Agenda and minutes

To approve the record of the meeting held on 31 January 2012.

The record of the meeting held on 31 January 2012 was agreed and signed as correct by the Chairman. 

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Etheridge and Turpin. 

The Chairman will announce any late items which do not appear on the main agenda but which he/she has agreed should be considered by reason of special circumstances to be specified in the report. 

There were none. 

(a)               Personal interests under the Medway Code of Conduct

(b)               Prejudicial interests under the Medway Code of Conduct

A Councillor who declares a prejudicial interest must withdraw from the room unless a dispensation has been obtained from the Council’s Standards Committee or the exemption under paragraph 12(2) of the Medway Code of Conduct applies.

If an interest is not declared at the outset of the meeting it should be disclosed as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

(c)               Whipping – the Council’s constitution also requires any Member of the Committee who is subject to a party whip (ie agreeing to vote in line with the majority view of a private party group meeting) to declare the existence of the whip and the nature of it before the item is discussed.

Councillor Griffiths declared a personal interest to any reference to Medway Community Healthcare, as he is a non-executive director.

Councillor Adrian Gulvin declared personal interests in agenda item 8 (Community Safety Plan 2012-2013) as he is a council appointed Member of the Fire Authority and also that his brother is manager of the Youth Offending team. He also declared a personal interest in agenda item 6 (presentation on housing services) as he is a private sector landlord.

Councillor Pat Gulvin declared a personal interest in agenda item 8 (Community Safety Plan 2012-2013) as her brother-in-law is manager of the Youth Offending team.

Councillor Hewett declared a personal interest in agenda item 8 (Community Safety Plan 2012-2013) as he is a council appointed Member of the Fire Authority.

Councillor Mackinlay declared a personal interest in agenda item 8 (Community Safety Plan 2012-2013) as he is a council appointed Member of Kent Police Authority. He also declared a personal interest in agenda item 6 (presentation on housing services) as he is a private sector landlord.

Councillor Stamp declared a personal interest in agenda item 7 (Member’s Item: ownership and maintenance of retaining walls) as he works full time for the Environment Agency.

The Leader of the Council will attend the meeting in order to be held to account for matters within the remit of this committee.

Discussion:

The Leader of the Council (Councillor Rodney Chambers), in his role as Portfolio Holder of inward investment, strategic tourism promotion and regeneration, gave a presentation to the committee which included:

Inward investment

·        inward investment through the private sector would be vital if the council wished to proceed with the regeneration programme, as there would be very limited money from central government

·        the council had helped to secure 600 new jobs and was seeking to unlock up to 17,000 jobs to 2026

·        more than 50 companies now used the Innovations Centre which was 85% occupied

·        promotion to encourage businesses to locate in Medway was a priority and £50,000 had been put aside in the 2012/2013 budget for this purpose

·        a new lower Dartford crossing would also help investment into the area with the increased accessibility to Medway.

Tourism

·        tourism was now worth £290 million to Medway’s economy

·        whilst Medway’s bid for City Status was unsuccessful, it helped to raise the profile of the area and generated positive coverage

·        a new Tourism Strategy was being developed.

Regeneration

·        discussions continued with Tesco on the regeneration of the eastern end of Chatham High Street

·        construction had begun on Rochester Riverside with £4.4 million made available by central government for highway investment in the site

·        work was on-going on the western gateway to Medway Park with
£11 million spent on regeneration of this area from Gillingham High Street. The re-development of Gillingham railway station was also nearly completed

·        planning consent had been given to continue the next phase of development at Victory Pier

·        proposals for development at Kingsnorth and Lodge Hill continued and plans would be submitted to the council shortly

·        a priority was to develop hotel accommodation to give people the ability to stay in Medway whilst visiting its many attractions.

The committee asked a variety of questions, including:

·        what changes did the Leader foresee for Medway over the next 20 years?

The Leader responded that his vision was to create a ‘whole community’, which meant that residents were happy to live, work and play within the area they lived in. He also wished to bring more employment to the area, in particular keeping residents within Medway for their work, rather than them commuting to London.

·        how was infrastructure to be funded in the future?

The committee was advised that the only option would be to work with private investors.

·        how could the council better use its assets, such as Rochester and Upnor castles?

In response, Members were informed that Medway’s historic assets would be part of the marketing campaign mentioned in the introduction. A Tourism Strategy was also being developed.

·        what was gained from the £13,000 spent on the city status campaign and did the council lose the city status bid because it referred to itself as a city prior to the decision being made?

The Leader advised that the submission from the council was very strong but the government had decided to choose a submission from each part of the country,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 973.

The Assistant Director, Housing, Development and Transport, Housing Strategy Manager and Head of Housing Management will give a brief powerpoint presentation explaining the various housing services provided by the council.

Discussion:

The Assistant Director, Housing, Development and Transport began the presentation explaining that housing services had transferred from the Business Support directorate to the Regeneration, Community and Culture directorate on 1 April 2012 and, in accordance with the council’s Constitution, this would now be in the remit of this committee.

The Head of Housing Management and Head of Strategic Housing gave a presentation of the main services provided by their teams, which included:

Five key standards to meet covering all aspects of the service

• Tenant involvement and empowerment standard

The report sets out a response to a member’s Item regarding the legal ownership and maintenance of retaining walls. 

Discussion:

Councillor Stamp introduced this item and showed photographs to the committee to illustrate the issues he raised with regard to the retaining wall on the A289 Gillingham bypass. He explained that he had concerns about the budget information provided in the report and asked for clarification on the following points:

·        did the £250,000 budget also include the cost of inspecting the 150 highway retaining walls the council maintained?

·        was the £200,000 - £300,000 fund in the Local Transport Plan (LTP) budget (currently used for the retaining walls along the river at The Esplanade) a recurring cost or could it be freed for maintenance use on retaining walls?

·        were there other sources of funding, such as monies from a section 106 legal agreement from the Victory Pier development to be used for works of this type?

·        could the future Community Infrastructure Levy be used for maintenance works?

·        how did other Local Authorities deal with problems such as this?

·        could the council introduce a policy to control and regularise the maintenance of retaining walls and also signpost the public to help and advice on this matter?

Officers responded to the issues raised by Councillor Stamp advising that the £250,000 revenue budget did include the cost of inspecting 150 walls

across Medway with not much left to improve the condition of the walls. Most of the maintenance work was paid for from the LTP budget, or in extreme cases, paid for by the council when it responded to an incident. The £200,000 - £300,000 set aside for structural repairs had historically been ring-fenced to maintain the Esplanade wall, as there were no other available routes for residents to access their properties and without regular maintenance it would collapse into the river. 

The committee was informed that s106 legal agreement funding and the future Community Infrastructure Levy would only allow for those monies to be spent on new structures caused by and required for the new developments. It could not legally be spent on something that was already in the location that required maintenance.

Members were also advised that other Local Authorities with similar terrain, such as Kent, Surrey and Derbyshire, were in exactly the same position as Medway as they were unaware of the extent of their liability in the same way as members of the public and reacted to incidents and information from the public.

In response to future maintenance work, budgets and a policy for retaining walls, officers advised that they had previously considered whether it would be practical to undertake a survey across Medway and then establish whether those walls were in council or private ownership but this was a mammoth task as there were thousands of walls in Medway and this would require too much officer time and money. Following this, the Director of Regeneration, Community and Culture had requested that officers bi-annually inspect the list of 150 known walls with the worst 21 walls set as a priority for future maintenance works, as they would have a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 975.

This report provides information on the operation of the Community Safety partnership in 2011-2012 and the proposed Community Safety Plan 2012-2013. 

Discussion:

The Head of Safer Communities introduced the report informing the committee that the landscape for Community Safety Partnerships (CSP) was likely to change significantly over the next few years, following the elections for the Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) in November 2012. The PCC and the CSP would have a reciprocal duty to have regard to each other’s priorities and work in co-operation with each other to tackle community safety issues.

In previous years there had been a requirement to produce three-year plans, with an annual review, following a strategic assessment of crime and disorder within the area. The regulations had recently been relaxed, and, in recognition of the changing outlook, this year’s plan had been drafted to reflect a single year of operation.

The previous year’s highlights included a 12% reduction in night-time economy related crime and anti-social behaviour achieved through focused, joined up working between the partner agencies. There had also been a 14% reduction in reported flytipping, achieved through tough enforcement and there had also been excellent reductions in young people entering the criminal justice system. However, a particular area of concern was the steady rise in incidents of domestic abuse. The lead on this area of concern has recently passed to Safer Communities and officers would work to establish baseline targets to support victims and target offenders.

The committee’s discussions included the following:

·        enforcement, or removal, of the Alcohol Control Zone in Gillingham

·        work with multi-national retail companies over the display of, and access to, alcohol

·        duties of Community Officers being too varied and not concentrated on their local role

·        increase in targets for fixed penalty notices

·        Licence to Kill campaign

·        lack of funding to continue the services of the SoS bus and the continued services of the street pastor scheme in Rochester High Street

·        how the public and local communities were engaged in compiling the priorities for the partnership

·        the future of funding for community safety issues in Medway following the election of the Police and Crime Commissioner in November 2012.

The committee requested further information on the demographic representation of the various areas within Medway and equality of issues represented at the community engagement event at the Strand Leisure Park in Gillingham. Members also asked how the priorities identified at the event were taken forward into this year’s plan. The Head of Safer Communities advised that to be certain of a completely demographic feedback it would require a series of events across Medway and the budget was not available for this. All the statutory authorities had been represented at the event and it had been advertised, and held as, a “fun day” which attracted people to the event who then responded to more serious topics with open-ended questions for them to respond to.

A Member voiced his concern that it would have excluded people who were at work as it was a daytime event and if this was used as a regular method of public engagement, officers should continually look at how it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 976.

This report presents the Council performance for the third quarter of 2011-2012. In particular, it includes performance against indicators and actions agreed in the Council Plan. 

Discussion:

The Performance Manager introduced the report advising that it allowed Members to monitor the progress of the Regeneration, Community and Culture Directorate for quarter 3 (October to December 2011) in achieving the outcomes agreed in the Council Plan. Following feedback and review, corporate performance reporting had been simplified and would no longer include a lengthy narrative report.

For the Council Plan performance, 36 key performance indicator measures of success could be rated:

Green – 24 measures have achieved or outperformed the target (67%)

Amber – 3 measures are below target but within acceptable variance limits (8%)

Red – 4 measures are outside acceptable variance limits (11%)

There were 4 performance measures which were not rated as they were ‘data only’ and 1 that could not be reported this quarter but had been included for information.

The highlights for quarter 2 included:

·        efforts to reduce unemployment in Medway had continued with 50 apprenticeships created this quarter, which meant that in three months 50 local people had been able to find apprenticeships of 12-18 months duration with local small businesses for the first time

·        Love Medway developments this quarter included advertising the Love Medway campaign on the fire engines from Gillingham Fire Station and a Community Champion scheme had been set up at St Mary's school, pupils, elected by their peers, would use the website to report issues they or other pupils had seen

·        satisfaction with buses and road and pavement maintenance remained above target

·        the opening of Chatham Waterfront bus station and closure of the Pentagon bus station had significantly improved the quality of bus services

·        Leisure services had achieved the Customer Service Excellence accreditation.

Areas requiring development included:

·        results from the latest tracker survey showed a small dip in satisfaction with the Community Officers. A focus group had been held in December 2011 where specific questions were posed to try and establish the reason for the low satisfaction scores.  Although the full details had not yet been received, the headlines were as follows:

·         only a few respondents were aware of the community officers work

·         the awareness of service provision included work not undertaken by community officers around anti-social behaviour and Alcohol Control Zones enforcement

·         the group felt, as a whole, the services provided were very worthwhile. However, there was a feeling that the service was under promoted and there was a lack of awareness on how to contact the service

·         The Black Minority Ethnic (BME) respondents’ awareness of the service was even lower, although they were positive about the service provided.  They suggested the use of social media to promote the service and take positive actions with the various BME groups to increase awareness

·         it was clear that respondents confused community officers with PCSOs and thought would be given about how the service was made distinct as well as how to raise awareness.  The current tracker survey question was not helpful and only served to confuse respondents.

·        the percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting –  ...  view the full minutes text for item 977.

This item advises Members of the current work programme and allows them to adjust it in light of latest priorities, issues and circumstances. It gives Members the opportunity to shape and direct the Committee’s activities over the year. 

Discussion:

The Democratic Services Officer introduced the report advising that there were no new items on the Council’s Forward plan in the remit of this committee and that the remaining housing reports from the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny work programme would be transferred to this committee’s work programme, as set out in paragraph 5.4 of the report.

A Member, with reference to discussion at the Audit Committee on 29 March 2012, asked that the Chairman of both Audit and this committee discuss with officers the suitability of this committee scrutinising the current situation of Medway’s markets, when appropriate.

The committee was also asked to consider the underspend of £500,000 on concessionary bus passes. Officers responded that the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee had previously asked for a Briefing Note on this and offered to circulate this to all Members for information.

A Member raised the matter of the drought orders shortly to be imposed by Southern Water and asked the committee to review a previous scrutiny task group’s recommendations from 2007 in relation to the recommendations to Southern Water at that time and also in relation to where the council stood with regard to future development in the area.

Decision:

The committee agreed to:

(a)   note the transfer of housing services to the remit of this committee from
1 April 2012;

(b)   note the transfer of the remaining housing reports to this committee’s work programme;

(c)   request that the Chairman of both the Audit Committee and this committee discuss with officers the suitability of this committee scrutinising the current situation of Medway’s markets;

(d)   request that a Briefing Note asked for by the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee with regard to the £500,000 underspend of the concessionary bus fares budget is circulated to all Members of the council for information;

(e)add to the work programme a review of “The future provision of water in Medway” task group scrutiny review from 2007 in relation to the recommendations to Southern Water at that time and also in relation to where the council now stood with regards to future development in the area.