Meeting documents

Written questions may be asked of the Leader or any Cabinet Member if submitted to the Head of Democratic, Legal and Policy Services no later than 12 noon on Thursday 16 February 2017. Questions will be submitted in the order in which they were received.

A questioner will have a maximum of 1 minute to ask a question and the answer shall not exceed 3 minutes. Any questioner may put one supplementary question without notice within a maximum time of 1 minute and the answer may not exceed 2 minutes.  

(a) Question from Mr J Hoggett to the Cabinet Member for Community

"Will the cabinet member support MP, Carolyn Harris', campaign to make all under 18 burials free of charge given the immense feeling of loss and sadness families suffer after a premature death by implementing the scheme in Wycombe despite current lack of government support?"

Response from Councillor Mrs J Adey (Cabinet Member for Community)

"The Council is among relatively few locally that provide entirely free burials for young children.  We charge no fees whatsoever for burials in our Snowdrop Garden as we recognise that the loss of a child before they reach the age of three is such a tragedy for their families. If families choose cremation we are happy to accommodate burials up to the age of 14 in the Snowdrop Garden also free of charge.  We do introduce charges for older children: up to the age of 16 our charge is £353 for the exclusive right of burial in a particular plot, and we make no charge for the interment. This charge is similar to the level charged by Marlow and Aylesbury Town Councils and less than a number of others. People older than 16 are buried in a full size plot and we therefore charge adult fees.

Extending free burials up to the age of 18 would require a further subsidy from council tax payers. The loss of a child at any age is always a tremendous loss for their families – we believe our fees are fair and they reflect common practice among local burial authorities."

Supplementary Question

"As some people do not have life insurance and are unable to pay for funerals would the Council consider using funds from reserves, as did Caerphilly District Council.  Would the Cabinet Member consider free funerals and burials?"

Supplementary response

"Regarding funds then this would be a decision for the High Wycombe Town Committee and regarding costs of funerals I would not be prepared to answer on behalf of funeral directors."

(b)Question from Mr M Foyle-York to the Leader of the Council

"Last year billionaire Mike Ashley raked in profits of over £380m from Sports Direct. This retail chain operates in High Wycombe, and its wealth is generated by workers on zero/low hour contracts, and they don't even get paid a decent wage.

Will this Council now take steps to pressure multi-million pound businesses operating in the Wycombe District area, places like the Eden Centre, into properly employing their workers with a genuine wage and a guarantee of respectable hours?"

Response from Councillor Ms K Wood (Leader of the Council)

"Our vision for the district is to ensure that it remains economically strong and the place to live, work and visit.  Stories such as that of the Boss of Sports Direct allegedly profiting from poor employment practices are always disappointing to hear – especially as we have a store in our town.

As a Council we do not operate at the ‘level of the firm’.  Stepping in to put pressure on an individual business to adopt a ‘genuine wage’ and provide ‘respectable hours’ for staff is outside of our remit. This is a  management issue for Sports Direct and, if found lacking on the pay front, then HM Revenue & Customs (HRMC) have the power to take employers to court for not paying the National Minimum Wage (for under 25s) and National Living Wage (25 years plus).

That said, what we are able to do is to look for opportunities for proactive awareness raising of the National Living Wage (introduced April 2016) with employers through our partnership work with bodies such as Buckinghamshire Business First (business representative organisation with over 10,000 members across Buckinghamshire – including some of our big retailers) and the High Wycombe Business Improvement District Co (HWBIDCo) that works across High Wycombe Town Centre and includes the Eden Centre. We will look for opportunities to with both of these bodies to raise awareness."

Supplementary Question

"If it is not in your reach then would it not be possible to encourage Trade Unions to operate rights on behalf on the employees?"

Supplementary Response

"We know that retail is a key and popular employment sector across our district – but particularly in High Wycombe Town Centre.  Through our regeneration work, we continue to attract leading employers to the area – which brings new employment opportunities for our residents.  We also, through our work with partners such as the Skills Group of the Local Enterprise Partnership and Job Centre Plus support skill development opportunities for local people to enable them progress employment-wise in their sector of choice."

(c) Question from Mr R Colomb to the Cabinet Member for Environment

"This weekend sees the Council reinstate the ‘pay and display’ system in its car parks following the debacle of the ‘ANPR experiment’.

Would you please identify how much the Council has wasted in installing ANPR before the Government had changed the regulations to permit Councils to be provided with the same information that the DVLA furnishes to private car park operators.

Please split the costs into the following categories:

      I.        Cost of employing consultants to develop the ANPR scheme;

    II.        Cost of removing Pay & Display equipment;

   III.        Cost of installing ANPR;

  IV.        Cost of redundancies;

   V.        Estimated loss of revenue;

  VI.        Cost of re-instating Pay & Display;

 VII.        Cost of staff recruitment;

VIII.        TOTAL cost."

Response from Councillor Mrs J Teesdale (Cabinet Member for Environment)

"Mr Colomb, thank you for your question about the changes to how motorists pay to park in our car parks, which are coming into effect this weekend. 

The Council decided to modernise the parking service and provide customers with a more flexible way of paying for the service, while also achieving some efficiencies to keep tariffs low.  We did this through the introduction of the ANPR system into the majority of our fee paying car parks. The system we purchased is modern and efficient and the issues that we have are not related to how the system itself works, but rather the restrictions placed on us on by the government. In spite of the changes taking place over the weekend, we’ll continue to make use of this system, albeit in a modified way.

It’s no secret that I’m disappointed that we’ve had to make the change from ANPR to pay and display. Our customers have told us that they think it’s a retrograde step and I don’t blame them. To them I say that I’m sorry that from this weekend, we won’t be able to fully provide an ANPR system and all of the benefits that has brought them.

The Council decided to invest in ANPR following a review of its parking service in 2011/12.  The cost of this review was £11,400.  A successful initial pilot was carried out in two car parks during 2013. Following this, external advice from counsel and clarification discussions with DVLA, the Council rolled out the system to most of its fee paying car parks. The total cost of this was £678,000.

As the ANPR payment machines were installed at a time when the previous pay and display machines had reached the end of their life, there were no additional costs for their removal. Using the ANPR system enabled us to use a leaner team of staff, so we incurred redundancy costs of £30,000.

Taking all of this into account, the one-off investment cost in the ANPR system was £730,900.

Following the subsequent decision by DVLA to restrict the Council’s access to Registered Keeper Data, the level of daily parking income has remained relatively consistent with income prior to the introduction of ANPR.  In 2012/13 the Council received £2.823million of parking income and in the first full year of ANPR (2015/16), the income was £2.536million.  The difference in income has largely been offset by savings in staffing costs."

Supplementary Question

"I am a bit confused by the figures.  When you decided to go back was there any thought to keep ANPR if car parks were disposed of to private operators, such as the Dovecote car park for example?"

Supplementary response

"This was not an option. We have also brought forward a decision to install some additional pay machines in five surface car parks, to reduce queues. This has required an investment of £80,000, which covers the machines and the cost of installation.

I can assure you that we didn’t make the decision to change to pay and display lightly. We worked very hard to try and resolve the issues with the government and, following positive discussions, had been led to believe that they are working on a parking package which includes wider ANPR usage for the public sector. But as we all now know, that just hasn’t happened and there is no clear timescale for when it will.

I believe it is ludicrous that companies and hospitals can access the ANPR information but we can’t.  This was a situation that was no fault of our own and it is for the government to sort out the legislation."