Agenda item - Oral questions from Councillors

67.1      The Mayor noted that 11 oral questions had been received and that 30 minutes were set aside for the duration of the item.

 

(a)       Changing Places

 

67.2      The Mayor then invited Councillor K. Norman to put his question to Councillor Mitchell.

 

67.3      Councillor K. Norman asked the following question, “In my time as cabinet member for adult social care and health I was fortunate to be able to officially open the changing places toilets at the colonnade on Madeira Drive. At the time I was keen to see many other such facilities or two or three even across the city. Subsequently we’ve had one other installed at the Level but currently that appears to be where we stand now.

My question is with £11 million spent on the redevelopment of this building and a changing place toilet costing around £20,000 - £25,000 why was a publicly available changing place toilet not included in Hove Town Hall?”

 

67.4      Councillor Mitchell replied, “Changing places toilets are an essential facility for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities as well as people with other physical disabilities such as spinal injuries, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis who often need extra equipment and space to allow them to use the toilets safely and comfortably. These needs are indeed met as Councillor Norman has eluded by changing places toilets and Brighton & Hove does currently offer two changing places facilities, situated at the Level and the Colonnade, Madeira Drive. There is also a further facility at the Amex Stadium. There are just 914 changing places toilets within the UK. The cost of a changing places toilet is approximately £12,000-£15,000 with the challenge for most local authorities being the space that is required to install the facility. Whilst changing places is the recommended and preferred option there is now an alternative which can be installed with less space required with a minimum of just 3m by 2.5m required and this is called space to change.

 

The public toilet contact is going through a tender process. The specification also includes a potential refurbishment programme with investment proposals from the winning contractor. We have stated in the specification our wish to increase the amount of changing places toilets available or the alternative of space to change where the size of the building allows and I will certainly make sure that Councillor Norman’s suggestion is taken up through this tender process.”

 

67.5      Councillor K. Norman asked the following supplementary question, “I’m aware of the other types of toilet facilities that are becoming available but they are not as sophisticated as a changing place toilet. I do understand that there are one or possibly two at the Amex Stadium but it is rather out in the sticks so to speak and so I believe it is very short sighted that when we redeveloped this building we did not include one. There are three changing places toilets in Brighton and I think we need to provide at least one in Hove and possibly one in Portslade as well.”

 

67.6      The Mayor noted that there was no actual supplementary question asked and therefore Councillor Mitchell did not need to respond.

 

(b)  Youth Budget

 

67.7      Councillor Phillips asked the following question, “The administration is keen to stress that young people will not lose out because statutory provision of youth services will remain. How does this chime with the 2012 government statutory guidance for local authorities on services and activities for young people which states ‘that it is therefore a local authority’s duty to secure so far as reasonably practicable equality of access to all young people to the positive, preventative and early help they need to improve their wellbeing; this includes youth work and other services.’ So how does the council plan to preserve the necessary statutory guidance around the community and voluntary sector youth work?”

 

67.8      Councillor Chapman replied, “We will of course continue providing the statutory services and more. Some of the services that we will be providing are; the extended adolescent service, the youth offending service, ‘Are You OK’, the Youth Employability Service, Adolescent pods, Extra Time, helping to support YMCA Downslink and the Brighton & Hove Music and Arts.”

 

67.9      Councillor Phillips asked the following supplementary question, “So basically there will be a tiny shred of youth work left with a few schemes. I think this council has a moral duty to provide something particularly on council estates. What is the administration’s position on the comment of the Children, Young People and Skills committee’s previous chair Councillor Bewick who, in response to young people’s concerns, said ‘cuts may be short sighted’ suggesting the plan in place to ensure costs of caring for young people will increase costs to the council over time and does this not suggest that the budget proposal cannot be conceded robust and therefore legal under the Local Government act 2003?”

 

67.10   Councillor Chapman replied, “As I said earlier there are no easy decisions left and the central government grant has decreased dramatically and we are having to make some incredibly tough decisions and this is one of those decisions we don’t want to make but we are put in a very awkward position and I would like to say that the report that we’ve all just agreed to will help answer some of these questions and queries.”

 

(c)  Street Sleepers

 

67.11   Councillor Janio asked the following question, “The answer to my written question tonight shows that the Labour Party are completely confused about how much they spend on street sleepers in the city. I’ve tried to work through the figures but it’s around £4million that they can spend on street sleepers in the city which is an amazing amount of money. Now given that this is a substantial sum and that last week I visited First Base to observe the ‘severe weather emergency planning operation’ where I was able to observe the excellent work that all the teams do down there. Can Councillor Moonan please confirm the main failing of the current arrangements is that the Labour administration has lost control of the London based St. Mungo’s contract that the Conservatives warned would not work and could she please outline any steps she has taken to rectify the situation?”

 

67.12   Councillor Moonan replied, “Sorry, I don’t recognise that we have lost control of the St. Mungo’s contract at all. That service is our street outreach service which is working very effectively to go out and find and identify rough sleepers in the city and engage them in services.”

 

67.13   Councillor Janio asked the following supplementary question, “Community Works represent this city’s charities and volunteers across this city. It’s made a few interesting comments on the Labour administration’s budget proposals namely that ‘Brighton & Hove City Council’s strategy for working with the voluntary and community sector is unclear and furthermore we are concerned that there does not appear to be a clear council strategy around working with the community and voluntary sector and even more concentrated directorates, and teams within the directorates do not appear to be speaking to each other. I think that the destruction of the youth services that we’ve heard about tonight is another clear example of the mess the Labour Administration are in.

 

So can Councillor Moonan confirm tonight the steps that the Labour Party are going to take to get this budget back in place so that they do not permanently destroy the community and voluntary sector in the city?”

 

67.14   Councillor Moonan replied, “As this chamber knows we have rough sleeper strategy that we developed with our partners which is the most joined up piece of work that this administration, that this council has ever produced with all of our partners working together. It is going to deliver for rough sleepers but unfortunately the reason we have such a large a number in this city are because of the external pressures on people, the vulnerability of their tenancies, the years of austerity. So we have excellent services in this city and we are going to be doing our bit for rough sleepers and we will not rest until we have done everything that we can.”

 

(d)  Community & Voluntary Sector

 

67.15   Councillor Sykes asked the following question, “We all recognise the very difficult budget context we’re in and I wonder what Councillor Daniel has done, as the chair of the Neighbourhoods, Communities and Equalities Committee, to facilitate discussion across different areas of the council to emphasise the contribution of the voluntary and community sector to budget saving ideas and approaches?”

 

67.16   Councillor Daniel replied, “I can give details to Councillor Sykes of the meetings I have held both internally and externally including the monthly surgeries that I have held since I’ve taken this post up with the voluntary sector including many phones calls and emails which I have records of. I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of not engaging enough with the voluntary sector before so I’m rather surprised to have that. I think what is at the heart of your question is what are we doing structurally to make sure things are joined up and perhaps referring to part of Councillor Janio’s speech just now. We are undertaking a cumulative impact assessment of the impacts of this budget on the voluntary sector. However, we must bear in mind that the sector itself, just like any sector, is diverse. This has been discussed at the internal leadership meetings as the budget has developed. Nationally since the beginning of public sector savings larger charities have been more resilient. Those with diverse funding streams are able to weather budget choices better. Smaller groups without staff likewise are rarely under threat and many continue to spring up such as the new dementia café in the Patcham area. Who it has been really tough for are those organisations in between and there is no doubt that it will continue to be tough. We have worked to increase giving through the ‘Making Change Count’ campaign. We have looked to increase money for charities through textile recycling. I have supported the growth of the new organisation the ‘Racial Harassment Forum’. We have protected the funding for domestic violence. I have had meetings over the last few weeks with business in the city determined to help us with our cuts challenge to rough sleeping trying to do their part. I would say Councillor that I have done everything in my power and used every bit of time that I’ve got to pull together around managing the budget impacts on the voluntary sector.”

 

67.17   Councillor Sykes asked the following supplementary question, “I don’t doubt Councillor Daniel’s dedication to voluntary sector and her efforts to support the voluntary sector.  My question was about what Councillor Daniel has done across the council and council areas to emphasise the contribution of the voluntary and community sector to budget saving approaches and I don’t really think got a response to that.

 

My supplementary is that it is apparent that a combination of the proposed youth service cuts and the proposed third sector investment programme cut has taken elements of the voluntary and community sector by surprise. The extent to which some organisations may lose not just one but two funding streams and that may put some of those organisations that provide services in our city at risk and I would ask Councillor Daniel is this the case, what happened and could things have been managed better?”

 

67.18   Councillor Daniel replied, “I spent many hours in meetings both with the voluntary sector and across different departments in this council looking at cumulative impact, identifying which organisations are at risk because the council provides their main funding rather than a part of it. We have detailed lists and we are working to support them. Community Works which we have also commissioned through the prospectus funding that’s just been announced will also support those organisations and that is not just in terms of youth but across the entire budget we are looking at that but especially in terms of youth we have done an incredible amount of work across this council and I personally have taken a lot of responsibility for making sure those meetings happen.”

 

(e)  School Cadet Force

 

67.19   Councillor Miller asked the following question, “Will the Deputy Chair of Children, Young People and Skills committee please outline what the local education authority are doing to assist schools in the city to create combined cadet forces after the government released £15 million LIBOR fine funding for additional 500 of these schools to be set up and ongoing costs to be provided by the department of defence and if not why not as currently only one school in the city has one?”

 

67.20   Councillor Chapman replied, “What I would have to do is get back to Councillor Miller as I do not have that information to hand and I will provide a written response.”

 

67.21   Councillor Miller asked the following supplementary question, “We’ve heard a lot about youth services being cut and I think the Labour Administration are lacking innovation and looking outside as to what is available to provide those youth services from central government in other ways and so would Councillor Chapman please endeavour to think more creatively about how to do that in the future?”

 

67.22   Councillor Chapman replied, “I would like to think that I do think quite creatively but I will take that away and I’m prepared to meet Councillor Miller to discuss this matter further.”

 

(f)   Social Care Precept

 

67.23   Councillor Page asked the following question, “As many of you will be aware the government has said that councils can have a 3% social care precept added to any council tax rise in the coming year but you’ll lose it in a couple of years’ time. There seems to be cross party disapproval and clamour almost that the government is not addressing the crisis in funding in social care as well as in the health service so would Councillor Hamilton agree with the leader of Waltham Forest Council who said ‘The social care precept in not enough to care for the short fall that this government has created over past decade it still leaves a huge gap and has pushed away the responsibility from central government onto councils’ ”

 

67.24   Councillor Hamilton replied, “I think it is fair to say that a lot of us have been disappointed in the reduction in adult social care. Let’s just recognise the fact that the government is not giving us any more money for it, it’s just saying that we can put your council tax up by 3% rather than 2%. Now I’ve just been looking at the figures on this and if you do 5%, 5% and 2% as opposed to 4%, 4% and 4% which is what the possibility is over a three year period you would actually get more with the former than the latter but never the less it is going to be not sufficient to meet our needs. If we have the 3% increase in the social care precept this year that brings in about £3.6million in next year’s budget we have had to build in £6.6million for adult social care to meet the pressures in the next municipal year. So honestly I quite agree with what you are saying Councillor Page, I think government has not reacted well enough to the situation we are in. All over the country we’ve got a serious short fall, adult social care when we first looked at the four year budget was meant to carry a certain load of the saving it’s just not been possible to carry that load of the savings because when they try to make a saving in one area they get more expenditure in another area.”

 

67.25   Councillor Page asked the following supplementary question, “I’m interested in Councillor Hamilton’s calculation by increasing the council tax by 5% this year will mean more income at the end of the three years; so we seemed to be resigned to 5%.  Does Councillor Hamilton recall that the previous administration proposed 3.5% and his party were very disapproving and voted against it? What is the difference between 5% this year and 3.5% two years ago?”

 

67.26   Councillor Hamilton replied, “Honestly I can’t really remember the details of that. I know that we did not vote for an increase at that particular time and subsequently we hadn’t done so as we didn’t think the referendum was going to make it through. I don’t think there is any point now in going back over history. We are in a situation now where we can legally set a 5% budget and I think we are in a situation now where financially things are a lot more serious and obviously we’ve got to raise the maximum that we can and it’s up to my colleagues on the adult social care side to see what they going to do about this but as far as I am concerned it is the right thing now to go forward with the maximum increase we can get with a view to providing the best services we can with the money that we can possibly get our hands on.”

 

(g)  Planning Development Staff

 

67.27   Councillor Nemeth asked the following question, “My question relates to the written response on page nine of the addendum today in which it is stated that 25% of planning staff have resigned since May 2015 which is the highest of all similar teams in the council and double that of the preceding period. Can I please have some explanation of the events of May 2015 and the following months which have led to some of our brightest, best and most experienced officers leaving to work for surrounding local authorities?”

 

67.28   Councillor Cattell replied, “Actually if you read the response it actually says that its actually 19% not 25% because if you read the answer it does actually talk about some posts which were removed due to restructuring which began under the previous administration. I’m not in the office every day; I’m not part of the planning team so I don’t know what events led to staff leaving. I’m wondering if it was perhaps because of those people had actually reached the top of their grades and they went off to well paid jobs in other authorities. Well paid jobs in local authorities in the South East in planning do not come up very often. You either have to travel up to London, take on temporary or agency work or move into the private sector. I know from my experience working as a planner that you are always keeping your eye out for jobs and if a whole load of jobs come up at once like they did at Horsham, Mid-Sussex and Lewes I’m not surprised that those people left. Fortunately most of those posts have now been filled, we’ve also had the opportunity to bring up our younger staff who came in at the bottom who have now been promoted and have got more experience. I’m actually excited that we have the opportunity to train our staff and to make sure we keep them and we can also bring in staff at the bottom end.”

 

67.29   Councillor Nemeth asked the following supplementary question, “What assessment has been made in terms of morale of the huge pressure that is being placed on the younger planning staff that Councillor Cattell mentioned to massage the figures by forcing architects and applicants to agree time extensions?”

 

67.30   Councillor Cattell replied, “Sorry Councillor Nemeth, I don’t actually understand what you mean by massage the figures. I presume you’re talking about extensions of time which is actually used by every single local authority as you have been told on many occasions. As for morale; morale is not low, morale is very high. The staff have worked very hard, they have been praised for their hard work and I simply don’t recognise as ever the portrait that you paint of our planning service which I again will say is absolutely brilliant and I support all of the staff and their hard work. We’ve made lots of improvements in the planning service as you well know and I don’t think I have to go through them again as I’ve told you about them on many occasions.”

 

(h)  Youth Service

 

67.31   Councillor Knight asked the following question “Please can the Deputy Chair of the Children Young People & Skills Committee assure us that we will have the results of the youth service consultation by midday on the 15 February giving us enough time to read them before budget council?”

 

67.32   Councillor Chapman replied, “Yes I can.”

 

67.33   Councillor Knight asked the following supplementary question, “Please can the Deputy Chair of the Children Young People & Skills Committee tell me why the youth service consultation ends after any chance of committee recommendations?”

 

67.34   Councillor Chapman replied, “We will have a dialogue with cross-party colleagues and of course this report will be available to all councillors before the budget council next month.”

 

(i)    Houses in Multiple Occupation

 

67.35   Councillor Hyde asked the following question, “Article 4 restricting numbers of HMOs in certain areas is not working, especially in Moulsecoomb, Bevendean, Coldean, Coombe Road and the Lewes Road areas. We continue to receive numerous planning applications for family homes to become HMOs and existing HMOs which are 3 or 4 bedrooms to be increased to 6 or 7 bedrooms. At a planning committee 3 or 4 months ago I said to the chair ‘it’s your administration’ which needs to change this and all of the committee members agreed; why has this not changed?”

 

67.36   Councillor Cattell replied, “Councillor Hyde you are a very experienced member of planning committee, you have chaired it, you are very familiar with the process of how local plans are developed and of the processes which they have to go through. Therefore I would have thought you would have realised with all the experience as a planning councillor that you cannot just go and change a policy which is an adopted local plan and which was only adopted last year. I know you were mayor at the time but you know that it’s been adopted. We are actually looking at reviewing this. Any review has to go through the government and a full consultation process. We have already started looking at this.”

 

67.37   Councillor Hyde asked the following supplementary question, “You say you are going to look at it but can you just confirm that you are looking at it and give me some sort of time line please?”

 

67.38   Councillor Cattell replied, “It is part of the city plan review and I will give you the exact dates of that in a written response.”

 

(j)    Migrant Workers Day

 

67.39   Councillor Littman asked the following question, “As Councillor Daniel will be aware British residents from migrant communities are planning a nationwide set of events on the 20 February which is the UN world day of justice to show how important migration is to the UK, including to Brighton & Hove and our local economy and to highlight how precarious the position of migrants now is in this country. Under these circumstances may I ask her how her Administration is going to support council staff who feel the need to define their rights by joining the protest and to encourage other local employers to follow suit?”

 

67.40   Councillor Daniel replied, “I really support the overall message of the day and the recommendation that I would like to see through, but it would obviously take agreement from all groups that we do celebrate our staff and maybe do some further work through a comms exercise and a meeting and what we do is showcased and highlighted to the city our pride in our migrant workforce and in the migrant people within the city. Whilst we haven’t had an increase in hate crime I do go to the Racial Harassment Forum and I the One Voice Partnership and community feedback is that there is a sense of fear and a sense of worry in migrant communities and individuals and I think it is really important that we show leadership and no matter what’s happening internationally or nationally I would ensure residents that there is not one councillor in this chamber that they couldn’t go to if they were worried or scared or felt the need for support to talk about any fears they have either at work or in this city. There is not one bigoted councillor in this room and you can go to all of us with absolute confidence.”

 

67.41   Councillor Littman asked the following supplementary question, “I am very pleased to hear that we will be aiming to do something like that. The second half of my question wasn’t answered which is what we can do to get other organisations to follow suit so I’d like to combine that with my supplementary question which is what will do going forward that those members of staff or of the wider community who have come from a wider background are defended and support of the increasing uncertainty and potentially toxic future should the UK chose to follow the path to Brexit?”

 

67.42   Councillor Daniel replied, “I think we’ve got a very important leadership role to play. Not only as an administration but this is something for all of. How we treat people, and what we will and won’t tolerate is a leadership role that we have as Councillors, within our local communities and across the city as a whole. I think we lead by example I certainly do and I know many of you take a proactive approach. I wish that people from EU countries who are here at the moment did have the security of knowing that they wouldn’t be asked to move and I wish that they already had that. I will continue to press for that and to support anyone who does. It is also worth remembering that we are the only people that many EU residents living in the city can vote for. Councillors are there only form of democracy that is accessible to them so it’s especially relevant to them. Our duty as an employer we will be tackling through our equalities work which is on the agenda today.”

 

(k)  Easylink

 

67.43   Councillor Druitt asked the following question, “Easy Link is a service provided by Brighton & Hove community transport on behalf of the council. It provides 20,000 journeys a year to members of our community who otherwise could not get out an about very easily. All customers in the survey last year were over 55, 13% were over 90, 56% were between 80-90 and 82% of passengers daily activities are impacted by health or disability. Can the lead member for adult social care tell us what the long term equalities impact of removing funding from the Easy Link supported bus service and the likely financial implications on the social care budget in the years to come if the service if removed?”

 

67.44   Councillor Barford replied, “We know we do have a funding issue and this is one of the areas we can highlight as one of the difficult decisions we’ve had to make in this budget and we’re certainly not saying it’s not a valued service for the people who use it. It is a valued shopping service in particular. One of the things I know over the past few months and years is trying to redirect that more towards adult social care eligibility. The current contract does come to an end in June 2017 and it isn’t directly linked to adult social care eligibility but I can reassure you that anybody that is eligible for adult social care needs or feels that they may do if they haven’t got the support already can actually access AccessPoint and speak to somebody and have an assessment there. We’ll also be providing details of other options that are available to people in the city. Obviously this service came before there were free bus passes and also the requirement to have accessible transport for vehicles with over 22 seats. There’s a lot that’s been going on. There is also a transport subgroup that’s happening at the moment and they are really looking at those issues. We’re also involving the community and voluntary sector in that but we do recognise that it will be difficult for that change and we do need to make sure there is something in the city for them to be able to access. One of the other things which Councillor Daniel talked about earlier is the neighbourhoods approach that we are looking at and we know that from the survey a lot of people said they wanted to get their services more locally and some people were going out to Newhaven and to Shoreham to do their shopping so what we want to do is provide those services locally. So it might not be the shopping service in particular that they are looking for but it’s that social interaction. A lot of the work around the city and City Wide Connected in particular have got all that detail and that’s something that we’ll be providing to local residents and clients that use that service.”

 

67.45   Councillor Druitt asked the following supplementary question, “It raises a number of issues. The first thing I think is that it is important to recognise is that the budget for easy link was moved from the public transport into the social care budget and that was done by the council and that wasn’t done by community transport and community transport were in agreement with that change but it’s difficult now to then say a couple of years later that eligibility criteria means that the service can’t be funded any more. I think however the real issue which wasn’t really answered fully is around the financial implications on the social care budget. We heard with the youth services question how actually taking funding away from that service just stacks up problems in the future and this is exactly the same thing that we are hearing now. What are the implications for the budget for social care if this service is taken way and if their service has even been asked?”

 

67.46   Councillor Barford replied, “There is more detail in the equalities impact assessment and it does cover the travel aspect of that. So whether it is sitting in adult social care or transport it would still come under the same scrutiny around the budget area. In terms of individuals and the financial impact on the adult social care budget in the future we want to continue to be able to support the people who need it and so therefore that’s something we want to do now and we want to be to provide them with options post June. It’s not something that we’re building up for later we want to be able to deal with it but we think we can do it in a different way by working more collaboratively with organisations across the city and that is something the transport subgroup is looking at presently.”