Agenda and minutes

Venue: Conference Room, Parkside, Chart Way, Horsham

Contact: Email: CommitteeServices@horsham.gov.uk  Direct line: 01403 215465

Items
No. Item

SO/13

Minutes pdf icon PDF 79 KB

To approve as correct the minutes of the meeting held on 25th September 2017

Minutes:

The minutes of the Committee held 25th September 2017 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Vice-Chairman.

SO/14

Declarations of Members' Interests

To receive any declarations of interest from Members of the Committee

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

SO/15

Announcements

To receive any announcements from the Chairman of the Committee or the Chief Executive

Minutes:

There were no announcements.

SO/16

Cabinet Member Interview pdf icon PDF 67 KB

Cabinet Member for Waste, Recycling and Cleansing - Councillor Philip Circus

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Waste, Recycling and Cleansing was invited to the meeting of the Committee to answer questions based on his portfolio.

 

A number of questions were submitted by Members in advance of the meeting, the Cabinet Member provided answers to these questions:

 

1.    Recent press reports stated that recycling of drinks cartons e.g. Tetrapak type containers is rather less common than the public perception. This is because of the plastic or other liners and the fact that there aren’t many facilities capable of handling them. Is this the case for West Sussex and are we asking West Sussex County Council to improve the apparent lack of facilities.

 

The Cabinet Member answered as follows:

 

Tetra Paks:

 

           Tetra Pak is the name of a packaging company that has become one of the world's biggest and well-known companies for producing milk, fruit juice and drinks cartons. That is why most people associate cartons with the name Tetra Pak, although other drinks carton manufacturers exist. Clean and empty drink cartons (Tetra Paks) can be recycled by putting them in your recycling bin at home.

 

Items for your recycling bin include: fruit juice cartons, long life milk cartons’, soup cartons and other cardboard cartons

 

2.    From recent presentations it seems clear that HDC is best in West Sussex in the recycling stakes but rather poor against the best. Do we know why we are not as good as we would like to be, what do others do that makes them better at recycling, and what are we doing to catch up.

 

The Cabinet Member answered as follows:

 

Recycling

 

           We have a kerbside rate of 44.2% with our nearest neighbouring authority sitting at 39.2% giving us a national league table position of 159 with MSDC at 226. The authorities that sit in the top 10 all have alternate weekly collections with food waste collections. Some have 3 weekly collections of residual waste with food waste. We are moving to a new service in February. I have also indicated to the County Council that we would be willing to participate in a feasibility study of food waste. We have 27% of the residual waste bin capacity taken up with food waste

 

           As part of this change we e have retained 140 litre residual waste bins which engineers waste reduction and recycling. All the top authorities use 140 or 180 litre wheeled bins

 

           Some also offer a kerbside collection of WEEE – waste electrical and textile collections (we’ll be looking at kerbside WEEE in 2018/19).

 

 

3.    With the UK leaving EU are HDC still going to have to make the 50% recycling rate targets?

 

The Cabinet Member answered as follows:

 

           The EU legislation (Directive 2008/98/EC on Waste Reg 13) that covers waste is likely to be transposed across into UK legislation (UK Waste regs England & Wales 2011/12) covering the targets for 2020 at 50% further targets are set at 70% recycling by 2030. There are proposals to consider a  ...  view the full minutes text for item SO/16

SO/17

Update on the the Medium Term Financial Strategy pdf icon PDF 201 KB

Update on the Medium Term Financial Strategy – Report to Cabinet

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Corporate Resources presented the Update on the Medium Term Financial Strategy Report.

 

Members of the Committee noted the report. The update had been presented to Cabinet earlier in November and had also been discussed at the Cabinet Member’s Policy Development Advisory Group and other forums. Therefore the Committee was satisfied that there had been a number of opportunities to comment.

 

Two questions were raised, both referring to the New Homes Bonus (NHB).

 

Members questioned the projected cost of The Bridge at Broadbridge Heath against the amount allocated from the NHB. The Director of Corporate Resources would provide Members with a written answer to this question following the meeting.

 

Secondly, Members sought clarification as to whether the entire project at Broadbridge Heath leisure centre was being funded out of the NHB. It was explained that although it was not originally intended, a recommendation was made to Cabinet to increase the amount used from the NHB as it was considered financially prudent to do so, rather than to borrow additional money.

 

Members also questioned the purchase of the Forum investment, it was originally intended that this be partly funded by the sale of the Council’s assets, Members questioned what funds had been raised to date and projected in the next six months. It was agreed that a  written answer would also be provided following the meeting after consultation with the Head of Property Services.

 

It was noted that the Committee would meet on 23rd January 2018 to discuss the Budget.

 

SO/18

Report on the Corporate Plan Priorities, Finance and Performance in Q2 2017/18 pdf icon PDF 98 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received the Report on the Council’s Corporate Plan Priorities, Finance and Performance in Quarter 2 2017/18.

 

Members were encouraged to submit questions on the information contained in the report in advance of the meeting, in order for answers to be prepared by the relevant officers.

 

Three questions had been submitted, these, along with the answers were tabled at the meeting:

 

All referring to Appendix C:

 

1.    DM07: Appeals Allowed 1 - the quantum was not reported per DM22, realising there are delays in settling, do we have the information yet?

 

Answer: £0 was paid in the Quarter.

 

It can take many months for negotiations to be resolved and for the most recent case finalised it took two years (this will be reported as part of Quarter 3 report.)

 

 

2.    SSC9a: No. of fly tipping incidents and SSC9b: No. of fly tipping enforcement notices - 192 incidents of fly tipping, no enforcements, may we be advised if there is sufficient effort made to find offenders?

 

Answer: The Head of Service has identified that the full figures have not been provided -

 

For Q2 reporting 1 prosecution and 6 caution letters and for information in Q3 a further prosecution pending.

 

We make every effort to detect those who fly tip however it’s not as easy as one might think to given that you actually have to see the act committed or observe via CCTV  or still images . We have a still image camera in place at a known hot spot, however, in order to do this, we have to place signage up to inform the public that surveillance is in place, which usually deters them from using the known hot spot.  This only drives them somewhere else.

 

In order to bolster our response we’ll shortly have an enforcement officer in post to take this to the next level.

 

 

3.    FS07: % of invoices paid on time and FS07a: % of invoices paid within 10 days - Do we have figures yet?

 

Answer: The implementation of the new Financial Management System has gone well. From a day to day transactional aspect, the basics are in place, albeit the team is learning as we go. But there are lots of things still to do to get all areas back up to speed with the same outputs as before. Recreating all the processes for things that previously ran out of the old system is ongoing. This includes the performance data stats for the percentage of invoices paid on time for example.

 

The team have been concentrating on ensuring that payments are properly made, rather than the reporting of the data.

 

The data should be there in the system, but we’ve yet to write a full and comprehensive report that tells us accurately what the figures are for these two indicators.

 

When we’ve caught up, we can issue the data for the entire period by month.

 

The Committee noted the Report.

SO/19

Updates from Task and Finish Groups

SO/20

CenSus Task and Finish Group

Minutes:

The Chairman of the CenSus Task and Finish Group explained that the Group had not met since the last meeting due to difficulties arranging a date suitable for the officers to attend. It was anticipated that this would happen in the near future and there would be an update on the progress at the next meeting of the Committee.

SO/21

S106 Task and Finish Group - Final Report pdf icon PDF 120 KB

Minutes:

 In the absence of the Chairman of the S106 Task and Finish Group a Member of the Group presented the final report.

 

The review had now been completed and the Group had made three recommendations. The Committee noted the report and approved the recommendations subject to the wording being amended slightly.

 

                                    RECOMMENDED TO CABINET

 

1.    To support the issue of a short guide to all parish and neighbourhood councils explaining the potential S106 funds that might be available to them, and how to set about starting the process

 

2.    That a brief period be allocated in the forthcoming planning training event, and future events, for parish councillors, to explain the section 106 processes

 

3.    That the Council continues to send S106 reports to parish councils and ward members on a quarterly basis as previously agreed.

SO/22

Traffic Around Primary Schools Task and Finish Group

Minutes:

The Chairman of the Task and Finish Group explained that the Group had met to consider the results of the questionnaire sent to all the primary schools in the District, it was evident that the problems were fairly consistent. The Group was drawing on its conclusions and it was anticipated that the final report would be ready for presentation to the Committee in January.

 

SO/23

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 54 KB

Minutes:

The Committee noted the Work Programme.

 

One suggested item for review was raised at the meeting, this was to review the provision of affordable housing. A suggestion form was tabled at the meeting. The committee noted the suggestion which was submitted before the author had seen the recent report to Cabinet on Affordable Housing Investment which made it clear that the work on Affordable Housing was on-going.

 

It was agreed that a task and finish group would not be created to look into this but instead the Committee agreed that the Vice –Chairman would write to both the Cabinet Member for Planning and Development and for Housing and Public Protection reflecting the discussions of the Committee and to ask that Overview and Scrutiny be kept informed about development on this matter as it progresses. In addition, to make a suggestion that the question of provision of affordable housing for purchase be considered.

 

The Vice-Chairman concluded by encouraging Members to submit any potential items for the Work Programme via a suggestion form.

 

 

SO/24

Urgent Business

Items not on the agenda which the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion should be considered as urgent because of the special circumstances

Minutes:

None.