Minutes:
The following question was received:
Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor Glen Horn
“Will you correct the media release (11/7/18) regarding the Annual Monitoring Report and 5 year housing land supply, which said “The Council has been unable to demonstrate this land supply since April 2017, ……”
Whereas Cllr Stringer was questioning the Administration on the point as long ago as June 2015? And will you issue a corrected media release?
Response from Councillor Horn
“The press release issued on behalf of Mid Suffolk contained an unfortunate error where information relevant to Babergh District Council was carried over into the Mid Suffolk Press release. This has already been corrected on the website where you will now be able to see that it states that Mid Suffolk found itself unable to demonstrate a 5 year housing land supply from February 2015. (Available here:
https://www.midsuffolk.gov.uk/news/mid-suffolk-demonstrates-5-year-housing-land-supply/)
The article carried by the Bury Free Press, which included quotes from three Green Party Councillors, stated that the 2017 date was disputed and Green Party Councillors claimed that developers had started to exploit the situation from 2015. With that in mind it is highly unlikely that any press would pick the story up again so we do not intend to re-issue the release to the media.”
Councillor Matthissen then asked a supplementary question. He was still concerned as the East Anglian Daily Times had carried the press release as submitted. Therefore, the current status was it had been wrongly published and as such he considered the Council should be open and transparent. He was worried it would undermine future communications from the Council to the public. Councillor Horn responded that there would be no advantage of going back as the most relevant and up to date information had been provided on the website.
Councillor Otton had a few issues in relation to the recent staff survey and felt it was important these were seriously reviewed. She realised there had been a massive change for staff in relation to the move from Needham Market to Endeavour House and that this would take some time to settle down. However, she was concerned at some of the findings and responses. In particular the “lack of transparency”, “feeling undervalued” and that “Councillors were not engaging or Communicating with Staff”. She did recognise that “lone working” and “career progression” should have appropriate policy or procedures in place and was not due to the impact of any move.
In response the Chief Executive explained there had been a series of engagement sessions with staff enabling them to help put forward solutions as well as Member Briefings giving the full results. All suggestions had been captured, an action plan was in place and team meetings were being held to discuss. The Council was working towards a single corporate action plan. The Senior Leadership Team had looked at all the responses and were holding an additional session in September where they would bring the findings back to members. This would be an ongoing annual exercise. Councillor Horn wished to point out that having recruited a number of new officers to the Council recently, one of the reasons cited for joining Mid Suffolk District Council was because of its agile and flexible services offered within Endeavour House.