Agenda item

Cabinet Member Housing and Safety

Cabinet Member Sport and Culture

The Cabinet Member Housing and Safety had attended a meeting of the Supporting People Board at which the strategy had been approved.  This was a very high level strategy and she had been pleased to see that some of the comments made by the committee had been taken on board.   The budget had been affected and whilst it had proved manageable, there would be changes to the service as a result.  She was able to provide a budget summary on request which was difficult to understand in isolation but it did detail funding to specific client groups.

A small group from the Children and Young Peoples Partnership had been looking at the Councils allocation of £50k for youth work in the borough and it was now appropriate to include those members of the committee who had expressed an interest in further involvement, Councillors Coleman, Teakle, Driver and co-optee Karl Hemming.   The difficulty that needed to be overcome was that the County Council had stipulated that their £50k was for activities alone, not youth workers, but CBC were not in a position to fund this with their £50k as this would not be sustainable.  Members were referred to the ‘Ageing Well Strategy Consultation’ briefing note which had been circulated prior to the meeting and invited nominations for membership on the task and finish group that would inform the Council’s response.  Those that were interested would need to be available to meet in the coming weeks.  She invited other members to highlight specific issues or priorities.  The Chairman confirmed that the Mayor, Councillor Regan and Councillors Flynn, R. Hay and Seacome had indicated that they were interested in being involved in further discussion of this matter.  The committee were happy with the proposed membership.

Anti-social behaviour would be discussed in more detail later on the agenda.  However, Best Bar None, a national scheme of incentives and awards for licensed premises having met best practice would be launched by the Mayor on Friday (5 March).  The Government were consulting on Anti-Social Behaviour and the consultation would close on Thursday (4 March) and she would circulate a link outside of the meeting. 

The Cabinet Member Housing and Safety gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• The £50k County and CBC funding for youth work would not fund youth workers.
• The County Council were being prescriptive about how the £50k should be spent in that they had stipulated it should fund activities only, no staff costs, along similar lines as the ‘Places to go, things to do’ funding which provided funding to existing groups.  This funding would not be available until July 2011.

The Cabinet Member Sport and Culture explained that the review of Leisure Services was a three stage process;

1. Assessing what services were provided at the moment.
2. Establishing what services the council wanted to deliver.
3. Deciding the best way of delivering the services of choice.

Currently on stage one, the systems thinking approach had been taken to identify potential improvements and efficiency savings within the current delivery arrangements.  The aim was to provide more for less, rather than less for less.

Once this stage was complete, member input would be required to establish what the council wanted to deliver and the mechanism for delivery.  Whilst not titled ‘commissioning’, this had been done before and examples included the Lido and Playhouse Theatre.  All had pros and cons and these, along with other examples, would need to be considered as part of the process. 

Refurbishment works to the Drawing Room and Conference Suites at the Town Hall were now complete, as was the work to the flooring at the Pittville Pump Rooms.

The Folk Festival had achieved a profit this year, the first time in three years.  Events were held at various venues in the town and had attracted people from outside of Cheltenham, which had increased revenue for local hotels, etc. 

In reference to the Art Gallery and Museum Development Scheme, the final visit by the Heritage Lottery Fund had taken place on the 14 February and had been undertaken by the Chairman himself, which signified the importance it had been awarded. 

A number of items of clarification had been addressed and the final decision was expected on the 18 March 2011.  There were no significant changes to the information contained within the 11 February 2011 Council report, though, were the HLF bid fail to be wholly successful, the proposals would be reconsidered by Council. 

Leisure@ performance at the end of January was good.  GP referrals, which were being pushed in light of the changes to the NHS, had been 30% higher than the target for the year, with physio 13% higher.  Footfall had reached 235,000 and modelling indicated that this would rise to a quarter of a million within the next twelve months. 

Active Leisure for the Elderly was over 20% above the target, but swimming, including free swimming was down, not significantly, but it was below target.

The Cabinet Member Sport and Culture gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• The Leisure and Culture review did cover a large number of services.  The review of the Art Gallery and Museum would not start until the result of the HLF bid had been announced, but some other areas were far more advanced.  Stage one of the process would be far enough advanced by the date of the next meeting (9 May) in order to be in a position to answer more questions and he confirmed he would be setting up a Cabinet Working Group to support the review.  
• School attendance was not included in the swimming target, these were measured separately.
• Were the HLF bid to be successful the AG&M would close on the 31 March 2011 and would open some time mid March 2012 once work was completed, though this was not set in stone. 

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Members for their attendance.