Agenda item - Oral questions from Councillors

A list of Councillors who have indicated their desire to ask an oral question at the meeting along with the subject matters has been listed in the agenda papers.

52.1         The Mayor noted that notification of 6 oral questions had been received and that 30 minutes was set aside for the duration of the item. She then invited Councillor Simson to put her question to Councillor J. Kitcat.

 

Information Security

 

52.2        Councillor Simson asked: ‘The issue I’m raising is not party political as it affects many members in this chamber. Many Councillors here today are very concerned about the impact changes in the Council’s ICT services are having on the way they can carry their roles and this in-turn impacts on the City and its citizens.

 

The first stages that inflicted GCSX email on us was disastrous and meant my interaction with residents and the Council was taking 2-3 times as long as it had previously. Now I’m told that I have to have my home directly networked to the Council otherwise I will be cut off from Council services. I still haven’t managed to get an answer just to what this actually means.

 

So should the Council, in recognising that all Councillors lives are different and that the roles we have as community champions are vast and various, will you call a halt to the current process that is taking place and ask for a complete review in consultation with all Councillors allowing us to have some say and choice as to what we have in our own homes?’

 

52.3        Councillor J. Kitcat replied: ‘Well I can say, having recently discussed this matter at the Local Government Association and the Society for Public Sector IT Managers, that across the Country members and officers share your pain but this is something that has been designated with zero notice by the Cabinet Office of your Coalition Government.

 

Ultimately this was something that came in as zero notice and zero tolerance and something that we are required to do. Now different Councils are in different of their adoption of this. As a unitary we are the most complex because of the range of services that we provide and there has been a history of under investment in ICT in this authority unfortunately however were we not to make the changes, some of which you’ve detailed, this Council would be disconnected from the public service network and thus not able to do things like providing housing benefits for our citizens.

 

So while I sympathise with the change and discomfort, I think our priority has to be delivering services to our citizens and it is not in our gift to decide what regulations the Cabinet Office impose on us or not. I can say that as Brighton and Hove are the lead for ICT in the South East Seven Group of principle authorities; I have written a letter to the Cabinet Office expressing our severe concern about this as has the Chief Information Officer of Hampshire who leads the Council of CIO’s, SOCATIM, the LGA, we’ve all lobbied, many times, the Cabinet Office. There have been some change so it could be worse, let me put it that way.

 

One of the issues is that historically that members have had no consistency of the arrangements, so some have had no computer, some have had one computer some have had a home computer and a Council computer, it needs to be done consistently so that we can meet the requirements the Government put on us and so that our limited ICT resource can provide the best support to you.

 

I know that John Mileham will be providing all Members with ongoing personal support through these changes.’

 

52.4        Councillor Simson asked the following supplementary question: ‘I don’t think we’ll ever have consistency across the Council the way members have their ICT delivered because we are all different people and we all have different requirements so I wonder how that’s going to happen.

 

The whole process relating to security measures; whilst necessary for some officers in some departments within the Council, I absolutely understand the need for security but it appears to me, members and many of those who have contacted me have spoken to me, to be one step forward and two steps back when I thought we were supposed to be a modernising Council. We seem to be taking retrograde steps.

 

This can be really cost effective, especially the time when the Council is looking at vast reductions in next year’s budget. So I wonder if the current Leader of the Council can tell me how much money has been spent so far on the work that has already been carried out relating to members including the new laptops that have been bought and the new screens, the keyboards and the mice for those that don’t even want a laptop and why Councillors who would prefer to use their own equipment at no cost to the Council are being told they can’t?’

 

52.5        Councillor J. Kitcat replied: ’I don’t have the numbers on the cost of providing IT to Members but I’ll happily look into that and see if I can get you a written reply but ultimately the whole point is that we are required to do this by Government because Councillors, due to their Community role, handle personal sensitive information about benefits matters, could be mental health issues, all sorts of sensitive data; it is completely black and white clear that Members of the Council must be using GCSX accounts and as soon as that is the case then all the other requirements come and it is such that you have to have the connection as you’ve discussed, direct to the Council network and you have to have a specific computer.

 

Now in fact in most trades most organisations of this type it is utterly normal for workers to be given a laptop with the organisation’s security requirements. It is us who’ve been outliers in being allowed to access secure Council systems for some time on our own computers and I have been guilty of that as much as others but we now have no choice but to do it in a consistent way, it is not something that, locally, the ICT department have chosen to do, this is a national thing and you’re quite right, it has been very unfortunate that the speed and zero tolerance has happened in this way because it has cost us more money and it has distracted from the modernisation that we’re seeking to do that is why across the country Councils are so angry with the Cabinet Office for the way this is being done.

 

We are united in that but we have to be understanding and supportive of our very hard pressed ICT department here who are trying to make the best of a bad situation that is created by those in Whitehall so I’d hope you can support them as they’re trying to meet the requirements that have been put on them so that they can continue supporting us as members but also more importantly the citizens of our City.

 

Church Road Portslade

 

52.6         Councillor Hamilton asked: ‘Church Road, Portslade is part of the designated route from Shoreham Port to the Brighton Bypass and carries a large volume of heavy traffic. At the northern end of Church Road near St. Marys Primary School there is a pelican crossing, this crossing must have met relevant criteria to have been installed. At the southern end of Church Road, near St. Peters Primary School, there is no crossing however the criteria used for the existing would apply equally to the location where a crossing is also required.

 

In view of this will you please undertake to give serious consideration to the provision of a crossing at the southern end of Church Road?’

 

52.7         Councillor West replied: ‘I’m sure Councillor Hamilton is aware from his Ward colleague, Councillor Robins, of the considerable interest that has been shown in this matter and brought to the attention of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee over the past number of meetings.

 

Councillor Robins has raised the question and we have had a deputation and a question as well from residents. I think all Members will be aware that we share concerns of residents and parents and teachers for safety for children crossing Church Road and this has been well discussed and I would refer him to the considered answers that I have given in reply.

 

For other Members who are unfamiliar I can just mention one or two things. We have, in the Summer, surveyed the crossing movements in the location I think he is referring to against the agreed Council criteria and it wasn’t deemed that the crossing movements at that time were sufficient to warrant the measures that he was specifically seeking.

 

We have also installed a number of measures already mostly using Section 106 money from the school expansion and that includes 8 drop kerbs, a pedestrian guard rail outside the St. Peters School, a column that controls the electronic warning sign and an additional pedestrian refuge and station road. The sum we obtained for that was £20,000 and we’ve put in over £5000 more from the road safety budget and these measures are considered to be sufficient for the situation but we are very aware that the numbers of pupils are rising further in subsequent years and has already been pledged at Committee, I have asked Officers to look again at this matter and, as has been said,  we will be bringing the report back to Committee to consider what further measures may be required so this matter is in hand Councillor and as I’m sure you ‘re aware, I do appreciate the concern of residents and parents.

 

They are running a very large campaign and I think the petition had a thumping in the order of 1000 signatures and I do appreciate that expression. As we have said at Committee, we have over 100 hundred applications for safety measures across the whole city every year and we have to look at those in the round against our Green criteria and take the responsibility to distribute the limited funds that we have for road safety in a fair manner to address the issues that are arising across the City.

 

So I hope you will be patient and await that report and see what the officer’s analysis of the situation is.’

           

52.8         Councillor Hamilton asked the following supplementary question: ‘I don’t think Councillor West has really answered the main point that I was making. Church Road already has a pelican crossing at the top. Why was that installed? It must have met the criteria and that was 10 years ago and traffic’s increased since then so how can it be that that crossing there met the criteria ten years ago and now the crossing 300 yards further down the same road with the same traffic does not now meet the criteria?

 

Do you agree that it met the criteria 10 years ago at the top of the road, it now meets the criteria at the bottom of the road?’

 

52.9         Councillor West replied: ’All I can say is that when this was looked at in June and it was against the Council’s  agreed criteria which is relatively recently updated; and I remember Councillor Morgan and I both sat on the Scrutiny Panel that actually looked at this matter, the criteria takes in to account a number of additional factors beyond road casualties because it became apparent that it shouldn’t just be casualty driven it should also be taking into consideration the way that people are unable to cross and therefore perhaps are not crossing in a given place where they would want to and so actually this criteria is a lot more intelligent than ones in the past.

I clearly can’t comment on decisions that were taken against old criteria 10 years ago but this was looked at in June and as I have said we are looking at this matter again and the report will be coming to Committee in the future and one of the things that we will be considering in that is the fact that there are a lot of heavy vehicle movements in this particular case and that’s an important factor. So I hope you’ll be patient on this.’

 

Local Government Association

 

52.10    Councillor Summers asked: ‘I understand the Councillor Kitcat did attend an LGA staff conference last month in which he spoke about what LGA Membership means to Councillors. So assuming that he was speaking from Councillors experience rather than just theory I wonder if he’d be so kind as to remind us what LGA membership means for Brighton and Hove City Councillors?’

 

52.11    Councillor J. Kitcat replied: ‘The LGA is the only collaborative body for all Councils in England and Wales and every developed nation in the world has a Local Government Association. It is essential to the good functioning of a modern democracy.

 

What do we get from the Local Government Association, first of all we get influence. We get to participate in boards and commissions; a number of colleagues here currently participate and have participated in the past and there are around 83 subsidised events a year where Members are able to meet together to discuss issues of common concern, influence Ministers and other decision makers and also the briefing is invaluable.

 

I have a conversation a few years back now with the Head of Public Protection who was saying that the value of the briefings; they alone got from the LGA interpreting what new legislation meant, more than covered the £50,000 we pay in membership because otherwise we would have to get independent legal advice on some of those matters.

 

But also the learning and the training for Members and Officers is incredibly valuable, I’ve got a really long list here which I’m happy to put up afterwards, there’s EU funding trackers, LGA Office in Brussels that we are able to take advantage of for lobbying on matters of EU, Governance that impact on the Council, they also support with media issues when there are particular matters for example the horse meat prices recently which all Councils are being inundated with requests about; they provide a central clearing house and advice and comments and we’re also able to use Local Governments House as a meeting space.

 

We’ve recently formed Key Cities which we are on the Leadership body of, which is a mid-sized city group. 23 Cities now are working together on that and we are formally recognised through the LGA as a special interest group and we are getting direct access to Cabinet Ministers on that to put the case for why we need particular types of support and devolved powers.

 

So that’s just a quick summary but I’m happy to circulate more details. I think collective action is incredibly important for Local Government and The LGA is a big part of that.’

 

52.12    Councillor Summers asked the following supplementary question: ‘I totally agree with Councillor Kitcat, I really asked that question so that he could remind Councillors really what the LGA does. I’ve personally am a supporter and user of LGA services so I suppose what I want to say then is; because I believe they offer fantastic support and we really could with now, I wonder if he could consider ways of encouraging more of us Members and Officers to use it because unfortunately according to reports of the LGA last year showing how Brighton and Hove benefitted from their services, it shows unfortunately only about 6 Members and 9 Officers from our Council even attended events so I don’t think the take up has been very large and I just wondered if you would find ways of encouraging others to take up more of their services?’

 

52.13    Councillor J. Kitcat replied: ’I’m not sure those figures are entirely reflective of all the things Officers and Members did with LGA last year but  I agree and actually at the start of the staff conference you mention I attended, one of the items I raised was how can we involve more Members beyond the usual suspects of Council Leaders and Chairs and Cabinet Member and that was taken very thoughtfully by the Chief Executive, Caroline Downes and they’re going to go away butI suggested one way would be to have more LGA reps from the wider membership of the Council.

 

I am aware that Members do take advantage of many of the e-mail bulletins and the online tools the LGA provides and they do get invitations through that to a number of the events so maybe we need to just remind them of the availability of that and they can go to www.local.gov.uk to sign up and they’re free for Councillors.

 

There are only 2 Councils in England and Wales who aren’t Members of the LGA and I think long shall it continue that there’s such high membership and I’d encourage all Members to support the LGA.’

 

Council Investments

 

52.14    Councillor Mears asked: ‘In recent months the Co-op Bank, the ethical bank, has come close to collapse due to a 1.5 Billion black hole in its balance sheet leading to concerns for more than 1000 job losses and with pensioners standing to lose income owing to the sacrifices being made by bondholders and concerns regarding their political arm.

 

Bearing in mind the many years this Council has invested in the Co-op Bank, can Councillor Littman confirm he is happy with the action the Council has taken to protect its investments?’

 

52.15    Councillor Littman replied: ‘As an educator I’ve found that the quality of an answer tends to be predicated on the clarity of the question and since the question consists of two words; Council Investments, I have a number of points covering all sorts of areas of Council investment including, fortunately, the Co-op Bank. Obviously we are deeply saddened that our relationship with the Co-op Bank has gone one on for many years under administration of all colours, is going to have to come to an end.

 

Our current contract with the bank is up in March next year but we are already looking, along with other local and regional authorities, at moving faster than that in the tendering process for a new bank to work with. I am confident that our finance officers are doing everything that is necessary to protect us in these difficult times.’

 

52.16    Councillor Mears asked the following supplementary question: ‘Can Councillor Littman confirm whether the City Council will be helping the independent enquiry in to the Co-op given the level of investment that the City has had with this particular bank?’

 

52.17    Councillor Littman replied: ’Currently we have no investment with the Co-op Bank, they are our personal bankers as it were, so we’re not an organisation that actually invests with them.’

 

School Places

 

52.18    Councillor Pissaridou asked: ‘The Brighton and Hove City Council Strategic Risk Register 2013/14 gave a risk of 16 to school places planning that’s red. Will Councillor Shanks confirm that from next September the City will start to face the shortage of secondary school places and will she outline what pro-active measures her administration is taking to provide the places needed over the next 5 years?            ‘

 

52.19    Councillor Shanks replied: ‘Councillor Pissaridou does know the answer to this question because she sits on a cross party working group which we’ve constituted more recently and much more formally and we’ve met twice so far in the more formal system that we’ve now got and we have been obviously looking at school places, this is not just a problem in Brighton and Hove.

 

This is a problem nationally because of the Government’s Policy on schools, free schools, academies etc because of lack of capital investment in school places we are actually doing a lot better than some authorities but not complacent on this and we are obviously looking at this but actually we have because of the King’s School opening and the additional places at PACA, we still have spaces at both PACA and BACA and I think at Longhill as well.

 

We still have places in our secondary schools so we have sufficient places to the cost of the City to meet forecast demand until at least 2016 however we will need to provide places and we need to possibly provide 300 places per year group for secondary places. We’ve obviously got along lead in time to this so the working group, as you know, has asked officers to continue discussions with all the schools about whether they can increase in size, we’ve also had some interest from University of Sussex for example who are quite keen to do something educationally but this is a priority for our new director and it’s a priority of mine that we have got sufficient places but the need for extra places is not this year.

 

52.20    Councillor Pissaridou asked the following supplementary question: ‘That’s all very well and good for up to 2016 but what measures will your administration from this coming September to ensure that there are enough secondary schools places for children across Brighton and Hove?’

 

52.21    Councillor Shanks replied: ’We do not need new places for this September, obviously, and we have got a working group that will be reporting back. We have got, for example in the Toad’s Hall Valley, we have got a school site there and we are talking to all our secondary schools about potential expansions.

 

We’re also looking at other possible sites, I visited King’s School last week, the pre-school is in its first year of operation it will be taking extra children in the future so I’m confident that officers will be working on this and that Councillor Pissaridou and indeed Councillor Wealls as well will be involved in all those discussion and that we will be able to come to a collective agreement on this.’

 

Bus Shelter – Thornhill Rise, Portslade

 

52.22    Councillor Carden asked: ‘Will the Council provide a bus shelter, a seat and a bus information sign at the junction of New England Rise and Thornhill Rise, Portslade for the elderly people that live in that area? I have battered my head for years trying to get something put up there in fact when my wife died back in March I sent a letter to the Head of Transport saying that I was prepared to sponsor something from that site but I was told no, it’s provided by the contractors that put the bus shelters in.

 

Please before I go in about another 18 months time, is there some chance that we can get a bus shelter put at that point for the elderly people that live in that area? I get more phone calls on that particular bus stop than any other in the City. Please do it I’m fed up with trying and getting the same old rubbish answers that they’ve got no money, we can’t do it etc. Please do it and I’ll be a happy man and I’ll retire happy.’

 

52.23    Councillor West replied: ‘The Councillor said bus shelter Thornhill Rise, so I’m hoping that we’re talking about the same spot. The advice I have from officers is that they have visited this site previously with representatives of Brighton and Hove’s Bus Company to have a look at the suitability of that stop to take as shelter and my understanding, I admit I am not familiar with the spot and I hope we are talking about the same place, is that actually it is too narrow in that location to take a shelter without it compromising pedestrian access where pedestrians and potentially disabled people will be forced to get in to the road to get around the shelter, so I see that you’re not agreeing with  that analysis so I do wonder if we are talking about the same place.

 

But that’s certainly the advice that I have. The other point that is being made is that it isn’t a particularly heavy used bus stop and that of course we have to, along with ensuring that’s a safe location, we do have to make sure that shelter’s are put into places that are more heavily used so that they are providing more benefit to the greatest number of people.’

 

52.24    Councillor Carden asked the following supplementary question: ‘I believe that this particular point that I’m talking about, there was an intention at one stage to put it there but if you go along across the top from Mile Oak where you go out atop of Chalky Road and round Fox Way, there’s a bus shelter on the junction and it’s used twice a day. Two buses a day stop there. Elderly people have come to me and said that they’re fed up with getting wet, waiting for the bus. No one’s ever come and said to me they’re fed up with getting wet along Fox Way.

 

So please listen to me, go and have a look at the junction of Thornhill Rise and New England Rise, I’m making this impassioned plea because I haven’t got much more time to do it but I’m prepared to bring it up at every Council meeting between now and the day I walk out of here in May 2015.’

 

52.25    Councillor West replied: ’I appreciate the point Councillor and officers will certainly come and have a look at the place and check that we’ve got our understanding correct. With regard to the other shelter, we’ll listen to what you have to say about the usage rates and whether that potentially could be different but I do hear what you’re saying.’