Meeting documents

To sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 31 January 2017.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 31 January 2017 were agreed and signed by the Chairman.

There were no declarations of interest.

Please note that the Amersham Multi-Storey Car Park Development Business Case item has been moved to the 21 June 2017 meeting of his Committee.

The Local Authority Lottery item being considered by Cabinet on 4 April 2017 was discussed.  It was noted that there was not expected to be a financial cost to the Council but it was agreed that there could be a reputational cost if the Council was seen to be encouraging gambling.  It was suggested that the Citizens Advice Bureau should be consulted before making a decision as they are debt advisors to the general public.  It was noted that this was not a matter for the Resources Committee and had previously been discussed by members, but it was requested that the comments be forwarded to Cabinet.

With regard to the 28 Day Forward Plan for Chiltern & South Bucks Joint Committee, there was concern that the items had no consultation.  With an increasing number of reports going to the Joint Committee after 5 years of joint working it was suggested that a joint scrutiny committee might now be needed.  Some items considered by the Joint Committee would have an impact on the Resources Overview remit, in particular the office accommodation issues, but it was recognised the same would apply for South Bucks hence a joint arrangement would be the way forward.

RESOLVED

1.      That no additional items be added to the work programme at this time.

2.    That the comments regarding the reputational risk to the Council of a Local Authority Lottery be forwarded to the Cabinet.

A report had been requested to give an update on waste services customer satisfaction and street cleaning.  Serco have customer surveys carried out by a third party provider in May and November each year as part of their contract agreement with the Council.  There was a small sample size of 200 respondents, split equally between the districts.  The surveys were carried out using a random telephone number generator.  It was not known if this included mobile phone numbers.  The results were weighted according to district populations.  Overall combined satisfaction rates compared with the last survey had decreased slightly but were still considered to be high.

The methodology behind the survey was discussed.   It was considered to be limited but provided a snapshot of the service at no extra cost to the Council.

With regard to street cleansing, it was advised that the contract did not require a regular schedule of cleaning but instead was reactive to need.  Councillors were requested to contact the waste team to flag up any problem areas and these would be followed up.

It was noted that overflowing public litter bins were often due to commercial or household waste being put into them.  It was advised that the team did take enforcement action when this was found to be the case.

RESOLVED -

That the Waste Services customer satisfaction and street cleansing report be noted.

The Committee are asked to consider and comment on the attached draft Cabinet report.

The Joint Business Plan was updated annually in April each year.  The key changes for 2017 include “Our Values” (values and behaviours), the new Economic Development Strategy and for SBDC, the inclusion of air quality and tackling homelessness.  The Plan will be used to inform the Sustainable Community Strategy, which in turn is used for Service Planning and staff appraisals.

Councillors considered that the plan had changed little in substance but were concerned that it was too long to be read by residents.  It was asked why there was no reference to the financial squeeze on local government and how that would be addressed in the document.  It was considered that the document contained too much information and was a lot of work to produce for little benefit. The Councillors were informed that the JBP had many audiences, such as the LGA, Audit, internal, as well as residents and that for next year the Communications team will look at how best to present to them.   Members concluded that there should be a part of the Plan that could be used to explain to residents in a concise and interesting manner what the Council’s aims were.  The other part would be aimed at officers and bodies such as the External Auditor, or Government, and would cover matters in more detail, but still needed to be concise.  Members commented that they found the appendix with information drawn from the census data very interesting. 

RESOLVED:

That the draft Cabinet report be noted and that the comments of the Resources Overview Committee be forwarded to the Cabinet.

The Committee are asked to consider and comment on the attached draft Cabinet report.

The Heads of Service and Policy Officer had reviewed the Performance Indicators to see if they were still relevant.  New joint performance indicators had been created, some were deleted and others unchanged.  Sustainable Development had 10 new PIs in line with new government targets.

The percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting target had been reduced to 53% (not 59% as stated in the appendix) to be more realistic.  It was reported that rates of recycling had reduced nationally due to lighter packaging, less newspapers and reuse.  The level had remained about 10% above the national average.  There had also been a reduction in the amount of residual waste collected.

The review in Appendix B was considered more difficult to interpret and there was a request for more information in the final column to explain the results.

RESOLVED

That the draft Cabinet report be noted and that the comments of the Resources Overview Committee be forwarded to the Cabinet.

The Committee are asked to consider and comment on the attached draft Cabinet report.

The main areas below target were homelessness (number of households living in temporary accommodation), planning appeals and ICT helpdesk (number of calls resolved within the agreed timescale).

It was reported that the problems for the ICT helpdesk had now been resolved.  There had been long-term sickness at the same time the shared network was being implemented and no further problems were expected.

The Chairman of the Planning Committee gave further insight into the number of planning appeals allowed.  It mainly seemed to be due to the change in direction of government planning policy and appeal trends.  Inspectors were no longer familiar with the District.  Some policies used by the Council were out of date and a design code was now required.  A report would be going to Cabinet shortly on this matter.

RESOLVED

That the report be noted.