Agenda and minutes

In the absence of the Chairman, the Vice Chairman took the chair for this meeting. Councillor R Frankel took the vacant Vice-Chairmanship.

(Assistant to the Chief Executive)  To report the appointment of any substitute members for the meeting.

The Panel noted there were no substitute members.

(Assistant to the Chief Executive). To declare interests in any items on the agenda.

In considering whether to declare a personal or a prejudicial interest under the Code of Conduct, Overview & Scrutiny members are asked pay particular attention to paragraph 11 of the Code in addition to the more familiar requirements.

This requires the declaration of a personal and prejudicial interest in any matter before an OS Committee which relates to a decision of or action by another Committee or Sub Committee of the Council, a Joint Committee or Joint Sub Committee in which the Council is involved and of which the Councillor is also a member.

Paragraph 11 does not refer to Cabinet decisions or attendance at an OS meeting purely for the purpose of answering questions or providing information on such a matter.

No declarations of interest were made.

To consider and agree the notes of the meeting the Panel held on 24 June 2008.

The minutes from 24 June 2008 were noted and agreed as a correct record. The Panel noted that the promised report on Unauthorised Parking on Housing Estates will be brought to a future meeting.

(Chairman/Lead Officer) the Overview and Scrutiny Committee has agreed the Terms of Reference of this Panel and associated work programme. This is attached. The Panel are asked at each meeting to review both documents.

The Director of Environment and the Street Scene, John Gilbert, took the Panel through the work programme. By the next meeting dates will have been added to the work programme.

Item 1, Safer, Cleaner, Greener (General), the Panel noted that they had completed the appointments on the waste side, with officers now in post. They are still looking for a Neighbourhood Officer to act as a liaison between the waste side and the neighbourhood team.

Item 2, Safer Communities, a) all the CCTV posts have now been filled.

Item 3, Essex Waste Procurement Process and Joint Committee, a) the last meeting of the joint committee was held on 26 August 2008, the minutes will be presented at the next meeting; b) there was a recommendation from the Cabinet for the adoption of this, and then onwards to full Council; c) there is a lot of work going on and, a report will be brought to this Panel later in the year.

Item 4, Waste Management Partnership Board, the Board was due to meet again on 16 September 2008; c) will come back to the Panel as a report; and d) noted that there is a survey in the Forester now about recycling and an interim report will be given to the next meeting of the Panel.

Item 5, Nottingham Declaration, noted that an action plan had been developed; an Officer Green Working Party had been established; new National Indicators are now in place, with lots of work to be done to reduce our carbon footprint.

A report on the consultation exercise on the green strategy is still to be produced by the Director of Planning and Economic Development.

Item 6, Residential Parking – the Council is currently carrying out parking reviews in Epping, Loughton Broadway and Buckhurst Hill.

Item 7, County Highways Matters, noted that another report was due to be produced for Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG) shortly; and the County’s revised Speed Management and the Freight Strategy were still to be produced.

Item 8, Bobbingworth Tip, an updating report went to Cabinet on 1 September for additional funding; this was due in a large part to the abnormally wet weather over the summer and the lack of topsoil due to the down turn in the building industry. The Management Group has now been delayed until the scheme is completed.

Councillor Mrs Wagland asked about the Buckhurst Hill parking review. Mr Gilbert replied that all the reviews were currently at the same stage. County Officers had listened to the concerns and have drawn up proposals to revise existing parking schemes. Local members would be taken through the proposals for them to comment on, it will then go back to the Portfolio Holder.

Councillor Mrs Wagland asked what input local people had. She was told that there will be a letter drop to all local residents saying what had happened and asking for their views.

Councillor Bateman said that residential parking on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

(Director of Environment and Street Scene) to consider the attached report.

The Director of Environment and Street Scene, John Gilbert, introduced the report on the Traffic Management Act 2004 (TMA). Sections 85 and 86 came into force on 31 March 2008 and prohibited parking at dropped footways and double parking. It was noted that London had different rules so that there was no requirement for roadside signage or road markings indicating to drivers that these prohibitions are in place. The Government was consulting on whether it should amend the TMA to enable authorities outside of London to also enforce these new restrictions without the need to erect signage.

Mr Gilbert filled in the blanks for the table in paragraph 4 of the report. Under item 4 of the table the first figure should read £100,000 and the figure below it should read £5,00 to £10,000.

Councillor Mrs Wagland asked if the savings would include advertising. Mr Gilbert said that the adverts would still have to be done. Councillor Mrs Wagland said that this amendment would save about 10% of the queries that she received. Mr Gilbert said that would be a useful point to include in their return.

Councillor Frankel said he was attracted by this proposal, as this type of parking was against the Law and the Highway Code and we should not have to spend money enforcing it. He asked about the enforcement of double parking and was told that the police had to enforce this.

Councillor Jacobs said it was time that people took responsibility for their parking. Would the Council advertise this before the ruling came in? Mr Gilbert said that they would not but would hand out ‘April Fool’ tickets, not fining people but warning them not to do it again or they would be fined.

Councillor Pritchard said it would not stop people parking on verges. Mr Gilbert agreed and said that Housing was working on this at present.

            RESOLVED:

That the Panel agreed to answer ‘Yes’ to Question 1 in paragraph 4 of the report that “there is no requirement for restrictions on parking for dropped footways and double parking outside London to be indicated with traffic signs and /or road markings.”

(Director of Environment and Street Scene) to consider the attached report.

The Director of Environment and Street Scene, John Gilbert, introduced the report on the Home Office Green Paper “From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together”. The Green Paper focused on seven key areas:

• The local dimension;
• Reduction of bureaucracy and red tape;
• Development of Policing skills in the police workforce;
• Deployment of Policing resources;
• Government support for these proposed changes;
• Cross force co-operation; and
• Performance management.

It was noted that the changing relationship between the Police and local authorities were of the greatest concern. The Local Government Association had expressed fears about these changes whilst at the same time welcoming much of the content of the Green Paper.

The report focused on the key areas of answerability, responsiveness and accountability.

Answerability was about the working together, co-ordinated local teams, neighbourhood leads and managers, safer community partnership and visible sentencing.

Responsiveness was to be achieved through a ‘Policing Pledge’ which would ensure that the local Police service achieve certain pledged targets. Some of these targets would be locally determined, but every pledge would have standard elements relating to information on local officers, contact numbers, monthly meetings etc.

Councillor Batemen commented about the Police in Chigwell, who publicised the contact names and numbers of their local officers, but the names tended to change all the time. Could they not stay longer? Mr Gilbert said he could not answer that, but it was a valid point that could be raised in the Council’s response. Councillor Pritchard said perhaps they could be rewarded to work and stay locally instead of continually moving.

ACTION: to raise the issue of officers not moving about so often and staying in an area long enough to build up a body of local knowledge.

Councillor Jacobs asked how they could guarantee the 80% figure of neighbourhood team time is spent in a neighbourhood. The Safer Communities Manager, Caroline Wiggins said that the neighbourhood teams would be based in their assigned neighbourhoods. Mr Gilbert said that the Police could shuffle the response officers around the district but the neighbourhood teams, unless it was for large scale emergencies stayed in their assigned areas. Councillor Jacobs replied that the PCSOs did not have enough powers and were too local. It was Policing on the cheap and was not effective. Mrs Wiggins said that the Home Officer were proposing changes to the core conditions of what the PCSOs can do. They could take some of the work load from the front lines officers and thus free up some of the regular Police Officer’s time.

ACTION: to consider the core conditions of a PCSO.

Councillor Philips asked if the report defined how big a neighbourhood was. Mrs Wiggins said that Epping Forest was broken up into Policing wards, which are displayed on the Essex Policing website. Councillor Mrs Wagland commented that the point was would the Green Paper references match up to Essex Police’s definition of what a neighbourhood was.

Councillor Jon Whitehouse said that the powers for the various  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

Exclusion: To consider whether, under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press should be excluded from the meeting for the items of business set out below on grounds that they will involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the following paragraph(s) of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act (as amended) or are confidential under Section 100(A)(2):

The Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006, which came into effect on 1 March 2006, requires the Council to consider whether maintaining the exemption listed above outweighs the potential public interest in disclosing the information. Any member who considers that this test should be applied to any currently exempted matter on this agenda should contact the proper officer at least 24 hours prior to the meeting.

Confidential Items Commencement: Paragraph 9 of the Council Procedure Rules contained in the Constitution require:

(1)        All business of the Council requiring to be transacted in the presence of the press and public to be completed by 10.00 p.m. at the latest.

(2)        At the time appointed under (1) above, the Chairman shall permit the completion of debate on any item still under consideration, and at his or her discretion, any other remaining business whereupon the Council shall proceed to exclude the public and press.

(3)        Any public business remaining to be dealt with shall be deferred until after the completion of the private part of the meeting, including items submitted for report rather than decision.

Background Papers:  Paragraph 8 of the Access to Information Procedure Rules of the Constitution define background papers as being documents relating to the subject matter of the report which in the Proper Officer's opinion:

(a)        disclose any facts or matters on which the report or an important part of the report is based;  and

(b)        have been relied on to a material extent in preparing the report and does not include published works or those which disclose exempt or confidential information (as defined in Rule 10) and in respect of executive reports, the advice of any political advisor.

Inspection of background papers may be arranged by contacting the officer responsible for the item.

That the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the items of business set out below on the grounds that they would involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the paragraphs of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

Agenda                                                                                   Exempt Information

Item No           Subject                                                           Paragraph Number

9                      Minutes of the Waste Management                3

                        Partnership Board

(Director of Environment and Street Scene) to consider the attached set of minutes from the July meeting of the  Waste Management Partnership Board.

The Panel received the minutes of the first Waste Management Partnership Board meeting. Councillor Mrs Sartin was the Chairman of the meeting which reviewed the Charter between SITA and the District Council.

The Panel were happy to agree the changes as noted in item two of the minutes.

They noted that in the first six months:

• the volume of materials collected was over 25% of what was expected;
• the dry recycling figures went up from 25 to 27%;
• there was an unavoidable increase in fuel costs; and
• there was a difficulty with the black bag collection at flats.

A Councillor questioned why the collection of black sacks were more expensive than the use of wheeled bins. He was told that this was because the sacks were collected weekly and were therefore more expensive than the two weekly wheeled bin collections. The district was looking to moving towards a fortnightly collection in flats.

It was noted that the Council’s waste stream went up instead of down because of the volume of green recyclable material, although they were happy to take bottles and plastics.

A customer survey on waste was currently taking place in ‘The Forester’ and it was noted that it was a complex issue to consult on. Councillor Mrs Sartin said that a lot of effort had gone into producing the questionnaire and they thought they had got it right. But it should be noted that consultation was just part of the process.

It was also noted that:

• the planned food waste collection would be on a weekly collection schedule; and
• a visit to a recycling plant was being planned for any member that wished to attend, although places would be limited to 25.

RESOLVED:

That the Panel noted the minutes of the first Waste Management Partnership Board meeting and agreed the changes as noted in item two of the minutes.

To consider which reports are ready to be submitted to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee at its next meeting.

A verbal report on the matters discussed was to be made to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

To note the forward programme of meeting dates for the Panel. They are:

21^st October 2008;

09^th December 2008;

24^th February 2009; and

21^st April 2009.

The dates of the future meetings, as set out in the agenda, were noted.