Meeting documents

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Mrs?Beattie, Crook, Harrison and Mrs Hothersall.

The Chief Executive declared personal interests in item 4 the Report of the Cabinet (Pay Policy) on behalf of members of the Senior Management Team present. Whilst this was included in their terms and conditions of employment it was essentially the same as the policy approved last year and therefore they would remain in the meeting unless there was a significant discussion on the item.

Councillor Martin declared a personal interest in Items 5, 6, 8 [minute nos. 54, 55 and 57] as an employee of Lancashire County Council but under the Code of Conduct for Elected Members was permitted to remain in the meeting for the duration of those items.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:

the minutes of the meeting held on 19 November 2014 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Mayor.

The Leader commended the report of the meeting held on 14 January 2015 with the exception of the exempt items relating to the Procurement of Waste and Recycling Collection Service and Land at Leyland which would be considered at the end of the meeting. The report was seconded.

Members on all sides of the chamber joined Councillor Mrs Moon in hailing the Moss Side Playing Fields project which had been an excellent example of teamwork among council members, partners, other interested parties and the local community and a shining example of what My Neighbourhood working could deliver. With a total value of around ?500K, the cost to the Council had been limited.

As chairman of the Leyland My Neighbourhood Forum, Councillor Ms Bell thanked Councillor Mrs Moon and all members of the Leyland forum for their hard work and commitment to this project. The Leader passed her thanks to all members of the Leyland forum and reported that another local council was coming to meet with Councillor P Smith to discuss and learn from our experience with My Neighbourhood working, which had been described externally as an example to follow.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
1) the report be noted, with the exception of items 10 and 11.

2) Bamber Bridge Improvement Plan
(i) authority be granted under Section 3.4 of the Financial Regulations to incur capital expenditure of up to ?20,000 to carry out surveys and preliminary works;
(ii) public consultation with residents and businesses be approved to commence;
(iii) a further Cabinet report on the Improvement Plan informed by the findings of the consultation exercise be presented.

3) The Pay Policy 2015/16 be approved.

4) Councillor Mrs Mary Green be confirmed as Mayor elect for 2015/16 and Councillor Mrs Linda Woollard be nominated as Deputy Mayor for 2015/16.

5) The timetable of meetings for 2015/16 be approved.

6) Moss Side Playing Fields
(i) expenditure of up to ?30,000 in capital monies be approved to fund enabling works:
(ii) the contributions of ?187,308 from the Rugby Football League (value of modular building) and ?52,000 from Sport England (also for enabling works) be noted.

Councillor Titherington commended the report of the Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 9 December 2014. The report was seconded. Councillor Titherington took the opportunity to congratulate everyone in South Ribble on the tremendous achievement of breaking through the 50% recycling barrier. He also reminded Council that South Ribble was a Fair Trade Borough and that this Council had committed to that.

In response to a question from Councillor Clark about what was intended (in the extract of the report about the Joint Procurement Strategy) by ?re-explore the widening of shared services?, Councillor Titherington explained that there was widespread agreement in the authority that the Joint Procurement Strategy had been a major success in helping to generate significant savings. The Council was continually striving to identify opportunities for savings wherever possible and consequently looked at successes such as the Joint Procurement Strategy to see if similar approaches could be applied elsewhere in the authority.

Councillor W Bennett commended the report of the Governance Committee meeting held on 26 November 2014. The report was seconded.

Councillor W Bennett highlighted the fact that the authority had received a credit note as a goodwill gesture from the External Auditors in recognition of the delay in completing the audit and confirmed that the monetary cost to the Council of our own officers? overtime required as a result of this delay had been minimal. He was pleased to confirm that the Disabled Facilities Grant allocation was due to be fully spent in the current financial year.

Councillor Titherington presented the report as chairman of the Scrutiny Task Group which had undertaken this review. The review had been light touch in nature because of the scale of the welfare reforms and their relatively recent implementation. He thanked everybody involved in the review for their co-operation. The report was seconded.

Councillor Titherington brought members? attention to recommendation 7 of the report which asked Council to lobby the Department for Work and Pensions to change national regulations to allow outstanding council tax to be deducted directly from benefits with the permission of the claimant. Under current legislation this could happen only following court action.

The Leader explained that she had lobbied our local Member of Parliament to this effect before the reforms were implemented. She firmly believed that this was a sensible approach and that regulations should be changed to allow this to happen.

In his capacity as Cabinet Member for Shared Services and Corporate Support, Councillor Hamman expressed his thanks to Councillor Titherington and members of the task group for their work on the review, as well as to the Director of Business Transformation and his staff for all their work in implementing welfare reform to date. He confirmed that the report would be considered by Cabinet at its meeting on 11 February.

Councillor Titherington agreed to provide members with more details about the total number of people taken to court over non-payment of council tax and the timescale over which the number had increased.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
1) the Task Group be thanked for its work, and
2) the report be further considered by Cabinet at its meeting on 11 February.

In response to a question from Councillor Forrest about recent media reports of prison staff shortages, the Leader said she was indeed aware of some of the difficulties facing the prison service and acknowledged that a number of the borough?s residents were employed by HMP Garth and Wymott. However, as they were not situated within South Ribble she did not feel it appropriate for her to contact prison management about staff shortages and potential safety issues.

Councillor M Tomlinson said that the Labour Group was pleased to see in the Pay Policy that staff paid below the Living Wage would receive a supplement to their salary to bring them up to the Living Wage for the second year running. With this in mind, he asked if the Leader would now give thought to the idea of us becoming a ?Living Wage Council?. The Leader replied that the decision to pay a supplement had been considered to be the appropriate approach at the time but she would discuss with Human Resources whether this was still the best way going forward.

In response to an enquiry from Councillor Ms Bell about the Council?s plans for Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, the Leader confirmed that the Mayor was due to attend a number of services and she agreed with Councillor Ms Bell that the whole council undoubtedly deplored what happened during the Holocaust and would not like to see a repeat of anything like it ever again.

Councillor Michael Green enquired whether the Leader was aware of the National Citizen Service (NCS) which was open to all 16 and 17-year-olds in England and helped them to build skills for work and life, take on new challenges and meet new friends. The Leader said she was indeed aware of this initiative which she thought the council would be keen to support. She was pleased to report that the Council was also working closely on a new initiative with Preston College and Serco to give development opportunities to young people.

Deputy Leader, Neighbourhoods and Street Scene

In response to a question from Councillor Michael Green, Councillor Mullineaux confirmed that the council?s policy of low car parking charges was designed to encourage people to come to / stay in the borough to shop, thereby helping local residents and businesses.

In response to an observation from Councillor M Tomlinson about car parking provision in the borough and resident parking permits in Leyland, Councillor Mullineaux confirmed that responsibility for enforcement of off-street parking (car parks) lay with this authority but enforcement of on-street parking (including resident only parking) came under the remit of the county council. A member of the public observed that parking provision and enforcement was not consistent across the town and spoke of his and other residents? frustrations at regularly not being able to park in their own street (despite having resident parking permits) due to other vehicles parking there without penalty. Councillor Mullineaux said that he would be willing to take this up with Lancashire County Council.

Councillor Heyworth commended the development of the overflow car park on Worden Park and asked for an assurance that it would be used rather than Royal Avenue, Cumberland Avenue and Parkgate Drive. Councillor Mullineaux acknowledged that an overflow car park was needed and confirmed that people would be directed to it as and when needed.

A member of the public indicated that he had not had a reply to issues that he had raised at the last meeting and agreed to submit them in writing to the Cabinet Member after the meeting.

Regeneration, Leisure and Healthy Communities

In response to a question from Councillor Ogilvie about a further reduction in unemployment, Councillor P Smith was pleased to report that the rate of unemployment in the borough had dropped to 0.9% and the figure for those unemployed for 12 months now stood at 0.2%. He was confident that the City Deal and the Bamber Bridge Improvements would have bring even more positive employment news for the borough.

Councillor M Tomlinson said the Labour Group welcomed the reduction in unemployment and hoped that the jobs being filled were sustainable and well paid.

Councillor Prynn agreed that the reduction in unemployment was encouraging but enquired if there was any information available on the number of people who were currently looking for employment but who were not claiming or unable to claim benefit. Councillor Robinson pointed out that we would not have this type of information as it was not within the remit of this council.

Councillor Howarth referred to concerns raised at the last meeting about Serco and enquired about what guarantees the council had in terms of maintaining quality of service if Serco were looking to sell off its leisure operations. Councillor P Smith said that he and the Chief Executive had met with Serco recently and to date there were no changes to announce. He confirmed that he was a director of the Leisure Trust.

The Chief Executive said that the Serco Group had announced before Christmas that it was considering divesting itself of its leisure and environmental services but as far as we were concerned this had not happened yet and there was no change to service provision or to our employees at this time.

Shared Services and Corporate Support

Councillor Forrest referred to a recent article in the local press about the Citizens Advice Bureau?s increased caseload relating to personal debt and to a quote in it that advice in relation to council tax debt had, for the first time, overtaken commercial debt as the biggest cause for concern last year. Councillor Hamman said he would look into this with the Director of Business Transformation and took the opportunity to inform members that the council now offered a debt counselling service via Gateway.

There were no questions.

There were no questions.

Councillor Hughes presented the report which sought endorsement for a further consultation on a modification to Policy C4 ? Cuerden Strategic Site following advice from the Planning Inspector in response to some issues and objections raised following consultation towards the end of 2014. The report was seconded.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
Council endorse the Further Main Modification relating to Policy C4 ? the Cuerden Strategic site, for a 6 week consultation period and subsequent submission to the Planning Inspectorate.

RESOLVED (unanimously):
that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following two items of the report of the Report of the Cabinet as they involved the discussion of information defined as exempt from publication under paragraph 3, Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, ?information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege could be maintained in legal proceedings? and, in which the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosing it.

Procurement of Waste and Recycling Collection Service

Councillor M Tomlinson said that agreeing a new waste and recycling collection service contract was probably the biggest thing that members of this Council would do and he welcomed the forecast substantial savings. He was aware that two independent external organisations had supported the process undertaken and he had previously requested to see confirmation of this support. Councillor Mullineaux indicated that the two external organisations were preparing evaluation reports which would be made available to members in due course.

The Mayor thanked Roger Ashcroft (Waste, Transport and Neighbourhoods Manager) and all officers involved for their hard work on this major project.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
1. the bid from Company 2 be accepted;
2. Companies 1, 3 and 4 be advised that their bids had not been successful; and
3. in the highly unlikely event of Company 2 withdrawing from the latter stages of the procurement process, authority be granted to accept the next best bid as detailed in the report.

Land at Leyland

Councillor Robinson explained that this item had been deferred at the meeting of the Cabinet to allow information received to be assessed and issues identified to be clarified. He hoped that the information now contained in the supplementary paper issued to members earlier in the day would enable the matter to be dealt with at this Council meeting.

Councillor Foster indicated that the Labour Group intended to request that the item be deferred to the next meeting of Cabinet on 11 February. This would allow all members time to fully digest the information provided and seek additional clarification if they so wished before a further debate at Cabinet and subsequently at Council on 4 March.

After listening to and responding to questions from all sides of the chamber the Leader and Cabinet members agreed that, in the interests of having all party support and buy-in, it would be appropriate for the item to be deferred. Given the circumstances and the timeframes involved, the chairman of the Scrutiny Committee indicated that he would be happy for the item to be added to the Forward Plan for the 11 February meeting.

Members were requested to submit any questions well in advance of the meeting of Cabinet to allow any clarification required to be undertaken.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
1) the Land at Leyland item be deferred to the meeting of Cabinet on 11 February, and
2) members submit any questions and comments in good time in advance of the meeting.