Agenda item - Written questions from members of the public.

A list of public questions received by the due date of 12noon on the 26^th January, 2018 will be circulated separately as part of an addendum at the meeting.

65.1         The Mayor reported that five written questions had been received from members of the public and invited Ms. Hugh-Jones to come forward and address the council.

65.2         Ms. Hugh-Jones thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “Last month Amnesty published a report revealing that the Home Office uses immigration detention as a matter of routine, although detention causes serious harm to detainees and their families. Nowhere else in Europe locks people up without a time limit and we detain more people. One of the biggest detention centres, Brook House, is just half an hour from here at Gatwick. Many of our fellow residents live with the fear of the ‘dawn knock on the door’. As a City of Sanctuary will the Council endorse the ‘These Walls Must Fall’ campaign and demand an end to indefinite detention?”

65.3         Councillor Daniel replied; “Thank you for coming to highlight this important campaign to our council members. To sign up to this campaign we must agree with these three beliefs:

1)     That the practice of indefinite detention for immigration purposes is an unacceptable breach of basic human rights, that it is an affront to some of our most important shared values robing people of the right to liberty, justice and dignity.

2)     That the harm and injustice of the detention system, its direct impact on individuals and on our society, cannot be addressed by improvements to conditions or minor reforms to the way the system is operated.

3)     That indefinite detention is a serious civil rights issue that must not be ignored. We have a responsibility to act and we will work to expose this injustice and bring an end to the practice of indefinite detention.

It is my belief that we should bring a motion before the Council to sign up to ‘These Walls Must Fall’ as other councils, notably Manchester but also echoing concerns of Councillors in Crawley, of the impact of the current way in which detention centres and that policy is implemented. For what it's worth, in Manchester, the Labour Councillor who led this work was a former refugee who himself had been impacted by this very policy.

I would be proud to bring this motion forward to the next possible meeting of the Council and I will seek cross-party support from colleagues in this chamber in order to be able to do so.”

65.4         Ms. Hugh-Jones asked the following supplementary question; “Following the example of the City of Manchester will the Council declare that it believes that the UK’s immigration detention system is not fit for purpose and take all measures in its power to work with our MPs, the Local Government Association and other councils to reform the system and introduce alternatives to detention?”

65.5         Councillor Daniel replied; “I believe I agreed to do that in the first answer and that will come as a notice of motion should I get the support I require from other colleagues”.

65.6         The Mayor thanked Ms. Hugh-Jones for her questions and invited Mr. Hawtree to come forward and address the council.

65.7         Mr. Hawtree thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “Could Councillor Daniel please tell us what steps have been taken to reinstate the mobile library, thank you?”

65.8         Councillor Daniel replied; “In my time as a Councillor there hasn't been a mobile library, and I had to do some research to find out what happened to this service. Imagine my surprise, when I found out that proposals to cut this service came through in the first year of the last administration, and that it was in fact cut by them. Even more surprising to me was that you actually served in that administration and were party to that decision being made. Described, and I'm sure most unfoundedly or mischievously, by the then MP for Hove Mike Weatherly as the ‘Dr Beeching of libraries’.

It was in fact your colleague, at that time Geoffrey Bowden, who actually cut this service describing it as ‘parked up like an unused aircraft carrier’. However as Larkin says ‘man hands on misery to man’ and as, the current administration, we are handed the pain of possibly unfortunate decisions of our predecessors and must deal with them. So I looked into the substantive reasons that the previous administration gave for the decision and it was the severe government cuts.

I'm sorry to inform you Mr. Hawtree, but that ‘the ghostly roll of drums’ remorselessly beat the measure of government cuts and we have significantly less funding now than we did when you were in administration. Were austerity to be reversed, I am sure that this service would be one that our administration would consider reinstating and I know it’s much missed by residents.”

65.9         Mr. Hawtree asked the following supplementary question; “I’m very surprised that you haven't mentioned the point of that proposal was to keep visits to the housebound people who couldn't even get to a mobile library.  The question that comes to mind, is why does your administration continue to inveigh against the closing of the mobile library, which was a proposal made by the Head of Libraries, but do not at all question the needless proposal made by the same officer to close the Carnegie Library?”

65.10      Councillor Daniel replied; “Politicians are responsible for policy decisions; they were in your time and they are in ours.”

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

65.12      Mr. Harper thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “At the Environment, Sustainability and Transport Committee meeting on 27 June 2017 Chair Councillor Mitchell welcomed the draft of changes proposed to Francis Street. Councillor Pete West suggested an update report be produced after 12 months but the Chair added that measures would be kept under review.

              Over six months have now passed and no changes have taken place the street remains unsafe after failing a stage 3 Road Safety Audit in September 2016. Why are the residents and other road users still awaiting the much-needed changes?”

65.13      Councillor Mitchell replied; “I do recall the Committee report on this matter from last year and the additional attention that officers and the developer were able to give then to considering and proposing the changes within the street in order to address a number of issues that had been raised by residents. I understand that dialogue and feasibility work has since continued and has included a further evening meeting with a Council officer, residents and Councillor Greenbaum. That discussion resulted in the need to consider the implications of further options including the introduction of double yellow lines.

              The consideration of those options by officers and Ward Councillors which took place after the summer holiday period were agreed and then shared with the developer. Regrettably that process did then slow during a period of staff shortage in the Development and Transport Assessment Team which has affected officer’s capacity to maintain that momentum. Officers are now in receipt of a final draft plan that needs to be checked and if satisfactory will then enable the works to be arranged and progress relatively quickly. I have therefore requested that officers work with the developer to prioritise finalising these works in the next few weeks and provide Ward Councillors with regular update reports on the plans and their progress which they will then be able to share with you and your neighbours. I know that your Councillors especially Councillor Greenbaum are very keen to ensure that this final package of works is completed in order to deliver the improvements that have been discussed and agreed with yourselves and others.”

65.14      Mr. Harper asked the following supplementary question; “After failing the stage 3 safety audit in September 2016 are the delays to the much-needed changes opening the Council up to be legally culpable to a civil lawsuit if there is a serious accident?”

65.15      Councillor Mitchell replied; “I would not expect any of the proposed changes being put forward by Transport Officers to be opening the Council up to a legal challenge of that type.”

65.16      The Mayor thanked Mr. Harper for his questions and invited Ms. Garrett Gotch to come forward and address the council.

65.17      Ms. Garrett Gotch  thanked the Mayor and asked the following question; “Performance indicators such as cost, nightly usage and refusals have been requested as recently as the Housing Committee 17 January 2018 are not been provided yet. The Centre is one of a small part of services provided for those who are homeless and it's not yet known if it has been a successful or not. How can one welcome an initiative without looking at its achievements and why be self-congratulatory yet made no reference to other initiatives of the wider involvement of our community?”

65.18      Councillor Moonan replied; “The night shelter within the Brighton Centre has been operational since December 2017 and following agreement at the PR&G Committee on 20 January 2018 will now run until 11 March 2018. The allocated budget for this initiative is £135,000 but the final costings won't be clear until the Spring when the shelter has completed.

All 30 places are allocated after referral and risk assessment by St Mungo's and after negotiation with the client to ask if they would like to take up the space. Therefore under this definition there are no refusals. The shelter is not set up to take people straight off the street if they've not been through this referral and risk assessment process as this wouldn't be safe for existing residents or staff. I hope I've interpreted your question in terms of refusals correctly there but if I haven't you can come back.

Nightly usage in January has been on average 24 people per night. The shortfall is due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, as was outlined in the PR&G paper the Brighton Centre was booked for a week in January and therefore we have to move the shelter to one of our local churches and that did cause a certain amount of disruption and confusion with the clients although a lot of work was done to support them in that move. Also some of the clients who have a space in the shelter choose not to attend every night and this is unpredictable and is in common with lots of night shelters around the country but most these people do come back.

As detailed in the PR&G report a full evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of the shelter will be presented back to PR&G committee in the summer and this evaluation will also be used to make an informed decision on future plans for the service and we do have money allocated in the Budget for next year should it be agreed on 22 February 2018.

As an Administration we do acknowledge and welcome the many initiatives that operate across the city to support rough sleepers. We really value the contributions of organisations and volunteers many of them are in this room. We don't mean to be self-congratulatory this is a very serious issue we have a lot of rough sleepers within the city.  You’re right the winter night shelter is a small part of a complex wide picture of support provided by us as a statutory sector, the voluntary community sector and individual volunteers.”

65.19      Ms. Garrett Gotch asked the following supplementary question; “When are you going to engage and acknowledge the wider community such as Sussex Homeless Support Night Bus?”

65.20      Councillor Moonan replied; “As I hoped I indicated I do acknowledge it. I was just chatting to some of the organisers of the night bus just half an hour ago asking them how it's going, it sounds like it's a really positive initiative. It's one of many initiatives across the city from a wide range of voluntary groups.”

65.21      The Mayor thanked Ms. Garrett Gotch for her questions and invited Mr. Deans to come forward and address the council.

65.22      Mr. Deans thanked the Mayor and asked the following question on behalf of Mr. Thomas who was unable to attend the meeting; “I submitted a question to the last Housing Committee meeting and the Chair refused to hear the question on the grounds that it was more relevant to another Committee. Part 8.9 of the constitution gives the protocol for public questions at Committees and there is no provision for such refusal. A question may be rejected if it's on a matter of which the Committee has no responsibility there is nothing else on relevance. Public questions are to hold a Committee to account. Will members agreed to examine the validity of the Chair’s action to prevent them from hearing such questions?”

65.23      Councillor Meadows replied; “The way that the Council's Constitution is framed means that there is some overlap in the terms of reference of committees. The subject matter of your question ‘supported housing’ related to an issue where the policy lead and budget was held by another Committee, the Health and Wellbeing Board. Although the Housing Committee has responsibility for housing generally it is important that that issues or questions are dealt with by the most appropriate Committee or Board. Under the Council's Standing orders the power of the Chair to reject or not to take a question is to not limited to situations where the Committee has no responsibility it also includes under paragraph 9.22 of Council procedure rules situations where the Chair having consulted with the Monitoring Officer considers the question to be inappropriate for any reason.

              That particular Housing Committee was one where the Committee received a number of questions and as I said the subject matter of the question seemed to fall more naturally within the remit of another Committee; the Health and Wellbeing Board. It was therefore in my opinion entirely appropriate for myself to decide the way that I did. I think it's important that if you ask a question you receive a detailed response to that question and that is why I redirected it. The Council is committed to encouraging public participation in our democratic decision making processes and I am pleased to say that we get far more questions, deputations and petitions than most other comparable authorities however it is also important that the agenda is manageable and that issues are dealt with by the most appropriate Committee in the Council.”

65.24      Mr. Deans asked the following supplementary question; “I hope the Council have noticed that there has been an increase in public interest and involvement in the Committee meetings. This is mainly due to a number of issues in the city that are reaching crisis point, homelessness being one of them. I’d like to ask for assurance that the Council and the Councillors welcome the public interests in finding out more about what goes on within the Council and find answers directly rather than from second hand newspapers.”

65.25      Councillor Meadows replied; “Absolutely, we do encourage participation. However when questions are asked when you've taken a lot of time, trouble and effort not just to ask the question and submit it  but sometimes to come to committee to ask that question publicly. I believe that it is really important that you get an adequate and proper response and a detailed response to that question and therefore sometimes, in the effort to be helpful, we direct them to the most appropriate Committee.”

65.26      The Mayor thanked Mr. Deans for his questions and noted that concluded the item.