Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Burton and North.

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.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 January 2010 were approved as an accurate record.

Councillor JA Fox requested that it be noted that she did not wish to put her Ward’s Community Leadership Fund allocation to the Neighbourhood Councils.  Councillor Sandford advised that it was the Liberal Democrats Group’s view that the Council would need to take a view at some point as to whether it had the Community Leadership Fund or Neighbourhood Councils.

The minutes of the meeting held on 14 January 2010 were approved as an accurate record.

Councillor Sandford advised that the street lighting referred to in the minutes was still out of order and that this was unacceptable.

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 three 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.

Bus Service Review

A request to call-in the decision made by the Cabinet on the Bus Service Review had been received today.

A special meeting of the Committee would be arranged within 10 working days to consider the request.

To scrutinise the refreshed Local Area Agreement prior to its consideration by the Leader of the Council.

The Local Area Agreement (LAA) was the delivery strategy for achieving the outcomes set out in the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS). It was a three-year agreement negotiated between the partners in Peterborough under the auspices of the Greater Peterborough Partnership (GPP), and regional and national government.  It set out the agreed actions and targets which would enable us to deliver our SCS.  The report set out the outcomes of the annual refresh of the LAA which had refreshed some of the third year targets.

The current LAA was negotiated in early 2008 and was signed off in April 2008.  2010/11 was the final year of this agreement.  The annual refresh process enabled some targets to be negotiated under the following circumstances;

• National or local factors were having a sustained negative effect on performance and could not be mitigated
• Targets that had previously been deferred were now able to be negotiated
• Adjustments to targets required following publication of actual figures rather than estimations (i.e. Place Survey data)

It also enabled corrections to be negotiated where errors had been made in the target setting.

A number of our LAA designated indicators met these criteria:

The Place Survey Indicators

• NI 1 - % of people who believe people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area
• NI 4 - % of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality
• NI 6 - Participation in regular volunteering

These indicators had been refreshed but this had only involved very minor changes to the original targets.  This was in direct response to the validated, published data from June 2009 as opposed to the previous draft Place Survey results.

NI 54 - Services for disabled children

This was a designated indicator within the LAA that did not have a third year target.  The proposed final year target had been agreed without issue – current performance was very good and the refreshed target provided for further improvement in performance.

NI 112 – Under 18 conception rate

A final year target had not been set for this indicator.  The target proposed by central government was a national target which was deemed unachievable at the outset of the LAA by partners.  However, central government had agreed to allow all LAA partnerships to remove NI 112 from the Performance Reward calculations at the end of the LAA in 2010/11, should they wish to do so.

There were three options open to Peterborough:

1. To include the third year (2010/11) national target in the LAA and elect to remove it from LAA Reward grant calculations
2. To leave the third year target blank and remove it from the reward
3. To include a third year target and keep it in the Reward

The GPP Executive had recommended that Peterborough takes advantage of option 2.  The local target proposed by the Director of Children’s Services would ensure that the agenda remained a priority.  This target would appear in all our local documentation.  Planned work would continue to focus on improving  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To scrutinise the provision of the Christmas Park and Ride Service.

The Council had operated a Christmas Park and Ride service since 1999 and whilst relatively successful, the service had always operated at a cost to the Council.  Over recent years additional funding had been provided to either offer an enhanced service (increased number of days, a third site) or to support the £20,000 budget held in Transport and Sustainable Environment.  The service had operated free of charge since 2004.  The table below gave a comparison of usage for the service from its commencement in 1999:

The average number of passengers using the service per day each year fluctuated and this was due to a number of reasons:

-  The number of passengers using the service on Sundays was less than Saturdays.  The split of operational days had varied year on year.

-  In the first 5 years there had been a charge to use the service, but the service had been free since that time.

-  The Town Bridge repair work impacted on the ease of access for car users into the city.

The service was retendered in April 2008 and a reduction in the cost per day was achieved.  The cost of security increased in 2009 as procurement of the service was provided at short notice with an interim provider.  Corporately, security service provision was under review.

It was proposed that there was a provision of £29k to fund a Christmas Park and Ride service for 2010 in the Council’s budget.  However this was still to be approved by Council on 24 February 2010.

Dependent upon the outcome of the security provision review, it was estimated that 14 operational days could be undertaken during 2010 within the proposed £29k budget, however there would be no budget remaining to market or promote the service.  Should the funding provision proposed in this year’s budget setting process be withdrawn it would not be possible to deliver a Christmas Park and Ride service from other budgets.

The issue of charging for the Christmas Park and Ride service needed to be addressed for 2010.  This required a further piece of work on what would be a reasonable fare for such a service.

Consideration had been given to extending the Christmas Park and Ride service to a year-round Park and Ride service.  At present there was insufficient demand or budget to consider this further at this time.  The aspiration for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To scrutinise the Carbon Management Action Plan prior to its consideration by the Executive.

We welcomed Councillor Sam Dalton to the meeting.

The Carbon Management Action Plan (CMAP) was the outcome of a ten month programme of work that the Council had undertaken as part of the Carbon Trust’s Local Authority Carbon Management (LACM) programme.  Whilst the Council had previously undertaken various one off initiatives which had had a positive effect on the its overall carbon emissions, this programme of work ensured that initiatives would be undertaken in a planned and measured way in order to comply with various schemes the Council had a legal duty to comply with.

The CMAP detailed the Council’s carbon management strategy, baseline emissions, reduction target, outline reduction projects, financing options, embedding actions and programme management.  It had been produced by the Climate Change Team with support and guidance from the Carbon Trust and the Carbon Management Programme Board which was chaired by the Executive Director of Operations.  The CMAP formally committed the Council to achieve a carbon emissions reduction of 35% of 2008/09 levels by 2014 and supported the city’s aspiration to become the UK’s Environment Capital.  In addition, the work created efficiencies within the Council and reduced the long term exposure to risk.  Whilst this would require significant commitment and investment this would be achieved through invest to save mechanisms and external funding initiatives where possible.

All of the projects outlined in the CMAP were indicative at this stage and would be subject to the standard project approval within the Council.  Projects would be undertaken by the relevant service area, overseen by the Climate Change Team and would be accountable to the Programme Board.

Observations and questions were asked around the following areas:

·         Members offered their congratulations on an excellent document.

·         Would the Plan be rolled out to other partners across the City?  It was the intention to roll it out.  One of the future tasks was to refresh the Climate Change Strategy and as part of that work we would be producing a toolkit for local businesses to use and also look for them to sign a local declaration.  This was not an area which the Council could tackle on its own.

·         The 35% target was very ambitious but how could it be achieved when the Council offered perverse incentives such as parking permits for staff and councillors.  Various options are being considered around staff and member travel but the Plan at this stage only looks at business mileage but we may want to consider commuter mileage in the future.

·         This year’s revenue budget stated that £100,000 worth of savings would be made this year by removing staff permits but this had not been achieved.  Permits are being reviewed at the moment but it is not as easy as just withdrawing the permits as it affects employees terms and conditions of employment.  We are looking to reduce the number of miles travelled during business time but these are separate pieces of work.

·         Did business miles include City Services machinery e.g. grass cutting machines?  Emissions from  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To consider the latest version of the Forward Plan.

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.

To consider the latest version of the work programme.

We considered the Work Programme for 2009/10.

It had been reported that some or all of the trees in Bridge Street and Long Causeway would be removed.  Members asked for clarification for this and that someone should come to a future meeting to explain or provide a briefing.

The future of the depot site should be considered as part of the procurement exercise in relation to City Services.

ACTION AGREED

To note the work programme for 2009/10.

Thursday 11 March 2010

Thursday 11 March 2010