Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors D Day, Lane and Saltmarsh.  Councillor Winslade was in attendance as substitute for Councillor D Day.

At this point Members must declare whether they have an interest, whether personal or prejudicial, in any of the items on the agenda. Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 September 2009 were approved as a correct record.

Clarification was sought as to what the Bourges Boulevard Design Project was which had been stated in the minutes.  It was confirmed that it was remodelling work which had been undertaken to examine potential ways of reducing traffic flows and possibly making Bourges Boulevard a single lane highway.  The costs had proved to be prohibitive and so this was not being taken forward at this time.

The decision notice for each decision will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision may then be implemented on the expiry of 3 working days after the publication of the decision (not including the date of publication), unless a request for call-in of the decision is received from any two Members of a Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Commissions..  If a request for call-in of a decision is received, implementation of the decision remains suspended for consideration by the relevant Scrutiny Committee or Commission.

There were no requests for call-in to consider.

The Committee received an update on the performance as at September 2009 of the Substantial and Truly Sustainable Growth outcomes contained within the Local Area Agreement (LAA).

Peterborough’s LAA contained four priorities: Creating Strong and Supportive Communities; Creating the UK’s Environment Capital; Creating Opportunities, Tackling Inequalities; Substantial and Truly Sustainable Growth.  Each of those priorities had four specific outcomes, beneath which sat a diverse range of actions and interventions to deliver lasting positive change for Peterborough.

The Substantial and Truly Sustainable Growth priority was measured by four specific outcomes: Increasing Economic Prosperity; Creating Better Places to Live; Building the Sustainable Infrastructure of the Future; Creating a safe, vibrant City Centre and Sustainable Neighbourhood Centres.  A Red/Amber/Green flagging system was used to indicate overall performance against each of the outcomes – red indicated that the outcome was significantly behind target, amber indicated that the outcome was experiencing difficulties, and green indicated that the outcome was on target or had achieved its objectives.

Overall the priority was reported as Amber for this period.  The main issue was the ongoing red status of the economic prosperity outcome. This was largely due to the severity of the recession and its impact on the local economy, job numbers, earnings etc. The new Economic Development Team in OP were creating an economic intelligence hub for the city and this would provide up to date information on the local economy, guide future provision of business support where intervention was needed and provide an evidence base for reviewing the current target levels.  A grant scheme was also in place to assist the growth of small businesses in the city. Housing delivery was very much on target at the half year point and looked set to continue for the remainder of the year. The Infrastructure outcome was also on target with regards to adapting to climate change but baseline datasets were still awaited from DfT to finalise baselines and targets.  Safe, Vibrant City & Neighbourhood Centres remained at risk due to issues with data collection regarding city and district centre planning permissions although this was close to being resolved.  A dynamic multi agency vacant shop fronts team had been working to bring forward initiatives such as the Destination Centre and Women’s Enterprise Centre to address empty shops.  Completion of Cathedral Square was anticipated to drive up footfall in the city centre in 2010.

Coordinated action was needed to support businesses in the city during the downturn to ensure the city maintained a strong and diverse economic base that was well positioned to take advantage of the recovery when it arrived and to underpin the wider growth agenda. Action to tackle vacant shop fronts was essential to maintain confidence in the city and district centres, broaden the range and quality of retail, leisure and cultural offer and consequently maintain or increase footfall for businesses.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• Was there a concern for the viability of shops in the City with the increase in online  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The full document can be found at the following link: Peterborough Integrated Development Programme

The Peterborough Integrated Development Programme (IDP) provided a single delivery programme for strategic capital-led infrastructure.  The purpose of the IDP was to:

• Summarise key strategies and plans for Peterborough, highlight their individual roles and importantly show how they complemented one another.
• Set out what infrastructure and support Peterborough needed for the next 15 years or so, why we needed it, who would deliver it, and what it might cost.  For a variety of audiences, it showed, and gave confidence to them, that we had a coordinated plan of action on infrastructure provision.
• Form the basis for bidding for funding, whether that was from: Government; Government Agencies; lottery and other grants; charities; private sector investment; and developer contributions (s106 and potentially Community Infrastructure Levy).

The IDP summarised key plans, strategies and associated targets within them, including:

·         The Sustainable Community Strategy

·         The Core Strategy

·         Growth aspirations

·         Regeneration aspirations

·         Regional aspirations

To deliver the targets and aspirations of the key plans and strategies there was a need for significant amounts of infrastructure.  The IDP grouped these needs into ‘packages’ of infrastructure requirements, under two broad headings:

• Spatial packages i.e. infrastructure needed to deliver large scale spatial initiatives such as the city centre and urban extensions.
• Thematic packages i.e. transport, environmental, utilities, etc, infrastructure needed to complement the growth.

Whilst only regarded as a ‘snap shot’ in time, the following illustrated the kind of financial cost of providing the infrastructure to support the growth:

Peterborough was one of the first cities to have developed an IDP and it was the most comprehensive one in the region.

Observations and questions were asked around the following areas:

• There was currently no provision for young people detailed within the IDP.   The poor provision for young people was one of the main issues within Peterborough and we need to build more assets for them.  Officers would take this issue back to colleagues and raise it during the challenge session.
• The Eldern Pub in Orton had recently been closed again and the local community were keen to use it as a youth facility.  Was the City Council able to do something about this?
• The Alconbury Airfield had recently been sold.  Due to the large number of proposed housing in the City, could any of our allocation be transferred to that development?
• During the life of the Plan there may be a change of Government and it could be possible that EERA could disappear along with housing targets.  What incentive was there to keep the IDP if those two things happened?  Officers were not sure how radical future changes would be.  The IDP detailed what we would be looking at in the long term and as it was a live document it could be adapted very quickly.
• The document made reference  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The latest version of the Forward Plan, showing details of the key decisions that the Leader of the Council believed the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would be making over the next four months, was received.

We considered the Work Programme for 2009/10.

It was noted that an item on the ICT Managed Service was still to be scheduled into the work programme.  It was felt that this was an important item for the Committee to scrutinise to see if what was promised was being delivered and whether there were any lessons to learn from the contracting process.

ACTION AGREED

The Scrutiny Manager to clarify when a report on the ICT Managed Service could be received by the Committee.

Monday 18 January 2010

Monday 18 January 2010 at 7pm.