Minutes:
137.1 The following questions were received for the Cabinet Member reports:
CMU8 - Councillor Gowrley Cabinet Member for Assets and Investment
Question 1:
Councillor Matthissen to Councillor
Gowrley -
Cabinet Member for Assets and
Investment
Regal Car Park: Will the remodelling
of the car park include improved pedestrian access and additional
blue badge parking?
Response
from Councillor
Gowrley -
Cabinet Member for Assets and
Investment:
Options for re-lining and provision of designated parking spaces will be considered as part of the re-modelling of the Ipswich Street car park adjacent to the Regal Theatre. There are opportunities offered through the project to consider afresh, pedestrian access and blue badge parking. I am aware that our partner Stowmarket Town Council has invited representatives of Mid Suffolk Disability Advisory Forum to be involved in the design phase of the project, an invitation that they have accepted
CMU9 - Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities
Question 1: Councillor Eburne to Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities
With reference to your Council report, I am concerned that we do not currently have full staffing levels in order to support our local communities especially in regards to external funding opportunities. Several staff are off sick and the team are not at full capacity.
Please can you advise?
Response from Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities:
The capacity and resilience within the Communities teams is kept under regular review. Communities did indeed have significant levels of sick leave last year, but we now only have one member of staff off sick and that ill health absence is covered by a temporary worker. There are currently 2 vacancies for Communities Officers across the safer and stronger and health and well-being teams, which have just become vacant in the last month as a result of a retirement and an internal secondment. There is also a vacancy for a Business Support post. The managers have taken the opportunity of these vacancies to relook at the skills they require to better respond to the nature of the teams’ work and are currently revising job descriptions, prior to advertising these posts. However, an additional post was established in the team in March and has already been filled. There has been no reduction in capacity with regard to external funding. In fact, recently external funding was added to the job description of a second officer in the team to increase resilience in this important area of work. The development of the Communities Strategy over the next 6 months will also be an appropriate point to carry out a more fundamental review of the skills and capacity required to deliver the priorities in the longer term.
Question 2: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities
Assets of Community Value (ACV): While welcoming the success with the Redgrave Cross Keys pub, have you lobbied Government regarding the unsatisfactory aspects of the ACV process?
Response from Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities:
No, we haven’t lobbied Government. I have, however, asked officers to review the learning from ACVs and reviews of ACVs in Mid-Suffolk during 2017/18 and I will consider next steps after I have received that briefing.
Question 3: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities
Noting that we are going to produce a community strategy which is noted at paragraph 4.1 in the portfolio report. I was asking if there would be a task and finish panel for the producing of a community strategy?
Response from Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities:
We are currently working on an engagement plan to support the development of the Communities Strategy. At this time we don’t anticipate that we will establish a dedicated Member Task and Finish Group, but we will definitely be holding workshops for Members and statutory, voluntary and community sector partners. We recognise that proper collaboration with Members, communities and partners during the process of developing this strategy will be key to its success.
Question 4: Councillor Marchant to Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities:
I’d like to ask you about the great local run at Needham Market at the top of page of 29. Sometime ago I was asking about the possibility of refreshments being provided early Sunday mornings for them, so how is that progressing? And also the dementia awareness. In Needham Market we already have a Dementia Awareness Group. It says here a new dementia action alliance in Needham Market and Eye so could you tell us more about that thank you.
Response from Councillor Flatman - Cabinet Member for Communities:
So firstly the refreshments at Needham Market, that is on our agenda and we are hoping to build something there so watch this space on that one. The dementia question, I can’t answer that sorry, I will have to go back to officers and check that one out, I think that’s just some extra work going on there as well but I will come back to you privately on that one.
CMU10 - Councillor Brewster - Cabinet Member for Economy
Question 1: Councillor Marchant to Councillor Brewster - Cabinet Member for Economy
It’s about the tourist information office closing in Stowmarket. I was very sorry to hear that because tourism brings in a lot of money into the district so could you tell us more about the reasoning why you’ve closed it or couldn’t you have done more in conjunction with the museum and worked with them?
Response from Councillor Brewster - Cabinet Member for Economy:
Yes thank you for that question. Yes tourism does bring an awful lot of money into not just the local area of this district but into the wider district as well. We have reviewed what is happening with the TIC and there are other ways and better ways of actually delivering the tourism information. It’s recognised across the country and many district Councils now have closed TICs. We don’t have necessarily a legal responsibility to provide TICs but we will be working and this workshop will actually help you to understand where we are going with it and I think that is probably where we are. Obviously this is a reasonably confidential area at the moment because of staffing.
CMU11 - Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment
Question 1: Councillor Otton to Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment
The bottom of page 37 on the warm homes fund. I’m sure we are all pleased to see that this money is available. What concerns me, and I’m sure lots of you have had unsolicited phone calls purporting to be companies or saying this is a government scheme and would you like to take it up, so I am somewhat worried that there are residents who will be receiving these phone calls and I just want to know how you are going to be able to ensure that any phone calls that are made to often elderly people that are vulnerable are actually legitimate. And therefore what worries me is because so many times they feel that they are unsolicited or maybe dodgy that they actually are not taking up the funds that are available for them.
Response from Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment:
I can’t give you a direct answer to that straightaway but it is something that I too feel very strongly about and we do need to be sure that there are mechanisms in place for being able to at least prove our bone fides or at least the way in which the phone call is introduced to the customer. I’ll try and find out what the actual procedure is and let you know.
Question 2: Councillor Field to Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment
It’s on page 38 Section 3.6 it’s the second paragraph seems to present a somewhat disastrous view of the IDOX system and the problems with it almost equal to the TSB I guess but when I look at page 51 para 4.3 there’s a much more rosy spectacle to view, seems to be suggesting there that it’s all going brilliantly and we’ve reduced the number of days to do various searches by 9 days just wondered what the actual true position is?
Response from Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment:
The true position depends on what day you are talking about. These reports cover 3 months as you know and they are drafted on the basis that when the news comes in that’s when the text is written down. I cannot tell you exactly what date that particular paragraph on page 38 applies to nor can I tell you what date the paragraph on the later page, which I had nothing to do with, applies to but the two are not necessarily one and the same so that may explain the difference between them. The current position I think is probably considerably rosier than the one on page 38 but again I’ll try and find out the answer and let you know what the current position is.
Question 3: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment
Christmas and New Year waste
collections: Do the statistics quoted relate to Mid Suffolk alone
or to the combined performance of the two Districts?
Response from Councillor Burn - Cabinet Member for Environment:
The statistics quoted in
both BDC and MSDC reports on Christmas waste were specific to both
Councils although the general 30% uplift in volume was generic. The
tonnage, additional lorry loads and
Christmas trees was specific for each.
CMU12 - Councillor Whitehead - Cabinet Member for Finance
Question 1: Councillor Eburne to Councillor Whitehead - Cabinet Member for Finance
In the minutes of today’s papers paragraph 127.31 I’d asked at the last meeting whether the Medium Term Financial Strategy was based on actual housing completions or the projected ones that are in the joint Local Plan and Cllr Whitehead had at the time had said he’d come back to me with an answer so I wondered if Council could have an answer in due course.
Response from Councillor Whitehead - Cabinet Member for Finance:
I must confess that it was only when I read the minutes late last week that I noted that again and subsequent to speaking to you just before Council I had a quick look at some spreadsheets in the finance department and to be honest I think when we’d seen the term projected completions I perhaps had gone off at a wrong tangent because in the minutes I referred to the strategic planning team and I assume in terms of that’s where the completions would come from. Now looking at the spreadsheet which is headed up CTB1 which stands for Council Tax Base 1 the projections start from looking at historic data from the Council Tax Base and projecting that forward. I’m assured and I believe that these are conservative figures which are based on historic council tax base movements. The spreadsheet itself ran to several tabs and is a quite complex one but I think we should be able to pull together a short paragraph to explain more where they’ve come from.
CMU13 - Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing
Question 1: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing
Right to Buy: While welcoming the purchase of 39 properties into our housing stock, how many have been sold through Right to Buy in the same 8 month period.
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing
MSDC sold 26 properties in financial year 2016/17 and 31 properties in 2017/18.
Supplementary Question
First apologies I didn’t spot the fact that the 39 properties that we bought which is welcome actually was over a 3 year period so my question is not quite correct in asking about the number we’d sold through right to buy. What I was trying to ascertain was whether we were actually increasing or decreasing our housing stock and so I think on the whole if we bought 39 in 3 years and we’ve sold 57 in 2 years I think we can unfortunately deduce that our housing stock is still shrinking so if you could perhaps just confirm my understanding that would answer the question.
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing:
I will
confirm this and come back to you.
Mid Suffolk’s housing stock had increased by 38 new builds and 44 acquisitions, this included three additional units provided for Mid Suffolk on the development at Woolpit over three years which meant that the housing stock had increased by 82. Whilst the Council was showing an overall decrease in stock by 7 the Council was acquiring more properties all the time to try and make up the shortfall.
Question 2: Councillor Otton to Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing
Yes paragraph 4.2 on sheltered housing review, I know you are doing this review but in the meantime I am very concerned that it appears that there is some policy decision that no one will be admitted to what was a de-sheltered accommodation who is under 40. I have information where this has happened and I don’t normally bring what I consider to be local instances to Council but I was really disturbed that somebody had applied for a house who was blind and wanted to be there because they would have the support of their family but was categorically told on numerous occasions that because they were not over 40 they would not be entitled to be allocated this property. Now I would seriously hope that there is discretion here when you are reviewing this sheltered housing review but I have been told that in other places people under 40 and obviously people with young children have been allocated properties in these sheltered areas.
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing:
As I am not aware of this case personally I am unable to comment but as far as I am aware the policy is they are not accepting anybody under 50 in the de-sheltered houses.
Question 3: Councillor Field to Councillor Wilshaw Cabinet Member for Housing
My question was about the right to buy reinvestment programme I just found I was unsure about this. Are these properties we’re buying opportunistically at full market value or are they properties that you have the right to buy and are being recovered at a discounted value or are they properties that developers are making available through the affordable housing programme and therefore at an appropriate price which one understands it is usually somewhat lower than market housing?
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing:
I think that we as far as I can remember we are actually buying houses at the value that they should be so we are buying them through right to buy and we are getting them at the face value or we are negotiating down as much as we can.
Question 4: Councillor Stringer to Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing
How many houses were completed in Mid Suffolk April 2017 to April 2018, whether built by housing associations, Mid Suffolk District Council, house builders and self builders?
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing:
The current working estimate is between 350 – 400 completions during 2017/18 – the confirmed number will become clear during the latter part of May.
Supplementary Question
Given that number falls short of our current housing supply number that we should hit which is 440 odd which is due to rise by an extra 130 in the new joint Local Plan would you agree if we are to achieve and maintain this supply number this Council needs to become a serious player in our own housing delivery future?
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing:
Yes we are trying to do that at the moment.
Question 5: Councillor Humphreys to Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing
it’s really refreshing to see the work that has been done on the Homeless Reduction Act and the fact that we are actually getting prepared well in advance of it being implemented so well done for that. Just a question and I know its fluid so I’m not expecting it by the actual figure but roughly how many people suffer from homelessness within Mid Suffolk and more importantly how many rough sleepers do we have?
Response from Councillor Wilshaw - Cabinet Member for Housing:
I will find out and come back to you.
CMU14 - Councillor Horn - Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery
Question 1: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Horn - Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery
Access Strategy: Will there be a Task and Finish Panel to work on the refresh of our access strategy?
Response from Councillor Horn - Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery:
The refresh of the Customer Strategy will be
presented to Cabinet in July, we are currently finalising the
governance process around this.
Question 2: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Horn - Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery
ICT: Please can Members receive at
least quarterly some measures of down time, support calls and
average time to answer calls?
Response from Councillor Horn - Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery:
We are currently
working with SCC IT to agree a range of measures that will be
reflective of the service provided which will be shared on a
regular basis. For the 3 months of Quarter 4 in 17/18 a total of 94
incidents or additional service requests were raised by 22 Mid
Suffolk Councillors. Examples of issues raised include
requests for new equipment, support for hardware such as PC’s
and laptops, and help resetting passwords and accessing emails. SCC
IT answered a total of 9878 telephony calls in quarter 4 of 17/18,
and the average time to answer a call during this period was 1 min
49; over half of these calls were answered within 30
seconds.
Supplementary Question
Would you support the view that there needs to be a Cabinet
report regarding the difficulties with the IT System that serves
the Planning Dept – IDOX?
Response: Councillor Horn Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery
Cllr Morley is the lead Member for ICT and she will be working directly with the portfolio holder for Planning, portfolio holder for business environment right across Cabinet and that decision will be made at that level with the Assistant Directors to decide whether Cabinet is the right place to bring forward that report. I think we do need to see something and we need to understand exactly what is going on I think everybody has had some challenges with IT but let’s see what’s the right level to bring that forward to is and ask the officer team to try and resolve some of the issues that have been raised.
CMU15 - Councillor Whybrow - Cabinet Member for Planning
Question 1: Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Whybrow - Cabinet Member for Planning
Dwelling decisions not issued: While accepting a precise number is difficult to ascertain, please can you provide an approximate number to the nearest hundred, as this is an important measure of the process to achieving housing delivery.
Response from Councillor Whybrow - Cabinet Member for Planning:
2400 – which includes 600 at Chilton leys and 300 at Union Road in Stowmarket, 250, 175, 129 and 64 at Thurston, 120 at Woolpit and 106 at Elmswell as well as a number of other applications that have a resolution to grant permission from Planning Committee but are still in the process of s106 completion.
Supplementary Question
Thank you very much for the estimated numbers on the decisions not issued. I wondered if you have any idea how many of those are held up because the S106s are not getting signed as opposed to those, where clearly at Chilton Leys, the developer is moving forward at 50 or 60 a year and it doesn’t need yet to get signed off on the latter ones.
Response fromCouncillor Whybrow - Cabinet Member for Planning:
I think that’s a detail that we’ll have greater understanding of when we’ve actually recruited to the post that’s about to go out to the market place in terms of a dedicated officer to look at the stalled sites and look at where we are with legal but I will try and give you information that we have knowledge of at the moment but I think that’s probably something that we’ll be coming back to you with later in the year in a more informed way than I can respond to now.
Question 2: Councillor
Matthissen to Councillor Whybrow -
Cabinet Member for Planning
Suffolk Design Guide: In welcoming
the grant for this Suffolk-wide work, what arrangements will be
made for member input to the process?
Response from Councillor Whybrow - Cabinet Member for Planning:
Councillor input to the work on revising the Suffolk Design Guide is an important part of the process. Tenders are being received and the brief that has been put out requires information from the consultants on how they anticipate engaging Councillors. The timetable anticipates engagement early on and then throughout the process, but arrangements are not developed further than this at present. Given that Councillors are the decision-makers on major schemes, it is vitally important that the new approach recognises our collective aspirations. Once the consultants have been chosen, which should happen over the next month, I will be able to provide more detail on the mechanisms for engaging Councillors across the County.
Question 3: Councillor Eburne to Councillor Whybrow Cabinet Member for Planning
My question is on the joint Local Plan you had originally said that there would be a report to Cabinet in April which obviously we all know was delayed in terms of the schedule for when that was going to be delivered. I was just wondering if you’ve got a further update on that for us please?
Response from Councillor Whybrow - Cabinet Member for Planning:
Off the top of my head the answer to that is no. I think this matter has been discussed relatively recently and the last time we discussed a timetable for the Local Plan there’s no change since that previous commentary. Still heading towards preferred options Reg 18 out in September and hoping to have Reg 19 published in January so submission would be something like March next year which I think is the timetable I have previously advised.
Supporting documents: