Agenda item - Written questions from members of the public.

A list of public questions received by the due date of 12noon on the 10^th December 2015 will be circulated separately as part of an addendum at the meeting.

56.1         The Mayor reported that six written questions had been received from members of the public and invited Ms. Paynter to come forward and address the council.

56.2         Ms. Paynter thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “At clause 8.12.1, Supplementary Planning Guidance note SPGBH15 provides for "mid-rise" tall buildings along the Kingsway in Hove which is a designated corridor, suitable to take tall buildings.  May I have, please, a definition of what is meant by "mid-rise” and how many storeys over what height this definition would allow?”

56.3         Councillor Morgan replied; “Mid-rise buildings are defined in the tall buildings strategic planning document as between 6-8 stories or 18-23 meters tall.”

56.4         Ms. Paynter asked the following supplementary question; “One of the things that I think needs to be done is that this tall buildings strategy needs to be reviewed. Can you agree that the compass document was created in 2004 which is 11/12 years ago, it’s time for it to be reviewed and perhaps tightened up because an awful lot has changed in that period of time?”

56.5         Councillor Morgan replied; “Yes I’m happy to take that up with planning officers and discuss whether there is a review due.”

56.6         The Mayor thanked Ms. Paynter for her questions and invited Mr. Hawtree to come forward and address the council.

56.7         Mr. Hawtree thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “If, Heaven forfend, Hove’s Carnegie Library is sold, what Use Class would it have?”

56.8         Councillor Morgan replied; “The existing use is D1 and the library is a community facility. The policy Ho20 applies to the retention of community facility which says that in the event that an alternative community facility can be accommodated then a residential or mixed use scheme would be acceptable.”

56.9         Mr. Hawtree asked the following supplementary question; “Bearing in mind that we’ve heard quite a lot down the line so far that all this turns upon money. Could you please tell us how much more you anticipate the PFI deal for Brighton library including the ring fenced book fund will cost each year with the forth coming renegotiation of the PFI deal?”

56.10      Councillor Morgan replied; “I don’t have that information to hand but I’ll be happy to supply it to you on advice from officers.”

56.11      The Mayor thanked Mr. Hawtree for his questions and invited Mr. Sharpe to come forward and address the council.

              Mr. Sharpe thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “So this council set up the fairness commission to make sure everyone has an opportunity to lead healthy and productive lives. The Fairness Commission is set up so it will make a difference because it says in the description of the Fairness Commission the findings of the Fairness Commission will inform the Council budget.

              Last Thursday 10th the Fairness Commission was looking at the life chances of children and young people. Even the introductory text to this theme noted “the benefits of early intervention to improve children's life chances.  Will the council therefore commit to waiting until the commission has reported in summer 2016 before even considering any cuts to front line services that deliver early intervention for children with special educational needs?”

56.12      Councillor Bewick replied; “In terms of pre-school children with special education needs current proposals are looking at a flexible and responsive service to work with all children from pre-school to 18 years. I hear what Mr Sharpe’s saying about the Fairness Commission and that will of course inform the budgets over the four year budget which of course this administration is committed to. The new service however will offer an all year round service to parents, children’s and early years settings rather than mainly term time only. So I don’t accept that this administration isn’t already making the necessary reforms to ensure that those young children have their life chances met. I’d also like to stress that there are no plans to reduce the funding for dedicated one to one support for children with special needs in early years provision or the capacity of the support staff who currently work as nursery nurses in the pre-school area. It’s not possible unfortunately to delay the re-designation of children’s centres from 12 to 7 because the Council does not have enough money in the budget to continue to run that number of designated centres. However these services are available to all children as well as those with special education needs and it’s worth stressing that last year the previous administration agreed to delay a budget reduction of £670,000 for one year only. Reductions in central government funding mean that we have to look at further savings.”

56.13      Mr. Sharpe asked the following supplementary question; “I asked this question because as well as the planned cuts to children’s centres which effect early years provision in the city the current publicly available information which isn’t always necessarily detailed and fully up to date to be able to fully understand what’s happening but my understanding of the current publicly available information suggests that the restructuring of the learning support services effectively proposes quite a significant cut in the staffing levels of the pre-school element of this service as it hasn’t been specifically protected and there’s no clarity about how many of the staff available will be delivering pre-school services and this cut is unfair because the children involved.

Will the Council please commit to providing the same level of front line services, not talking about back office savings, but front line services for special educational needs provision for children with pre-school SEN needs?”

56.14      Councillor Bewick replied; “There are no plans to reduce front line support to children with special educational needs but there are plans of course to modernise, transform and integrate the service for special educational needs and in terms of the overall headcount actually in terms of the reduction of staff and I think it’s very important that members understand this because there’s a lot of misinformation on social media and in the media and elsewhere but the actual reduction in staff headcount will be from 58 to 55 staff. Yes, in relation to the pre-school service we are asking for staff to work in different ways, actually in ways that other local authorities around the country already work with their staff and I’ll be able to provide further detail to other questions and petitions that are out put to this Council later on.”    

56.15      The Mayor thanked Mr. Sharpe for his questions and invited Ms. Jenkins to come forward and address the council.

56.16      Ms. Jenkins thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “With our neighbouring local authorities continuing to recognise the value of qualified Teachers of the Deaf, employing them under teachers' pay and conditions, can the Lead Councillor for CYPS explain how the service in our city will not be affected if Brighton and Hove's Teachers of the Deaf, living in a city with very high living costs, are redefined as advisors, their pay and conditions cut and they find themselves forced to leave this authority, in order to do the job they've trained for and given so many dedicated years to?”

56.17      Councillor Bewick replied; “Can I say at the outset that what she said there about a cut in pay and conditions for advisors is absolutely not true. That is not the policy of this administration and let me tell you that this administration places the highest value on qualifications of our teachers of the deaf and thankfully they hold those qualifications in the city where there’s currently relatively low incidents of need in this area. However the current proposals are about retaining the need for all SEN specialist advisors working in the area of hearing impairment to have this qualification as they do now and they will continue to have the same pay as they have in the past. Now there is currently a consultation in process with the 8 teams that provide support to schools with children with special educational needs and disabilities and this includes our services for children of course with visual and hearing impairment. This consultation ends on the 31^st of January 2016 and the proposal is to bring together an integrated service of professionals that achieves the right balance between the flexibility and the specialism to meet all needs. There is no proposed reduction in this consultation in front line services to children and families with sensory needs.”

56.18      Ms. Jenkins asked the following supplementary question; “Are you saying that teachers of the deaf are not going to be moved onto the Soulbury pay scale?”

56.19      Councillor Bewick replied; “There is a proposal which is out for consultation which we’re discussing with staff, with trade unions and other stakeholders to look at moving staff on to Soulbury scales but what I want to stress about this proposed moved is these will still be qualified teachers with qualified teacher status. The pay of those teachers on the Soulbury scales will be protected as part of transitional arrangements for three years so this is not an agenda around cutting the pay and conditions but what we are asking for as part of a modernised, transformed and integrated service is to ask these teachers for example to serve this special needs community not just from 5-16 but from pre-school right up to 18 and 25 in some circumstances. We’re asking for the service to work 365 days a year because parents have told us that the needs of their children requires that service to be provided outside of term times. That is the reason and the rationale behind moving to the Soulbury scales.”

56.20      The Mayor thanked Ms. Jenkins for her questions and invited Ms. Duffy to come forward and address the council.

56.21      Ms. Duffy thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “One of the major arguments for moving Teachers of the Deaf off their teachers' contracts onto the Soulbury scale is the idea that these teachers are not offering a holiday service and should be moved onto a contract that offers year round cover.  Is the Lead Councillor aware that that is not the case with Teachers of the Deaf in our city, for whom it is standard practise to visit a newly identified deaf child within days of diagnosis, whatever time of year, offer support to families and attend multi-agency meetings throughout the holidays?”

56.22      Councillor Bewick replied; “I think it’s important that members are made aware that the hearing impairment service offers all year round support to families where children are newly identified as having a hearing impairment and of course this council applauds and recognises that children and families have needs for advise advice information, support where it is due in term time or not. The key reason behind the proposal is to move all current specialist teachers onto these Soulbury scales so we can absolutely guarantee and secure that all year round service that our parents are asking for and at the moment unfortunately that cannot be guaranteed within the current terms and conditions. Now other teams within the proposed integrated service such as the education psychology service I understand already work all year round.”

56.23      The Mayor thanked Ms. Duffy for her question and invited Ms. Cox to come forward and address the council.

56.24      Ms. Cox asked the following question; “Considering the high levels of engagement and anxiety from parents and families can the Lead Councillor now commit to a formal consultation of stakeholders, parents and most importantly service users on changes to the Sensory Needs Service?”

56.25      Councillor Bewick replied; “She referred at the start of her question to the levels of anxiety and I absolutely recognise as indeed do councillors from these benches recognise there’s been a huge amount of anxiety in the city. I think it’s incredibly unfortunate that some of that anxiety has been deliberately inflated by a misinformation campaign on social media and elsewhere which has not helped  parents who’ve got children with special educational needs have a rational and informed conversation with council officers and others who are involved in this process and I hope as a result of this discussion and debate today we can move to a debate in the city that is grounded in fact and indeed there’s already been extensive consultation with a wide range of parent groups and parent representative groups including of course parents of children with sensory needs to explain these proposals. Information and other stakeholders relating to the consultation has been posted on the council and amaze websites with a contact address for views and queries. Specifically in relation to hearing impairment council officers met with the national deaf children’s society representatives on the 2^nd of November and they’ve arranged further meetings. Parents of children with sensory needs were also represented at the parents and carers connect meeting where council officers consulted on these proposal on the 17^th of November. I am of course attentively listening to all the representations that I’m receiving as are council members throughout this chamber who have had representations on this subject and that’s one of the reasons I agreed with officers to extend the consultation period to the end of January so we can assure we get the maximum amount of consultation in this debate.”

56.26      Ms. Cox asked the following supplementary question; “Can the Councillor confirm a formal consultation with parents that’s not an email address which is what we’ve been given?”

56.27      Councillor Bewick replied; “I’m very happy to take that back to officers and discuss with them ways in which we can consult with parents. There are formal and indeed informal channels through which parents can lobby their councillors or indeed request meetings with me or any member of this chamber to put their views to them about these proposals.”

56.28      The Mayor thanked Ms. Cox for her questions and noted that this concluded the public questions for the meeting.