Agenda item

1.

Question from Councillor Garnham to Cabinet Member Corporate Services

Would the relevant Cabinet member please explain why public requests for information from the Council are denied but then an explanation given that if the public want information then it can be released through a Freedom of Information request?  This has happened recently when the public have been denied the information regarding exactly how many people wrote in objecting to Cllr Whyborn’s proposals for Weavers Field, and also when the projected cost of the ill thought out project were asked for. 

Would the relevant Cabinet Member explain how much money is spent on complying with a FOI request?   

Would the relevant Cabinet Member agree with me that it would be far better to give information freely (apart from confidential matters) rather than make everyone go through the FOI route with all the hassle and cost to the public that is involved.

Response from Cabinet Member Corporate Services, Councillor Walklett

Most requests for information received by the council are responded to by the service area as 'business as usual' and do not need to be considered a Freedom of Information Request. The council continues to try to publish as much information as possible on its website to assist the public and also to reduce the resources required to respond to Freedom of Information Requests. Last year the council responded to 520 Freedom of Information Requests.

Although numbers of Freedom of Information Requests have been steadily increasing over the last five years (2006/7 = 139) at an average of c.30% per annum, the incremental Freedom of Information Requests mirror the experiences of other local councils and both the NHS and Police.

There are occasions where members of the public and councillors seek the same information, as highlighed by Councillor Garnham. In such cases, out of courtesy, consideration is given to councillors regarding the timing of when information is publicised. I, as I am sure would all my councillor colleagues, would encourage officers to release information, wherever possible in such instances, to the public and councillors at the same time and certainly without lengthy delays.

Freedom of Information requests vary in length and complexity and as a result can take from 5 minutes to several days of officer time to produce a response, with each response involving different officers with different pay grades. The council tries to minimise the resource required to response to requests. In the present case, the request for information was made by telephone. A written request would have been recorded as a Freedom of Information request, and a written response provided. Although the time and cost of providing a written response to a written request would have been a little more than providing the same information by telephone, it would have resulted in a record which would have been easily available to those who may need to access it in the future, and circulated to Members who may have an interest in the request and response.

Supplementary question from Councillor Garnham

Does the Cabinet Member Corporate Services agree that it was wrong for the public to have to go down the route of a Freedom of Information Request?

Response from the Cabinet Member Corporate Services

I am confident that there are no attempts to push members of the public to make Freedom of Information Requests.  It’s worth noting that the standard level of complaints has remained the same which would suggest that Freedom of Information Requests are not being used to avert complaints.

2.

Question from Councillor Garnham to Cabinet Member Sustainability

Would the relevant Cabinet Member please tell Council how many unused brown bins, for garden refuse, are currently in the Council’s possession, and their value? Further to this can Council be told the total cost of all the brown bins purchased in the last five years?  Could the Cabinet Member also confirm there are no plans to sell off these bins to other councils at a price less than what they were purchased for i.e. can it be confirmed the Council is not facing a loss over the purchase of unused brown bins?

Response from Cabinet Member Sustainability, Councillor Whyborn

The Council had to calculate approximately the number of residents that might take up the brown bin garden waste service and placed an order accordingly. We built in additional numbers for damaged, broken or stolen bins as it takes a minimum of 12 weeks to order new bins. There are greater discounts for large orders and the availability of storage capacity at the Swindon Road Depot meant it was more feasible to have bins in storage rather than risking running out of bins.

There are 10,850 brown bins in stock at a value of £167,632.50 which remain a Council capital asset and therefore do not represent any form of financial loss.

The Council has just sold 1,000 bins at ‘cost’ to Tewkesbury BC which enabled them to not have to wait up to 12 weeks for delivery and it is anticipated that this arrangement could be repeated with other local authorities over the coming months.

We currently have 11,883 subscriptions for garden waste bins.

Total of 23,800 brown bins purchased in the last 5 years at a cost of £367,710

Officers are managing the bin stocks in the most cost effective way, and bin transfers (rather than sales) within the Gloucestershire Waste Partnership are done at cost and that this is something Cheltenham has benefited from in the past.

Supplementary question from Councillor Garnham

Cabinet are looking at the budget and considering how to allocate the £149k underspend but how much time are they spending debating the money that is tied up in these brown bins?

Response from Cabinet Member Sustainability

This matter is a concern to Cabinet but we are where we are and I feel I have already provided a comprehensive explanation of the issue. 

3.

Question from Councillors Driver and Seacome to Cabinet Member Sustainability

The recent wet weather has highlighted even more the problem of blocked road gullies and drains, particularly in Lansdown Ward.  Whilst it is the responsibility of the County Council to clear the drains themselves it is the responsibility of the Borough Council to ensure there is not excessive mud and kerbside vegetation is left on the paths and in the gullies for such long extended time, which is all being washed into these drains and blocking them.  This is causing a problem of flooded streets and footpaths very quickly and often.  At some junctions the problem has nearly caused an accident with cars aquaplaning.

Given the failure of the current cleansing system would the Cabinet Member explain to Council how he will ensure that there is an effective street cleansing programme in place to stop the problem of blocked drains every time it rains?

Response from Cabinet Member Sustainability, Councillor Whyborn

Scheduled mechanical sweeping is conducted across Cheltenham year round and assessments are also carried out by officers three times a year to assess levels of litter and detritus. CBC proactively organise mechanical sweeping and litter picking of areas which are graded as being below standard and whilst one cannot guarantee ‘to stop the problem of blocked drains every time it rains in the Lansdown Ward’ an inspection will be organised to determine the extent of the problem, and to assess whether or not there are any extenuating circumstances which need to be reported to Gloucestershire Highways.

Supplementary question from Councillor Driver

This doesn’t really answer my question as I am asking for over and above; would you consider Sunday street cleaning?

Response from Cabinet Member Sustainability

I can’t see any relevance to your original question of gulleys.  I am however, happy to sit down with members and officers and discuss the matter further. 

4.

Question from Councillor Driver to Cabinet Member Built Environment

Would the Cabinet Member responsible for parking enforcement please look into placing more enforcement officers out in the streets outside the centre of town.  In Lansdown we have the commuter parking both for those working in the town and in the area of the train station for other commuters.  May times there is parking on corners, double yellow lines, encroaching the resident drives and turning circles.  The parking the pavement is increasing especially where there a single yellow lines (many blocking the footpaths) which is dangerous for pedestrians, especially those with buggies, the disabled including partially sighted and blind.

Those officers we do their best, so does the department controlling them, but there are not enough enforcement officers to make sure violations are not causing problems and dangers in our side streets.

Response from Cabinet Member Built Environment, Councillor McKinlay

I do have some sympathy with Cllr Driver on this issue. The concerns she raises are real, and likely to get worse as a result of circumstances outside of this Council’s control. The background to the current situation is as follows:-

The Borough Council is responsible for the enforcement of on-street civil enforcement and related back office administration services on behalf of the County Council under an agency agreement.

The agency agreement covers amongst other things:-

• Pay and Display – Collection of payments, issue of Parking Contravention Notices (PCNs) for over stay and non payment.
• Coning and Parking Suspensions.
• Limited Waiting – Issue of PCN’s for overstay and non payment.
• Highway Contraventions -  issuing of PCN’S for such contraventions as Double yellow lines, single yellow lines etc.

The County Council has significantly increased its on street parking charging operations since the start of the agency agreement,(with no increase in agency agreement funding to the Borough), so the balance of the enforcement activities undertaken by the Council’s officers has had to shift in favour of Pay and Display activities at the expense of the other types of enforcement listed above.

Added to this shift in priorities, there has been a significant cut in County Council funding for 2012/13.

The fully resourced cost of this agency agreement for 2012/13 is £517,094 which funds 12 Civil Enforcement Officers as part of the total staff team of 18. However in March 2012, the County Council served notice on the Borough Council of it’s intention to end the Agency agreement in 2013 and tender the parking enforcement service to the private sector. As a result, the termination process means that current staff vacancies are not filled. This has resulted in a projected reduction of funding for the service of £151,592 in 2012/13 and a reduction of staff including an enforcement officer.

The consequence of these two changes is that the staff time available to address the problems highlighted by Cllr Driver have been significantly reduced.

As a result, whilst I am happy to review the day to day activities of our Enforcement Officers, I can see no prospect of any improvement in the overall situation in the near future.

Supplementary question from Councillor Driver

This doesn’t answer my question as I am not referring to pay & display areas my question relates to areas of private parking, can’t we have more enforcement officers in private streets?

Response from Cabinet Member Built Environment

As I have tried to explain in my previous answer there is a fundamental problem at the moment in that there has been a change of focus as GCC are increasingly moving to pay & display.  GCC are also bringing to an end the Agency agreement and as such CBC will not be filling current staff vacancies.  The fact is that resources are declining, with enforcement officers currently spending 80% of their time in the town centre and only 20% in outlying areas, but I am happy to look at what officers do and see if it can be more efficient.

5.

Question from Councillor Bickerton to the Leader, Councillor Jordan

Can the Leader please provide some summary feedback on the vital JCS public consultation which completed in February, we need to know exactly what Cheltenham residents consider to be important in our strategy to 2031. For example the balance between environment and economic growth, provision for homes to support the town's demographics and inwards migration, the scenario given support and any concern over the preferred option as presented in our draft JCS.

Response from the Leader

The detailed consultation responses are available on the JCS website.

Summaries of the responses are currently being finalised by the JCS team and will be published next week. A response to the representations will be published in due course. I have asked that access to these documents is made as easy as possible.

While I’m pleased that over 3000 consultation responses were received, members will appreciate that dealing with these represents a considerable demand on stretched resources and takes time to complete.  I can nevertheless report that some of the headline issues for Cheltenham include:

• Leckhampton is by far the most commented-upon area in respect of the impact of potential development in a range of contexts including Green Belt and natural environment;
• “Scenario A” has met with a degree of support – although often qualified support - from a considerable number of respondents;
• the evidence base and methodology for ascertaining levels of new housing is challenged by many;
• concerns about the impact of new development on existing infrastructure – such as highways and education – are frequently raised.

It is worth noting that the consultation document did not set out the preferred option.  That is the next stage in plan preparation.

6.

Question from Councillor Chard to the Leader, Councillor Jordan

Could the Leader of the Council please tell us what actions he has taken, if any, over the last six months to ensure that Leckhampton Green Fields are not subject to any Housing Development?

Response from the Leader 

As Councillor Chard will know anyone can put in a planning application at any time so it is not possible to ensure that Leckhampton green fields, or indeed anywhere else, are not subject to an application for housing development.

Once an application is received the Council is obliged to consider it in accordance with national and local planning policy and other material considerations.

Bearing this is mind my first level of activity relates to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which sets the context for any local plan. While my response to the consultation on the NPPF was submitted over 6 months ago I continued to work with Martin Horwood, MP for Cheltenham, and others in lobbying government to amend the draft NPPF so that there is more local discretion to protect sites based on environmental issues. While this has met with some success in the final document, the degree will become clearer as the document is interpreted by the Planning Inspectorate.

The second level of activity was to encourage people to respond to the ‘developing the preferred option’ document. This included radio and newspaper interviews and delivering leaflets. I am pleased that there were over 3000 responses to the document as this will help in developing a local plan that takes account of the views of local people. In addition I have continued to chair the Members Steering Group of the Joint Core Strategy with the aim of achieving a Joint Core Strategy that all 3 councils feel they can sign up to. If we don’t manage to agree a sound local plan across the JCS area this will reduce the chance of protecting areas like Leckhampton from future development.  

I repeated my previous advice to the consortium planning a development at Leckhampton that I would expect them to await the publication of the new local plan and then comply with it.

Supplementary question from Councillor Chard

Does the Leader agree with the findings of the Police regarding the election material circulated by me (Councillor Chard) in the run up to the recent elections?

Response from the Leader of the Council

I have had no contact with the Police so I can’t comment but in any case, this does not relate to your original question.