Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Andrew Wall and Councillor Rob Garnham was attending as his substitute. Councillor Penny Hall, as a signatory of the call-in request had also given her apologies that she could not be in attendance at the meeting.

Councillor Garnham declared a personal and prejudicial interest in agenda item 7 as the company he worked for was engaged in promoting land at one of the potential development sites in the JCS area and would leave the room for this item.

Councillor Driver declared a personal but non-prejudicial interest in agenda item 8 as she resided in the same area as the applicant Mr Meyer.

Agree minutes of the last meeting held on 10 January 2013.

The minutes of the last meeting of 10 January 2013 were approved as a correct record.

None received to date.

A number of public questions had been received and the questions and responses are set out below.

A call-in request had been received and was dealt with under agenda item 8.

Feedback from the Police and Crime Panel held on 14 January 2013 by Councillor Helena McCloskey.

(5 mins)

Councillor McCloskey updated the committee on a meeting of the Gloucestershire Police and Crime Panel she had attended on 14 January 2013. The purpose of the meeting was to endorse the appointment of the new Chief Constable, Suzette Davenport. At the end of a long and difficult meeting, Ms Davenport was duly endorsed, however the Panel expressed concerns over the process of the appointment itself for the following reasons: 

• The extremely tight timescale between the interviews and Panel meeting had meant that the Panel had very little time to absorb the  complex paperwork
• The Commissioner had announced the appointment of the new chief constable to the media prior to the Panel meeting
• The Panel had only learnt of the announcement and the IPCC investigation of Ms Davenport from the media.

She advised the panel made the following resolution:

“The Police and Crime Panel accept the recommendation of the Police and Crime Commissioner for the appointment of Suzette Davenport as Gloucestershire's Chief Constable, subject to her categorical assurances regarding the IPCC investigation. However, the Police and Crime Panel must record our serious concerns over the appointment process undertaken by the Commissioner's office. We believe that the issue of the IPCC investigation was not properly considered. Specifically, interview panel members did not have sufficient information to balance the candidate's performance against the risks to Gloucestershire Constabulary.”

She advised that the next meeting of the Panel was due to take place on 6  February 2013 when they would be asked to endorse the Commissioner’s budget. The Commissioner has asked the public, businesses and other local organisations to comment on whether the precept should be increased.

Members expressed concern that the new Chief Constable was under investigation and asked how the panel would validate her reassurances to the panel that she would be found completely innocent. What powers would the panel or the Police and Crime Commissioner have under the terms of the contract if that was not the case as this  could have considerable repercussions for Gloucestershire.

Councillor McCloskey pointed out that the panel had no decision-making powers but they could veto decisions. In this case it would be a decision for the Police and Crime Commissioner.

The report of the scrutiny task group – Joint Core Strategy and Liaison Working Group on Household formation rates will be presented by Councillor Tim Harman as the chair of the group. The O&S committee are asked to satisfy themselves that the terms of reference have been met and endorse the recommendations before they are forwarded to the JCS joint member steering group for consideration at their meeting on 31 January 2013.

(30 mins) 

The chair reminded the committee that their remit was to receive the report of the scrutiny task group and ensure that the task group had completed the task set by Council and met their terms of reference.  It was not within the remit of the committee to get into the detail of the contentious points but he would allow time for members to ask questions. The consultant from the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research (CCHPR) was on the conference phone so would be able to listen to the debate and respond to any technical questions.

 The chair invited Councillor Tim Harman, as the chair of the scrutiny task group - Joint Core Strategy and Liaison Working Group on household formation rates, to introduce their final report and recommendations.

In his introduction, Councillor Harman thanked the members, the two co-opted members from Gloucester City and Tewkesbury Borough Council and officers for their contribution to this review. He referred to the background to this review set out in section 2 of the task report and he stressed the importance of a local authority ensuring that housing requirement figures set out in their local plan are soundly rooted in a robust evidence base.  The project brief set for the working group had challenging timescales but they had maximised the time available. They had considered a final report from the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research (CCHPR) on 14 January 2013 which had examined a whole range of issues including the important factors of changes with regard to young people and an ageing population and the economic climate. The working group concluded that there were no material errors in the way in which the DCLG household representative rates had been applied and they didn’t find any significant reason for deviating from them hence their recommendations set out in 9.1. He considered the working group had produced a sound report and the recommendations would support the council in ensuring it had the sound evidence base that was needed. He informed members that Councillor Bickerton, as a member of the working group, had not supported their report and presented some alternative evidence on household size predictions which he wished to present to the committee.

Councillor Bickerton said he was happy with the work undertaken and it had provided lots of valid data but he did not consider that the work was complete. He referred to the graph on JCS District Average Household Size Compared to National Trend he had produced that had been circulated at the start of the meeting. At the task group meeting on 14 January he had presented an earlier version of this graph which had resulted in an action to verify some of the data used by CCHPR. Since then he had been in discussion with the Office of National Statistics and Neil McDonald from CCHPR had assisted him in correcting some of the earlier district figures he had used to produce the graph presented at the task  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Consideration of a call-in request regarding a decision made at Cabinet on 11 December 2012 regarding the Licensing of Rickshaws.

The committee was asked to consider a call-in request regarding a decision made at Cabinet on 11 December 2012 regarding the licensing of rickshaws.  As this was the first call-in to come to this committee, the chair explained how he intended to run the procedures.

Councillor Garnham, as one of the four members who had signed the call-in request, was invited to put the case for the call-in.  Councillor Garnham felt that the council should be encouraging people like Mr Meyer who wanted to set up small businesses in the town however this was not the reason for the call-in. The reason he gave was that the Cabinet decision to defer any decision to an unknown date in the future, was not fair to the applicant and he should be given a yes or no answer.  There appeared to be examples in London and Hereford of both unlicensed and licenced rickshaws working effectively with no significant safety problems. He considered the decision was not proportionate, there had been insufficient consultation and no presumption in favour of openness for the reasons set out in the call-in request.

In response to a question from a member, the Democratic Sevices Manager, advised that the witness questions circulated with the agenda had been drawn up based on the reasons given for the call-in and in consultation with the chair. They had been circulated to lead members of this committee and the signatorees of the call-in request for comment. As a result additional questions had been incorporated before circulating them to witnesses to assist them in their preparation for this meeting.

The chair invited the Cabinet Member Housing and Safety to respond to the questions circulated to him in advance of the meeting and suggested members may wish to ask additional questions. Before answering the questions, the Cabinet Member referred members to the background set out in section 1.3 of the Cabinet report of 11 December 2012. He also advised members that nothing that the Cabinet or officers had done would stop Mr Meyer operating rickshaws in Cheltenham on an unlicensed basis. The issue in question was purely a licensing one..

Does the Cabinet Member think it is an acceptable outcome to defer the decision to an unspecified date in the future?

In response, the Cabinet Member considered that it was acceptable and the decision was proportionate to the desired outcome.  Licensing was concerned with public safety and the Cabinet had considered it from a public safety angle and concluded that safety considerations would not be satisfied by trying to shoehorn the operation of rickshaws into the existing safety regulations.

Can you explain the reasons for the delays in dealing with this matter?

The Cabinet Member noted that this committee had delayed the consideration of this call-in and similar sorts of delays happened in the Cabinet decision-making process. The first delay was due to changes to the council's Constitution in May 2012. Previously a draft licensing policy would have been considered by the Licensing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Date of next meeting: Monday 18 February at 6 pm

The next meeting of the committee would be held at 6 pm on Monday 18 February 2013.