrutiny Committee’s consideration. In conclusion, the Officer advised that any formal recommendations from the Scrutiny Committee would be referred back to Cabinet for consideration and inclusion in the final version of the Annual Equality Monitoring Report. Following the Officer’s presentation, Councillor Loveluck-Edwards commended the Age Friendly Team in the Vale of Glamorgan for their fantastic work as part of the 50+ Forum. The Councillor was keenly aware of the excellent work taking place given their position as the Council’s Champion for Older People. The Vale of Glamorgan was an ageing population and therefore it was important to stay sighted on that particular demographic. The same Councillor then referred to pages 23 and 24 of the appended Annual Report which set out details in relation to the activities centred around young people and advised that Members of the Live Well Scrutiny Task and Finish Group had recently met with the Young Ambassadors Network and wished to pass on their sincere thanks to the young people involved and the excellent supporting staff. It was heartening to see how engaged and articulate the young people were. The Councillor then posed two questions for the Officer as follows: 1) Page 7/8 of the Appended Annual Report set out reasons for not collecting relevant information to help inform the Annual Report and, in summary, referred to duplication of forms to complete and/or no mechanism in place to collect information. The Council needed the data/insights in order to make strategic plans, so were any further engagement initiatives planned in the coming months please? 2) The Council’s Placemaking Team had previously spent a period of time in a Vale of Glamorgan Secondary School in order to gather the views of young people for use within the Council’s Placemaking Plans; were there any plans to broaden this approach across other schools? In reply, the Officer advised that the Council was attempting to produce the Annual Report earlier in each Municipal year in order to ensure that the information presented was as current and relevant as possible for Cabinet to consider. However, that approach, although welcomed, presented some challenges in gathering information alongside work actively taking place. The Council was continually seeking updates on matters within Directorate service areas and therefore attempts were currently being made to simplify the process to support colleagues in providing said updates. Updates would also be aligned with the Council’s Directorate Plans as well as its Strategic Equality Plan. The placemaking engagement activity was undertaken at Cowbridge High School, and the placemaking team spoke very positively on the quality of interactions and honest conversations that took place. The conversations were instrumental to the place plan development process and therefore the Council wished to roll out the initiative much wider and would be in a position to report on those efforts in next year’s iteration of the Annual Report. Both Councillors Lloyd-Selby and Thomas then thanked officers for the comprehensive report and passed on the Committee's sincere thanks to all members of staff who had contributed to meeting the Council’s statutory requirement, and in particular to the work that had been undertaken in terms of the Council's approach to anti-racism within schools and support provided to schools in becoming a school of sanctuary. The Committee subsequently agreed that the Committee's formal thanks would be noted within the minutes. With no further comments or questions, the Committee subsequently RECOMMENDED – T H A T the Annual Equality Monitoring Report 2024-2025, as described in the body of the referred report and Appendix 1, be endorsed. Reason for recommendation To allow the Council to meet its reporting duty under the specific duties for Wales and continue to make progress towards meeting the public sector equality duty, whilst ensuring the Council’s equality work is available for scrutiny by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and others by 31st March, 2026.
The Principal Democratic and Scrutiny Services Officer presented the report, the purpose of which was to present the Committee’s updated Forward Work Programme (FWP) schedule for 2025/26 to the Committee for approval. The Officer advised that the Committee was last presented with a copy of its FWP at its 27th May, 2025 committee meeting and, since that time, the FWP document had been maintained by Democratic Services in consultation with Service Area Officers and the Committee Chair. Section 2 of the report provided a summary of progress made by the Committee since the start of the current municipal year and the Officer drew Members’ attention to paragraphs 2.6 – 2.9 of the report in relation to future arrangements for presenting the Committee’s Decision Tracking Data. The Officer added that tracking of the Committee’s decisions and subsequent impact continued to be monitored by the Democratic and Scrutiny Services Team. In light of the new scrutiny arrangements, it was necessary to review the method for collating and maintaining decision tracking across the scrutiny function as a whole. As such, a new automated system had been developed to record and publish Scrutiny Committee recommendations more efficiently. Decision tracking data had been compiled in to a Power BI format and was now continuously available to Members, via MemberNet, at any time. This data would be regularly updated by Democratic Officers as and when updates arose. Therefore, Members no longer needed to wait for decision tacking information to be formally reported to Committee and may raise queries with Democratic Officers at any time. The Officer provided a visual orientation of where the decision tracking data could be accessed by both Elected Members and members of the public. The Committee was subsequently asked to agree its updated FWP schedule for 2025/26, as attached at Appendix A to the report, for publication on the Council’s website, as well as agreed that a summary of the decision tracking data relevant to the Committee be presented to the Committee as part of the biannual FWP monitoring reports going forward. Following the Officer’s presentation of the report, Councillor Cave suggested that it would be beneficial for the FWP document to include page numbers throughout as well as greater detail on the Chair of the Committee on the first page of the document. In reply, the Officer agreed to take Councillor Cave’s formatting points back to the Democratic Services Team to ensure that their valid suggestions were reflected across all FWP documents for all Scrutiny Committees. Councillor Cave then referred to the Member Briefing Section of the FWP and raised concerns over the frequency of reporting for some items listed and suggested that the For Information Reporting process removed decision making powers from the Committee. In response, the Officer advised that the information provided to Committee Members under the Member Briefing section of the FWP was previously agreed by the Committee earlier in the year based on a pre-draft review undertaken by Council Officers and the Chair of the Committee. Any information provided to Elected Members under the Member Briefing section of the FWP was subject to the formal Request for Consideration process whereby any Member may raise a request for the information to be presented to a formal Scrutiny Committee meeting, subject to approval of the Committee Chair. Therefore, there was scope and power for the Members of the Committee to assess and action against all items contained within its FWP. As the Chair of the Live Well Scrutiny Committee Task and Finish Working Group, Councillor Hennessy then took the opportunity to thank everyone who had taken part in Working Group proceedings to date. Councillor Thomas then noted that the Committee had considered quite a lot of content since the beginning of the Municipal year and suggested that a demonstrational video on how to access the decision tracking data would be useful to share will all Elected Members. To which, the Officer agreed that a video would be forwarded to all Elected Members in the near future. With no further comments or questions, the Committee subsequently RECOMMENDED – (1) T H A T the Committee’s Forward Work Programme Schedule for 2025/26, as attached at Appendix A to the report, be agreed. (2) T H A T a summary of the Decision Tracking Data relevant to the Live Well Scrutiny Committee be presented to the Committee as part of the biannual Forward Work Programme Monitoring Reports going forward. Reasons for recommendations (1) To agree the items, topics, and delivery methods that the Live Well Scrutiny Committee will consider for the remainder of the 2025/26 Municipal year, and to update the Forward Work Programme published on the Council’s website. (2) To provide a six-monthly update to Committee Members, on the data readily available, to maintain an understanding of the Committee’s impact in supporting the Council’s decision-making processes.
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