Agenda and draft minutes

To note any apologies for absence and substitutions.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Tighe, Driscoll, Anderson, Mohamed and Kaur Dheer.

Councillors Mahmood, Kingston and Kelly were present as substitutes.

There were no declarations of interest.

RESOLVED: That all items be taken in public as proposed.

The Chair informed the Committee that he had agreed to take the Call-in of Key Officer Decision: Delivering 10 new parks – Future of Perivale Park Golf Course as an urgent item. This was because the call-in was made after the agenda had been published and taking the item to this meeting would mean that there wasn’t any undue delay in implementing the decision should it be upheld.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 6 February 2024.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 6 February 2024 are agreed as a correct record of proceedings.

Councillors Hersch and Gallant presented the reasons the item was called in. This included:

·       Perivale Golf course was one of two remaining municipal courses in the Borough which offered affordable and accessible golf in a pay and play format.

·       The option to integrate a golf course into the regional park had been dismissed too hastily. It was possible to reconfigure the course to make it more sustainable, including planting more trees and reconfiguring the course.

·       The closure of the course would have a detrimental impact on older people, for whom the course was more accessible than the neighbouring Brent Valley Golf Course.

·       The consultation was insufficient, only a small sample of residents were consulted and as the golf course closure was proposed as part of a wider suite of improvements it meant that there were many respondents who did not play golf being consulted.

Peter George, Strategic Director for Economy and Sustainability, responded to the issues raised in the call-in:

·       When taking the decision to close the course, Peter took into account fairness, impacts on health and wellbeing, impacts on the climate, the results of the Equalities Analysis Assessment and the outcome of the extensive consultation carried out.

·       The Equalities Analysis Assessment identified that closing the golf course would be detrimental to older people who played golf. However overall there was a net positive impact on equalities as closing the course allowed a reconfiguration of the land to open up 52 Hectares of parkland open to a wider range of residents, including older people. This would help achieve the Borough’s objectives around reducing health inequalities.

·       A study showed that there was a surplus of other golf courses in the Borough, as well as adjoining Boroughs, as well as another municipal course offering pay and play at affordable rates less than a mile away.

·       Closing the course and converting it into a park would help to achieve the Council’s climate and sustainability goals which would be a net positive for residents across the Borough.

·       The alternatives put forward by the club had been seriously considered but fell well short of ambitions the Council had for the use of the land. For example additional trees suggested for the site in the alternative use put forward were around 200, whereas the Council expects to add thousands of new trees to the new park.

At the conclusion of the presentations, the Committee question Peter George. The following questions were asked:

·       Was the consultation promoted asking residents to have their say on a regional park or on the closure of Perivale Park Golf Course?

·       Did the consultation outline the alternative provision at Brent Valley Park Golf Course?

·       What would happen to public toilets on the course?

·       Why was the closure proposed to happen so soon?

·       Were the alternative options fully considered and did the consultation make it clear about how the course was uniquely suitable for older people?

·       When taking the decision, was it clear how the decision achieved the Council’s objectives in its Strategic  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Suzy Grihault, Ealing Young Justice Service Manager presented the Youth Justice Service Plan. The following witnesses were also present:

·       Angie Dennison, Assistant Director of Early Help (Ealing Council);

·       Carol Roberts, Head of Service for Ealing and Hillingdon Probation Service (HM Probation Service);

·       Detective Chief Inspector Andy Jackson (Metropolitan Police); and

·       Sergeant Fiona Watts (Metropolitan Police).

The Committee heard that the Youth Justice Service plan was a collaborative document which relied on contributions from the Council, as well as partner organisations including the Police and the Probation Service. The Council was statutorily required to produce this service plan under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The plan had to be considered by members, and this could be the Cabinet Member, Council or a Scrutiny Committee. The purpose of presenting the plan to the Committee late in the year was to ensure the Committee was fully up to speed with the plan with a view to giving the Committee an opportunity to feed into the service plan for 2024/25 at an earlier stage in the year.

Following the presentation, the Committee asked the following questions:

·       Were there any success stories that could be shared on diversionary work?

·       What was the take-up of restorative justice?

·       What was the service doing to address the disproportionality of Black boys involved in the criminal justice system?

·       As the majority of entrants to the criminal justice system were boys, were there enough positive male role models working in this area and the youth service?

·       What actions were taken where children were found to be exploited into selling drugs, or other criminality, for adults? What did the Police do to convict adults who were exploiting children?

·       As children in care made up a significant proportion of the service users, what steps could be taken to try and avoid their entry into the criminal justice system.

In responses to the questions asked, the Committee heard that:

·       In terms of diversionary work, the Youth Justice Service collaborated with the council’s employment and training team to ensure that there were job opportunities for young people who were had entered or were at risk of entering the criminal justice system. An example of this was a job placement, which had recently been made permanent, at Greener Ealing for a boy who had previously been involved in some high level criminality.

·       Every victim of crime was offered he opportunity to take part in restorative justice. There was around a 50% response rate to the offer, but a much lower proportion of victims then went on to take up restorative justice. Restorative justice took the form of correspondence between the victim and perpetrator, but face to face meetings did not take place.

·       The service had a disproportionality plan to try and address any disproportionality in young people who were involved in the criminal justice system. The service would be happy to share the disproportionality plan with Councillors for further scrutiny.

·       It was difficult to recruit and retain men working for the Youth Justice Service,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Suzy Grihault, Ealing Young Justice Service Manager presented this item to the Committee.

The Committee heard that the Council’s Youth Justice Service had been inspected by HMIC and overall the service had been graded as requires improvement. The main area that had been marked as an area for improvement was out of court disposals. But leadership and governance and some areas of court disposals were also areas of concern. Following the inspection, an action plan had been drawn up to address the areas that required improvement, this action plan was presented to the committee for consideration and comment

Some specific actions that had been taken to address these issues were ensuring Police representation at board level, a new tool for out of court disposals had been launched which was being bedded in and additional manager oversight of implementation of this new tool.

RESOLVED: That the report is noted.

Sam Bailey introduced the Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme. The Committee were informed that it was coming to the end of the year. Feedback from members and officers alike had been that this year’s model of scrutinising Strategic Directorates and focussing on making recommendations throughout the year had been received well. Therefore it was proposed that this model would be proposed for formal agreement at the next Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting.

RESOLVED: That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme is noted.