Agenda item - Oral questions from Councillors

99.1      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 Mitchell to put her question to Councillor West.

 

(a)       Refuse & Recycling Collections

 

99.2      Councillor Mitchell asked:

 

“Given That the reorganisation of refuse and recycling took place 5 months ago does Councillor West think it is acceptable for some areas of the City to still be experiencing disrupted collections and can he guarantee when the service will be fully working to schedule?”

 

99.3      Councillor West replied:

 

“The reorganisation of services in relation to the settlement from the allowance of settlements began in October and there were various phases to that including a relatively recent tweaking of recycling rounds. As the Councillor knows, we have organised a briefing session for members which occurs on Monday and I know we have a debate this afternoon as well about waste in general on the Conservative motion and I think that I’ve had officers circulate their briefing in advance to help inform members of that.

 

It has been a difficult time for residents, I do appreciate that. My understanding is that generally speaking, services are running relatively normally now, we have had going all the way back to the beginning of last year, we had bad weather then we had the disruption caused by work to rule, then there was the strike while the negotiations were on and then we had the introduction of a complete whole scale round change, the biggest that City Cleaners ever had to undertake.

 

What I can also tell the Councillor is that I fully appreciate that recycling rates have taken a bit of a dent but they were levelling off from 2009, that is a national trend and we obviously realise that we need to do more in order to encourage people to recycle more and to recover the interest that people have perhaps lost during the disruption of the past year.”

 

99.4      Councillor Mitchell asked the following supplementary question:

 

“While new communal bins are being added to fresh areas of the City they are being removed from City Centre Areas, this means residents are not walking longer distances to find a glass bin, for example, and are instead putting recyclable materials in with their refuse reducing recycling levels still further. What plans are in place to rectify this situation for City Centre residents being inconvenienced?”

 

99.5      Councillor West replied:

 

“I think I need to know the specific examples from the Councillor of where, from what I understand she’s saying is that glass bins at bring sites have been removed in favour of glass bins as part of the communal recycling service as well.

 

I’m not quite sure maybe the Councillor can explain further after this meeting about that but what we are doing at the moment with the aid of the Government grant that we received for our successful bid to introduce communal recycling is that we’re introducing in the order of about 700 bins across the City Centre area which are servicing 32,000 households after a total of about 130,000 households in the City, this is a significant advance forward.

 

We found in the pilot schemes that we operated in Brunswick and Adelaide a rise in recycling rates in the order of 70%. It’s also easier for people to use and it leaves less mess on the streets and people don’t have to keep boxes in their small households so it’s actually incredibly good scheme. I’m more than happy to hear what the specific examples of bin locations being moved or taken away because obviously we’re in a period of role out where things are being reconfigured.

 

I’m very happy to hear what those specific examples are but just to reinforce, this is a huge step forward, with everything else that’s been changing with the service, we are rolling this out as well and communal recycling is set to make a huge difference to the experience of our service that residents have and I think to recycling rates in those areas.”

 

(b)       School Places – West Hove

 

99.6      Councillor Janio asked:

 

“I would be grateful if Councillor Shanks could explain how the Council is planning to support admissions in schools on the periphery of the City following the welcome of investments of expansion in schools in Central Hove?”

 

99.7      Councillor Shanks replied:

 

“We have expanded the schools in Central Hove and that is where the pressure has been for places but obviously we have had enough school places on the periphery but as the numbers of primary school children have been coming through then those schools have been filling up as well and we don’t want to see schools on the periphery left with not enough children.

 

We have recognised recently, and this has been a cross party recognition, I hope people will back me up on this that we have got enough places for primary schools across the City and we do want to encourage those schools on the periphery to be full as well because there’s no point in having empty places so we won’t be adding extra places in the middle of Hove at the moment though we’ve got a plan for one extra class if we can do that.”

 

99.8      Councillor Janio asked the following supplementary question:

 

“Given that the figures were quite wrong I’d just like Councillor Shanks to guarantee that there will be support for all schools across the City including those on the periphery as well as those investments going on in Central Hove, specifically in Hangleton.”

 

99.9      Councillor Shanks replied:

                 

“I’ll have to get some more information for you, I will look at the admissions, obviously the admissions haven’t been published yet, it comes out on the 16^th April for September so I can’t tell you that at the moment so I can’t guarantee either. As soon as we know the numbers for that, we will let you know.”

 

(c)       Housing Rents & Repairs

 

99.10   Councillor Meadow asked:

 

“With the closure of the Selsfield Drive Housing Office, could the Green Administration promise that it will not have an impact on tenants?”

 

99.11   Councillor Randall replied:

 

“First of all could I say that the decision on Selsfield Drive was a cross party decision which was agreed both at the Housing Committee and at Council. We are taking every step possible to make sure that people are able to pay their rent and make enquiries, there were in total about 16 enquiries a day at that office before and at least 50% of those were about non housing issues, about parking and other issues.

 

There is help for the residents in the Library or there will be and also we are talking to people who are affected by this and I think we have also informed all the tenant’s organisations about what was happening but the reasons we’ve done that is because it was very uneconomic to run the service there with so few people using it and the site would be released for more homes in that Ward which are desperately needed, we think that’s a good use of the site.

 

We’re also looking at the area of Moulsecoomb where there are several local authority offices are a going to pitch to see if in future we could reconfigure that to bring a lot of different organisations together including the bridge from the edge of Moulsecoomb right in to the middle of the Ward where it’s desperately needed.”

 

99.12   Councillor Meadows asked the following supplementary question:

 

“I don’t recall it going through Council so if you could tell me when that would be helpful. Pensioners are a vulnerable group who should not have to pay an extra 50p charge each week to pay their rent on time at a pay pal machine in local shop as they’re no longer easily able to access a housing office yet this is happening, so would you agree with me that not only are you charging disabled tenants to park their cars, not only are you charging them a substantial rent increase but you’re also charging them to pay their rent on time?”

 

99.13   Councillor Randall replied:

 

“We are aware of the one shop that apparently is charging for pay pal, normally this is not the case and we are looking at that.”

 

(d)       Sponsorship of roundabouts and floral displays

 

99.14   Councillor C. Theobald asked:

 

“When are we going to have a corporate sponsor for our roundabouts and floral displays especially as we have lost nearly 4 years of sponsorship money which includes the welcome sign in Patcham? Do we have to tidy this up ourselves like we did last year?”

 

99.15   Councillor West replied:

 

“I’m sure Councillor Theobald would be glad to know that we are bringing a report to the next Environment Transport and Sustainability Committee for Members to be able to consider offering a new contract for sponsorship of various roundabouts and floral displays in the City with the aim for a new contract to be met. So that will come to the 29^th April Committee and the reports will become available in due course.”

 

99.16   Councillor C. Theobald asked the following supplementary question:

 

“As I said we’re hosting the Southeast in Bloom ceremony at the AMEX stadium and more than 500 delegates and judges will be arriving and will see the state of the welcome sign. So could this not be re planted as a matter of urgency?”

 

99.17   Councillor Littman replied:

 

“I will certainly ask the officers about the welcome sign and the planting of it, I don’t think it necessarily has to connect with whether or not we have a sponsorship scheme in place for this year, I suspect that with the decision only coming for Members, and it is for Members to decide how to proceed, it’s not likely to be within this Summer season but you will see that in position because it’s obviously got to be tendered out and people are going to be attracted and agree and the sign’s got to be made.

 

I certainly take your point about the welcome sign in particular and whether it’s going to be planted or not and I will certainly get an answer to you.”

 

(e)       Members’ ICT

 

99.18   Councillor Simson asked:

 

“Following my last question at Full Council I was hoping to not have to ask any more questions. I would like to thank the Administration for the changes/u-turns that have been made since then and the effort that’s been put in by the member support officer and even the Leader of the Council who kindly offered to visit one of my member’s homes to help with their IT problems unfortunately all of this has come at a price.

 

The cost of this I understand includes some 400 new laptops for members and officers across the Council which are so basic I wouldn’t even buy one for my grandchildren, then the cost of add-ons to make them even partially acceptable; keyboards, mice and monitors so you can actually read the script which is so small most users can’t.

 

I appreciate the changes have had to be made in order to comply with the PSN Code of Connection but believe that this was done with little if any consultation which could have averted member’s problems and saved money. So will the Leader of the Council inform members of what all this has cost so far? I do appreciate you probably won’t have this to hand but it could be communicated later by our new secure protected email system.”

 

99.19   Councillor J. Kitcat replied:

 

“I do think it’s important to recognise this is a matter that affects Councils across the country and there are some areas where they have less than 30% uptake of any technology by members so by many comparisons we are cutting edge as a Member body.

 

I don’t have a total cost for you but the individual costs are, for a desktop or a laptop, are both in the region of around £400 and those laptops are not the most basic available for example I had the solid state disk which is much faster and more reliable than the old types happen to run on but I recognise there are lots of individual needs and officers have worked incredibly hard to try and support all of those individual needs, the fact that we even have a dedicated officer to come and support Members in their homes in addition to myself of course is something that many other Councils do not have.

 

Also this is something that was imposed by consultation by Central Government and we now have had letters from the Cabinet Office, Ministers and Senior Civil Servants acknowledging their failure to consult on the 2013 round and are seeking and have set up a reference group for 2014 process.

 

So I think that moving forward as a security requirement to continue to tighten it will be more done with Councils rather than to. But if you would like me to come and have a look at your setup I’m more than happy to do that. I will also reply in writing to the question specifically on total costs.”

 

99.20   Councillor Simson asked the following supplementary question:

 

“It’s very unfortunate that, still some Councillors are having to use their Blackberry’s alone, they cannot use the equipment that’s provided for them in their homes and that really isn’t a suitable alternative. Our lives have been made very difficult by all of this because the uniform laptops that were given to us to replace what they previously had just haven’t suited all Members. What needs to be recognised is that all Members need equipment that they can use quickly and efficiently so that they can do the job they were elected for and they work all times of the day and night, it’s no good having computers go wrong at 11 O’clock at night when there’s no service to come out. So we need reliable equipment.

 

So will the Leader of the Council give us complete assurance that in future we will all be treated as individuals with different levels of IT knowledge meaning different requirements for hardware and for software and will you assure us that this isn’t the end and that the Administration is looking at ways to move this whole modernisation proves forward as other Council’s have done with the use of I pads?”

                   

99.21   Councillor J. Kitcat replied:

 

“First of all I think we need to acknowledge that, casting no aspersions, but many administrations for many years failed to properly invest in ICT and the hardened security requirements brought that to light more quickly than we might have otherwise discovered and so there is a huge amount of work to be done by our officers in getting us to where we need to be but there have been pilots on a whole range of different devices and technologies; the ‘Modern.Gov’ system we use for Democratic Services does have I-Pad and Android apps for example which can be used now.

 

There are differences if you look between Councils whether all Members should have access to the GCSX secure mail, if we are GCSX users, the security requirements are much higher and given that we’re a unitary with social care responsibilities we do need to have that level of security access so it is an ongoing process but I have to say, obviously everybody has individual needs and we need to make reasonable adjustments to those who have particular needs in accessing IT but I think one of the issues is that in the past every Member was treated so individually it made it impossible to support them in an affordable and reasonable manner let alone to meet the security requirements.

 

In most corporations and Councils the workers there would have standard IT kit with standard security requirements and they have to deal with that. We are trying to offer as much adjustment as we can but ultimately we, as we’re connected to Central Government, have to abide by those standards, but I will continue to find ways to come and support you personally and I’m assured that officers are doing everything they can within the limits of our resources and the security requirements.”

 

(e)       Travellers

 

99.22   Councillor Summers asked:

 

“In light of the resent recent repeat traveller incursion into Wild Park, which we know has since been displaced into Stanmer Park and other encampments in my Ward, in Hollingdean & Stanmer such as 39 acres and Lynchet Close, I would like to ask Councillor West, if it is not time now to demonstrate to the public that far from being negligent towards or even encouraging the incursions, I have to say the Argus really damagingly insists on implying, is it not time that this Council now demonstrates that it’s rightly discharging its duties to safeguard the interests of all, as far as it possibly can, and as such it’s now planning to install more robust protection at these sensitive sites, starting with Wild Park?“

 

99.23   Councillor West replied:

 

“I think first, of all I picked out a couple of words then, ‘negligent’ and ‘encouraging incursions’. We certainly aren’t negligent in our duty both to travellers and to local communities and we certainly don’t encourage incursions into parks and open spaces. I can’t see a reason on earth we would because clearly we end up with significant costs for dealing with evictions and with clearing up afterwards. So it’s not something we do and we certainly do not tolerate unauthorised encampments on parks. We take seriously the impacts on local communities who wish to use those parks. As you know, we work very closely with the police, and we have to fulfil our legal obligations towards the travelling communities in the case of their wellbeing and we have to do those checks.  But beyond that, we always move as quickly as possibly to evict and I have seen data that says we actually move far faster now than the previous administration did so they won’t find us lacking in that manner.

 

As far as additional protection goes, we have improved protection in a number of parks and open spaces, Withdean Park is a particular one in my mind, where we bunded across the front of the park, following a number of incursions there. Ladies Mile Nature Reserve lent itself to protection measures and we chicaned the entrance there. I know that Greenleaves Park, which has had a lot of encampments has had better gates put on, I think is the case there, so we have done quite a lot but we have to recognise that protecting certain areas will create a shift through others, and that’s in fact why we are actually experiencing encampments on parks now because so many traditional sites elsewhere have actually been made less accessible.

 

One has to wonder what can we do when it comes to Preston Park? How do you actually protect Preston Park without making it really very ugly? I think members need to think about that. But I am very glad to say in case of Wild Park, it is, as you know Councillor because Councillors have mentioned this to you, it is possible for us to dig a ha-ha, which is like a ditch across the front. It’s the same measure as we have up the side of Hollingbury Park, and I think that’s been relatively affective, so we might see less impact on Wild Park. But you can’t guarantee it will because I know in some cases, gates have actually been ground off, so if anyone is determined, they will get in, whatever we chose to do.”

 

99.24   Councillor Summers asked the following supplementary question:

 

            “I do want to clarify on the previous thing though, that I was not implying that I thought the council was negligent or promoting incursions, I just wanted to highlight that the press has been very unhelpful in this. So moving on from that then, as members will know, the planning application for the permanent site at Horsdean was comfortably granted by the South Downs National Park Authority, in fact, on the13 February. You may not know that later the same day, the Secretary of State intervened and directed the South Downs National Park Authority, not to grant permission, whilst he considers whether or not to determine the application himself. So Councillor West, since no time frame appears to have been given, for what extensible extensibly appears, well in my view anyway, to be quite a nefarious attempt to undermine local decision making otherwise known as localism, and since the need for a permanent site is greater now than ever it was, with only 10 pitches, at the transit site usable, as directed by the environment agency, please could this Council put pressure on the Secretary of State, either directly or via the South Downs National Park Authority, to endorse our application or preferably, to frankly back off altogether?”

 

99.25   Councillor West replied:

 

“You have a very good command of this dismal situation. I mean, the National Park has taken a very sound, majority decision having considering all the facts and the matter, I’m very satisfied with not only the facilities that we’re offering but also the landscaping, around the travellers permanent site and they were very satisfied with everything that we’ve done and the effort we have gone to; to ensure that we can look to the hydrology and the environment agency are content that there won’t be any ground water pollution, which I know has been an issue that’s been stoked up by certain members of the local community as a worry to our wards. None of that is true. The planning application has been passed by members of the National Park and as you rightly say, now we have the Secretary of State frustrating the whole thing, by putting a break on it and taking them an indeterminate of time, and there is no timetable for when the Secretary of State has to make a decision whether or not to call this matter in.

 

As you rightly say, what is this? Is this localism? It’s utterly ridiculous. There is not even, I understand, a method of which we can make representations officially to the Secretary of State about the way this process has been frustrated. There is no way that we can do that officially, but of course we are in touch with the National Park as the Planning Authority and we’re doing all that we can to urge this on but we are in this ridiculous position, thanks to the Secretary of State. And I would say to political forces that have never had a good word to say for this proposal, I’m frustrated at every turn and I see Cllr. Theobald nodding in response, and I just do not understand the logic of this because the more permanent pitches that we have at Horsdean, the less there is going to be of people likely to be encamped on parks. I just do not understand the logic of the Conservative Group on this and we want to provide good quality pitches for people with local connections that have local needs and want to get on with their lives and want to have a better future for their children, and all the Tories can do is ‘no no no’.”