Agenda item - Oral questions from Councillors

70.1      The Mayor noted that notification of 3 oral questions had been received and that 30 minutes was set aside for the duration of the item. She then invited Councillor K. Norman to put his question to Councillor West.

 

City Clean

 

70.2      Councillor K. Norman asked:

 

“Over a number of years I and many others around the City have asked the blocked drains to be cleared in various parts of the City many of which have been blocked for years despite asking for them to be cleaned and cleared out. We have now have substantial plant growth which makes for a solid impenetrable plug and there are many such blocked drains in my ward and around the City.

 

Bearing in mind the current high volumes of water that continue to fall out of the sky, all drains should be regularly checked for free water flow which is clearly not the case so inevitably leads to high volumes of water flowing on to lower lying areas and increasing the depth of flood water on pavements and highways.

 

What system is in place to deal with this problem? And I really don’t want, and I think it’s out of date by now, the fallen leaf excuse.”

 

70.3      Councillor J. Kitcat responded in the absence of Councillor West:

 

“If you provide us a list of the detailed areas you’re referring to we’d be very happy to look into it. We do have a surface water action plan that deals with all the matters that you raise and of course I’m sure you’ll know that Brighton and Hove is actually one of the highest risk areas in the Country for surface water flooding and we would be keen to see more funding put in to that for the environment agency are being deeply cut by your Government.

 

Also our representative for the flooding committee for the region proposed an increase in funding there and that was refused by Conservative Councillors sitting there. So unfortunately we are where we are but happy to respond in detail in writing if you’ll provide the locations.”

 

70.4      Councillor K. Norman asked the following supplementary question:

 

“I wasn’t talking about the general flooding, my point here is that the drains that are continually blocked and have vegetative growth growing out of them so they have solid plugs in those drains, in my ward I have asked many times for them to be cleared, I see the truck and they either just have a dabble at it and it doesn’t work.

 

Now we are having problems with our heavy rainfall and of course we will be getting more flooding on certain areas but if we had our drains and gullies cleared properly we would be able to see a lot of that water disappear down the drains and gullies and go away. We are not seeing that, we are seeing the gullies in the gutters where we’ve got dropped curbs filled with water where it should be draining away, we’re not getting that so it’s imperative that we have a real look at that to make sure we’re doing the best we can.

 

I’m going to check the affected drains in my ward and I’m giving the Council 2 weeks to check them and I would like confirmation that they’ve all been checked and they are all working properly.”

 

70.5      Councillor J. Kitcat replied:

 

“As I said before if Councillor Norman wants to send us a list of particular problem areas, officers would be very to look at it and I would refer him to the strategy I previously mentioned.”

 

Councillor K. Norman called a point of order:

 

“My question was I would like to have an answer as to when they’re cleared, can we be told that they’re cleared?”

 

Councillor West then continued the response:

 

“I will certainly follow up on Councillor Norman’s points on asking where we are with checking the drains in his ward and ensure that he is properly informed. I do take very seriously these issues and I caught the tail end of what Councillor Kitcat was saying but obviously surface water flooding is a very important issue and I sit on the Southern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee so I’m very tuned in to all these issues so I will take those points forward.”

 

Help for Disadvantaged Youngsters

 

70.6      Councillor Marsh asked:

 

“I’m very pleased to hear, Councillor Shanks in the previous debate, your continued commitment to the public sector provision to provide public services so I’d like to ask you please, why you have decided to make what seems to me the unkindest cut of all i.e. a saving of £14,000 in relation to the short breaks which carers for disabled children currently enjoy?

 

This is an overall budget of £940,000 so it seems a very tiny cut but it seems a cut where the impact on those affected will be particularly great and I’d like to ask you why you made that choice and whether you think that it’s a better way to make a cut like that to a budget which actually equates to the amount that your administration spent on painting the 20mph signs throughout the City which I gather was £1,000,000?”

 

70.7      Councillor Shanks responded:

 

“I don’t know how much the 20mph and how much that cost but I’m sure it was a completely different budget. It’s very difficult as you know, in terms of budgets, as I said earlier we’ve got a huge pressure on budgets, we’ve got the Central Government cutting £23,000,000 out of our budget. As I’ve said before I’ve worked in public sector and I’ve worked with young people all my life, I would certainly like to be improving the services for young people and I think we’ve done a good thing with that, we’ve kept the funding for youth services, we’ve cut the funding for children’s services etc.

 

The budget, as you say is £940,000 and out of that we’re asking a 2% efficiency saving from our in house and from the 3^rd sector providers and we will be talking to 3^rd sector providers. What we are concerned is that it does not impact on front line services. That there will not be a reduction in short breaks for those parents and you have my word that if that was the case I would not be supporting this saving.”

 

70.8      Councillor Marsh asked the following supplementary question:

 

“In the same paper which I’m reading from, home school transport of course is a big issue for those children who are disabled and who have special needs and I notice quite a savage cut proposed there of £263,000 and some £160,000 has already been identified but I just wonder, I know that it is possible to use moneys which have been gained from our parking income from our parking tickets and I think we are about the third highest authority in the country in terms of the revenue from this particular stream.

 

I just wondered if Councillor Shanks had considered using that revenue stream in order to protect those vulnerable children from the transport cuts?”

 

70.9      Councillor Shanks replied:

 

“I think my colleagues would be quite concerned if I took money from one budget to use it for another one. In terms of 20mph, that does support safe independent travel for children because cars are travelling slower and one of the reasons that we’ve been able to reduce the budget for special needs travel is because a lot more children are travelling independently and certainly I used to work with young people with disabilities back in the 80’s and one of the things was trying to get parents to support their independent travel; having people on the bus escorts etc and where trying to do that where children can do that because that’s such a good thing for them to be able to learn that lesson to be able to do that in later life.

 

Obviously there are some children who cannot travel independently and they will get transport from the Council. We have a statutory duty to provide that. This is a budget that has been decreasing because more children are at school locally, less children are travelling to placements further afield so it’s not a budget that I am concerned in terms of a cut on that.

 

In terms of general cuts to services I’d ask your party to support our 4.75% Council tax increase. If we don’t get a decent increase in Council Tax this year this will remove the Council Tax base and we may be coming back to say there are real cuts in these services which i certainly don’t want to see.”

 

Budget 2014/15

 

70.10   Councillor Summers asked:

 

“Councillor Kitcat, in view of the notice of motion that earlier on passed through and also of the prevailing view from opposition Councillors to your referendum proposal, despite this extraordinary campaign that your party’s launched and backed by the national party, your MP and also it seems GMB and UNISON, I’m just wondering in view of that if you wouldn’t giving us an idea of what your plan b might be?”

 

70.11   Councillor J. Kitcat responded:

 

“Well by law, first of all, in presenting the referendum we also have to present the alternative should the referendum not be successful which will be the threshold. The threshold is currently 2% but it is highly expected that Mr Pickles will reduce that but quite frankly as the largest party in the administration; we’ve done what we’re supposed to do. We’ve put forward a proposal which we’ve carefully considered in light of the feedback in the consultation and in conversations with many stakeholders in the City and it’s for the opposition parties, if they’re not happy, to offer an alternative and while I don’t like it, the Tories have at least been open with their alternative, we’re still waiting to hear any positive from the red team and Councillor no at their head.”

 

70.12   Councillor Summers asked the following supplementary question:

 

“Whilst it would be wonderful to think that an extra £2,750,000 as the Green say on their website, I quote, “would safeguard critical services for elderly and vulnerable and cancel out austerity cuts”, I must ask the Council Leader this that the Council has actually a statutory obligation to provide those critical social services anyway irrespective of any increase in Council Tax or not? And isn’t it their fault also the case that the £5,800,000 of savings so far identified by your group are much more to do with  modernising our services provision and working more efficiently in anticipation of a virtually unstoppable increase in demand?

 

Isn’t it more to do with that than it’s ever to do with simply cutting frontline services or jobs per se?”

 

70.13   Councillor J. Kitcat replied:

 

“First of all in relation to statutory requirements, the reality is that the statutory requirement is usually just to have a service, the type, quality and quantity of it is ill defined if defined at all and what we’ve seen in West Sussex for example is a massive scaling back so the eligibility criteria for example had been, I think in an ill considered move, elevated to only the highest and most critical need so the majority of people with lower or medium levels or need are not getting any support from their local authority.

 

That ultimately ends up with these people showing up at hospitals and having more severe and difficult ‘to treat’ needs, so far better to get in early and that is the approach that we have taken here by protecting that eligibility. So yes we have statutory duties for so many different areas that we provide for in the city but the nature of that duty is not defined and so the choices will remain, who provides the service? How? At what level? So I think there is a debate to be had and I’m glad that both of the major local papers will be holding debates on this issue leading forward the City definitely needs it, it is time and people like SCOPE, Age UK and others are running campaigns saying ‘Council run social care is in crisis’ so this is not something that has been conjured up in a moments haste, this is carefully considered and a true reflection of the situation we face ourselves in.

 

In terms of the savings for Adult Social Care, yes absolutely are about realigning and changing and modernising so that it is fit for the future and meet with the growing demand because no matter what happens the population is set to grow, we see a 20% jump in over 85’s till 2021 is the ONS estimate, that is a very severe challenge to us even if we keep still and we know that Council Tax has been well below inflation since we took office inflation has been 9.6% and Council Tax has risen just a shade under 2%. So we’re not even keeping up in real terms.

 

So in terms of those savings we will continue to move forward with them but others which are limiting the amount of resources we can provide the poor and vulnerable, we would like to increase them and not decrease them and that is the gold stance that we’ve taken.”