Agenda item

To receive an update on Council related matters of interest from the Service Director of Business Operations, Mr Lloyd Jeffries.

The Chairman welcomed Lloyd Jeffries, Service Director, Business Operations and the Community Board Liaison Officer. Please refer to Lloyd’s slides, appended to the minutes, for the detailed information.

Lloyd explained that his Service area covered Customer Service, Customer Service Centre, Council Access Points, Corporate Business Support, Customer Experience Improvement, Business Development and Civil Contingencies Unit, and that there are 405 full time equivalent staff in the service. 

Lloyd highlighted that the Local Contact Tracing team had achieved over 50% success rate as residents recognised that they were being called from a local number.  The Service also ran the rapid testing sites in Aylesbury and High Wycombe.   Marlow Library (CAP) was ranked at number three for the number of visitors (463 during April-June). 

The Fix My Street (FMS) app was undergoing a 12 month improvement plan. 

Stay Safe, Protect Bucks – anyone with Covid symptoms or a positive lateral flow test result must self-isolate and arrange for a PCR test.  All adults aged 18 and over could now get a vaccine by booking online or phoning 119.  From Friday 2^nd July 2021 the ‘Health on the Move’ buses would be visiting areas where vaccine take up was low.

Home to school transport was changing, contracts were being renewed and routes that carried few or no eligible children would be taken over by bus companies as commercial school bus routes from September 2021.  There would be changes to the routes and the timetables would be available from 15 August 2021 on the Buckinghamshire Council website.

The following questions were raised.  The responses were provided shortly after the meeting and have been included for information.

Q - If children in the Marlow area wanted to go to a same sex school they needed to travel to High Wycombe and the current buses were not big enough.  What was the plan?

A. The Council would always ensure provision was in place for eligible children who required transport assistance under the Council’s policy. If the Council provided a bus for eligible children any remaining spare seats were sold. The Council only contracted for provision for eligible children as per the Council’s policy set by Cabinet.  In Buckinghamshire there were many commercial bus operators who would sell tickets directly to parents and they would often increase their vehicle size or run extra buses where there was parental demand.

Q.  When would the revised bus routes be available online?

A.  The routes for September 2021 were published online on 24^th June and were available here:  School bus routes and stops 2021/22 | Buckinghamshire Council (buckscc.gov.uk)

Detailed timetables would be published on 15^th August 2021.  School bus timetables | Buckinghamshire Council (buckscc.gov.uk)

Q.    Would there be any changes with provision for children with special educational needs (SEND)? 

A.    During 2021 there had been a phased retendering of contracts for taxi provision for SEND children throughout the year. All parents affected had been notified in advance and schools briefed.  In addition, the Council had also made available to parents a new opportunity to receive a direct payment (personal transport budget) for their child as an alternative to council arranged transport where parents chose this.

Q.    How was work carried out via FMS in rural locations as often there were two potholes, almost the same size, and only one was repaired, resulting in TfB returning the following week to repair the other pothole which had then grown in size? 

A.    FMS did not differentiate between rural and urban areas.  The Local Area Technician (LAT) would inspect the potholes and make the decision whether to fix them or continue to monitor based on their criteria (not particularly customer friendly, these pages were due to be worked on soon as part of the migration work). The LAT for the area is Helen Combes, there was a link on the Parish Portal which provided the who’s who contacts.

Q.    Does fix my street cover fly tipping and roadwork debris left behind?

A.    Yes, if the debris was causing an obstruction on the public highway this would be treated as an emergency. Fly tipping on road was dealt with by TfB, as it could be dangerous to road users.  Off road fly tipping was sent to the fly tipping team via email to investigate (Gary Slee).

Q.    What does the Service Level Agreement state for response times to fly tipping incidents?

A.    It depended on where the fly tipping was; if it was on a public highway and caused an obstruction (danger to the public) it should be removed with 2 hours.  Rosie Tunnard from TFB stated:  In relation to Fly Tipping – it fell within our Highways Safety Inspection Policy. Very often the fly tip was ‘made safe’ within two hours with cones and arrow boards.  A subsequent 2-5 day or 28 day order was raised for the removal depending on location, what the fly tip contained (if it was asbestos or contaminated waste this needed to be collected by specialist contractors), in addition, TfB may need to pass over evidence to the fly tipping enforcement team who gathered photos and evidence for prosecution. But this was all dependent on how the LAT or inspector classified the issue in line with the Highways Safety inspection Policy.

Q.    After completion of a FMS request, sometimes a response was received to say that responsibility had been devolved to the parish/town council and the customer then needed to report the problem to the relevant organisation.  It was suggested that FMS should direct the enquiry to the correct organisation and that the member of the public be advised that the issue was being dealt with.

A.    This would form part of the development work planned for FMS over the coming nine months, routing reports directly to the parish/town council and advising the member of the public where the report had gone. The development work would also include providing the parish/town Council access to FMS so that they could update defects reported which they were responsible for.