The Chairman of the Council, the Chairman of Committees and Sub-Committees and Portfolio Holders to answer any questions on any matters in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affect the District of which due notice has been given in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 12.
Minutes:
108.1 Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor Horn
What alternative arrangements have been made for a control centre in case of an emergency in the district, now we no longer have an HQ building in Needham Market?
Answer
In preparation for the move to Endeavour House the entire emergency preparedness plan was reviewed and revised to ensure that in advance of the move, during the move and after the move, the Council was able to meet it’s duties under the civil contingencies act and offer an effective emergency response. As part of this review, new arrangements were set in place to operate the Emergency Control Centre from Endeavour House. On the 17th October (prior to the move) a team of Emergency Control Centre Staff carried out an exercise to establish and operate the new Emergency Control Centre from Endeavour House. This exercise was successful, and the centre worked effectively.
When the two councils were based in Hadleigh and Needham Market respectively each site acted as a back-up site for the other. If for any reason, the Emergency Control Centre could not be established in the lead council location the other HQ site provide an alternative location. The Stowmarket Customer Access Point now forms the back-up site for our Emergency Control Centre if Endeavour House is not viable. Should we face the situation where both Endeavour House and the Stowmarket Customer Access Point are unavailable we are able to utilise West Suffolk House in Bury St Edmunds.
108.2 Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor Gowrley
When will an appropriate meeting or briefing be held in our District rather than in Ipswich, as promised by the Council Leader 14/9/17:
“As always intended, some meetings may be held in our District if there is an item of particular community interest. This will be at the discretion of the Chairman of the relevant meeting.”
Answer
The principle that was adopted when we moved the office was that meetings will always be booked to happen at Endeavour House (so that we ensure that we have a room) but that the Chairman of each Committee had discretion to take any meeting to a different location (we have a list of venues with appropriate facilities already identified for this purpose). I have asked Democratic Services to pro-actively discuss this with the Committee Chairman in preparation for each meeting.
Supplementary Question
Could the list of alternative venues that have been worked up be provided to Members relatively soon.
Answer
To be provided outside of the meeting.
108.3 Councillor Sarah Mansel to Councillor Horn
As we seem to be no further forward following the discussion at the last Council meeting, when are Members to be equipped with Skype for Business Telephony, and given a briefing about the new ICT capabilities following the move to Endeavour House?
Answer (given by Councillor Morley, Lead Member for Customer Service)
Skype functionality will be rolled out to all Councillors by the end of January 2018. The functionality will enable Video and Audio capability, so Councillors can participate in Skype meetings and use instant messaging. The functionality will not include a new landline phone number.
Some written training material will be made available to all Councillors when the new functionality is switched on. We will also run some in person training/briefing updates in the New Year, to support Councillors use the new functionality. If any Councillors would like to use a telephony headset, rather than the microphone and speakers built into their laptops, these will be available for collection from the IT platform, we will confirm the date that they can be collected from, in the New Year.
108.4 Councillor Sarah Mansel to Councillor Horn
How much are the Touchdown Points being used by staff and are there any plans to increase the number of Touchdown point locations across the district, given that there were initial plans to utilise some of the common rooms in our de-sheltered housing?
Answer
At the moment there are no immediate plans for further Touchdown points to be initiated. However we will continue to monitor demand and review accordingly.
Approximately 128 staff have completed electronic inductions in order to use and access the Touchdown points, and some 227 bookings to use a desk at a Touchdown point, have been made.
Staff are required to sign in and out on a paper register, on every occasion they work from the Touchdown point (for health & safety purposes). Unfortunately, as this would be a paper based exercise, we have not had time to provide further detail.
108.5 Councillor Rachel Eburne to Councillor Whitehead
At the meeting of 26th October 2017 I asked a question about costs for the move out of the offices in Needham Market. I have yet to receive a response regarding costs of consultants. Please can you advise the costs incurred on consultants for this work since the decision was taken in September 2016.
Answer (given by Councillor Gowrley, Council Leader)
Consultant’s costs for the future use of Needham office to date are: £40k.
Estimated costs for project support for the move are £86k, to be split 50:50 with Babergh.
Supplementary
Is there a point in which we will know the full costs and process of the move?
Answer
There will be one in due course.
In terms of transformation and customer access improvements the Councils are forecasting costs of £173k for transformation project management and support, dealing with customer access, archiving and digital by design work, again this will be split 50:50 with Babergh.
108.6 Councillor Rachel Eburne to Councillor Burn
Question regarding licensing of charity collections:
What is the current policy on charity collections and is this the same all year round or are there special arrangements around Christmas?
Answer
We are currently bound to 1930’s regulations as the law has not significantly changed, despite a 2009 attempt at modernising the law (to better cater for non-cash collections and improve standards/consistency) which did not progress to statute. At a local level our procedures and processes attempt to avoid clashes of regulated collections, and to be vigilant towards unregulated collectors or causes that are not for charitable or beneficial purpose.
Activity in this area increases in the run up to Christmas as you’d expect but the same regulations apply.
Regulations are available to view on the Council website or directly from the Licensing Team.
Supplementary
Thank you Cllr Burn for that. I did look at the website actually, and it doesn’t, it’s a policy it just gives an application form of practice and that is why I wondered what the policy was. But residents have been in contact with me as they have been concerned that the traditional Salvation Army band that plays in Stowmarket at Christmas, and there are lots of people enjoy hearing them play, but they are not permitted to put their collecting boxes out at that time because other charities have got the collection dates as it were and also that collectors have been told not to collect. The view that I have had is that at Christmas can there be a different system be looked at for Christmas collecting because obviously it is a key time of year for charity collections and I think some locals expect there to be particular arrangements in Stowmarket.
Answer
That sounds to be a very reasonable request. I can but refer it to the Licensing team and see what the response is.