Meeting documents

Apologies were received from David Carroll and Dev Dhillon.

To disclose any personal or disclosable pecuniary interests.

Phil Gomm declared an interest for Agenda Item 7 due to his involvement with Crimestoppers.  Steve Lambert declared an interest for Agenda Item 7 as the Chairman of Trustees for Youth Concern Aylesbury.

Of the meeting held on 3 February 2015, to be confirmed as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 3^rd February were confirmed as a correct record subject to the following minor amendments:

On Page 9, remove the word ‘there’ from the final bold paragraph so it would now read ‘Can assurance be given that these problems will not re-occur in the future……’

On Page 10, insert the word ‘be’ into the second question in bold type, so it would now read ‘The Select Committee needs to be assured……’. At the bottom of Page 10, ‘DFG’ should be amended to read ‘DFT’.

Finally Steve Lambert was present at the meeting but was not included in the attendance section.

The Chairman noted that a number of actions for the Cabinet Member for Transportation, Mr Freestone and Mr Dando had not all been completed, although the issue of contract variations had been clarified for members.

Miss Kama Wager, Policy Officer – Scrutiny confirmed that the Committee’s assessment of progress against recommendations had been recorded in the new format and this chart had been circulated to the Finance and Resources Select Committee and to Cabinet Members.  It would also be appended to the Annual Scrutiny Report which would be presented to County Council in April 2015.

This is an opportunity for members of the public to put a question or raise an issue of concern, related to Environment, Transport and Locality Services.   Where possible, the relevant organisation to which the question/issue is directed will be present to give a verbal response.  The member of public will be invited to speak for up to four minutes on their issue.  A maximum of 30 minutes is set aside for the Public Questions slot in total (including responses and any Committee discussion). This may be extended with the Chairman’s discretion. 

For full guidance on Public Questions, including how to register a request to speak during this slot, please follow this link:

http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/about-your-council/scrutiny/get-involved/

There were no public questions.

For the Chairman of the Committee to provide an update to the Committee on recent scrutiny related activity

The Chairman confirmed that the draft report on S106 would be presented to the Committee at the April 14^th meeting, with a view to taking the report to Cabinet in May.

During the TfB review with Mike Freestone the Committee had raised some issues regarding value for money and although benchmarking was happening now it was still felt that TfB could be more proactive in this area.  The Committee would keep this on the agenda going forward.

The Chairman thanked Miss Kama Wager for all her hard work in support of the Committee over the past two years.  Kama Wager would be supporting the Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee from April and the Committee wished her well with this new challenge.  The Chairman welcomed Mrs Kelly Sutherland who would be supporting the Committee from April 1^st, in her new role of Committee Adviser.

This item is for Members to consider the latest position for dealing with Sustainable Drainage as part of major development planning applications and to discuss and feedback on the options and proposal for the way forward

Karen Fisher, Strategic Flood Management Officer

The Chairman welcomed Mrs Karen Fisher, Strategic Flood Management Officer and Mr Martin Dickman, Director of Environment Services to the meeting. The Chairman invited Mrs Fisher to provide members with an overview of the Council’s approach to Sustainable Drainage (SUDS) before he invited member’s questions.  During the presentation and in response to subsequent questions, the following main points were noted:

·         The Flood Water Management Act 2010 Schedule 3, introduced the idea of a SUDS Approval Body (SAB) which would be run by the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) but this would not now be enacted.  Instead the drainage aspects of planning applications would be referred to the LLFA for advice – in Bucks, this is Buckinghamshire County Council(BCC).  This had been confirmed as a statutory duty in the past few days and LLFAs would be expected to deliver this from 15^th April 2015.

·         In practice, this meant that the Local Planning Authorities (LPAs), the four district councils in Bucks, would consider the LLFA’s comments on drainage for all major applications.  A major application consisted of 10 properties or more or a site over one hectare in size. Drainage maintenance and management plans would have to be submitted as part of the planning application.

·         Internal Drainage Boards would not be statutory consultees, but BCC would speak to them to gain from their expertise, especially in the North of the County.  Also water companies would not be statutory consultees, but they were happy to give their feedback.

·         Based on the level of major applications this year, it is anticipated that there will be approximately 160 per year for BCC as the LLFA to respond to. There may be some funding from Government to support the new arrangement but this is still to be confirmed and may be in the order of £200-250 per application.  As a result of a previous MTP bid, £100,000 base funding was available to cover staff costs and some level of technical advice, but the exact level of funding required will depend on the level of response that BCC choose to provide.  In addition three of the four LPAs have indicated that they may also wish to ask for comments on the drainage aspects of minor applications and BCC could charge for this additional service.  BCC could also offer pre-application advice for a fee as a way of generating additional income.

·         The report in the agenda papers set out three different options for how BCC could discharge these new statutory duties and Option 2 was the recommended option.  This involved a risk based approach, with higher risk applications receiving a more detailed response – this was likely to be approximately 80 applications per year.  It was envisaged that £110,000 total resource would be sufficient to meet the demand, possibly rising to £150,000 if the number of applications increased.  This would be met by a combination of MTP budget, Government funding and charging for pre-application advice.

·         Job descriptions had been drawn up but it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Committee is to meet in their crime and disorder remit to examine the recent consultation that has taken place, the evidence base for the annual Safer Bucks Community Safety Partnership Plan and scrutinise the Plan and its priorities before it is agreed by the Safer Bucks Partnership Board and endorsed by Cabinet.

Cath Marriott, Community Safety Manager

Amanda Poole, Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety

The Chairman welcomed Mrs Cath Marriot, Community Safety Manager and Mrs Amanda Poole, Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety to the meeting. Cath Marriott reminded members that the draft priorities for the Safer Bucks Plan had been discussed with the Committee at their December 2014 meeting and whilst the Committee was broadly supportive of the priorities, it had been suggested that the Community Safety team should obtain direct feedback from Bucks residents.  Following initial stakeholder discussions, the draft priorities were reduced from seven to five and were reworded to make them more accessible for the public, before being included in a short online survey for residents and other key groups, e.g the voluntary sector.

Members were keen to discuss the survey responses, as it was noted that there was a very low level of response from Aylesbury Vale and from young people, who were at high risk of being the victim of crimes against the person.  It was therefore very important to gain their views on the plan.  In response, the Community Safety Manager explained that the Police had used the Thames Valley Alert system to publicise the survey in Chiltern and South Bucks but not in Aylesbury and this might explain the geographical split of the responses.  She would request that the survey be sent out specifically to Aylesbury via the Thames Valley Alert system to see if further responses would be forthcoming.  In addition, Community Safety had incorporated some questions into a forthcoming Children and Young People’s survey which is distributed via schools.  Children and Young People’s Boards could also be consulted to make use of their evidence base.

The Chairman commented that the county level priorities included in the draft Safer Bucks Plan were very broad. The Community Safety Manager explained that once the Plan was agreed more specific Action Plans would be drawn up for each priority, utilising existing plans that were already in place across the Partnership.

The Community Safety Manager was asked how successful the Partnership had been in implementing the Plan last year. She explained that a Performance Report was delivered to Cabinet and for the past year Violent Crime had reduced by 3% in total, with night time violence falling by 13% and Domestic Violence by 8%. Acquisitive crime had also reduced by 28% in total, with household burglary falling by 30% and car theft by 40%.

A member commented that page 31 of the agenda papers showed a high level of repeat offending in Bucks and he asked what work was being done to help deter young offenders from reoffending.  Cath Marriott reported that there had been a £10,000 increase in the grant to the Youth Offending Service to help target reoffending.  Also Wycombe Youth Action target children in need to encourage them not to fall into crime.

A member asked how much of the crime reduction figures could be attributed to the Safer Bucks Plan and how much was simply down to the Police.  The Community Safety Manager explained  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Members are asked to note the status update paper

The Committee noted the report and that the consultation would run until 2^nd April 2015.

Members will discuss the Committee Work Programme and forthcoming Committee items.

The Committee discussed agenda items for forthcoming meetings which were itemised on the Work Programme. Members were asked to send any further suggestions of issues for consideration to Kama Wager or Kelly Sutherland.

ACTION: All members

The next meeting is due to take place on Tuesday 14 April 2015, 10am, Mezzanine 2, County Offices, Aylesbury.  There will be a pre-meeting for Committee Members at 9.30am.

Meeting dates for 2015

19 May           8 September

23 June         6 October

21 July           17 November

The next meeting is due to take place on Tuesday 14 April 2015, 10am, Mezzanine 2, County Offices, Aylesbury.  There will be a pre-meeting for Committee Members at 9.30am.