Issue - meetings

An opportunity for the Committee to question the Leader and Chief Executive on the Council Priorities for 2012/13

The Chair welcomed Councillor Claire Kober – Leader of the Council – and Libby Blake – Director of Children & Young People – to the meeting.  The Leader outlined the Council priorities for the year ahead:

·                    Delivering regeneration – Tottenham and beyond

It was nearly a year since the riots in Tottenham and the work undertaken to regenerate Tottenham had transformed the area both physically and socially.

Tottenham Hotspur had been secured to stay at the White Hart Lane site.

Planning permission had been granted for the sites destroyed during the riots.

Planning permission had also been granted for ‘Wards Corner’, at the southern end of the High road – this was a £700-800m development.

The jobs fund had been established and would enable local people to improve their opportunities and lives.

·                    Housing

The post ‘Decent Homes’ agenda had seen a significant reduction in funding.  Discussions were needed at a service level to see where investment could be made in estates.

There were concerns with the welfare reforms.  Cabinet would consider this in the Autumn, and needed to be clear in their approach.

The localisation of Council Tax benefit meant that each Local Authority needed to develop a scheme.  LBH needed to prepare for implementation and mitigate the impact on residents.

·                    Children and Young People

The Education Commission had been launched, and they were due to report at the end of the year.

The adoption service scorecard had been received at the beginning of June, a diagnostic was carried out and an action plan was in place to improve the service.  The scorecards were instigated by central Government to judge each Local Authority against a set of measures.

Continue to work at aligning resources to prevention and early intervention.

Working with schools to develop a new model of school improvement based on school to school support model.

·                    Continue to strive to deliver good quality and responsive services

Central to this is the development of the Residents’ Strategy.

Work was underway by officers to look at financial stability and sustainability within the Authority, and this would be reported to the Committee in due course.

·                    Environment

Continuing to drive up improvement in the midst of the roll out of new waste collection arrangements.

·                    Transfer of Public Health

The responsibility for teenage pregnancy and child obesity would be moved back to the Authority in 2013.

The Leader provided the following responses to questions from the Committee:

·                    On the day of the riots last year, a Community Gold Command meeting had been held and a discussion held as to the possibility of any conflict or trouble occurring.  There was no suggestion that the riots would happen on that afternoon. 

·                    The Local Area Management Plan was reflected in the original 2010 planning application.  The original application was for the improvement of a football club, however post-riots had highlighted the need for partnership working and this was shown in the plans for the area.

·                    The Olympics would bring their own policing challenges.  The Cabinet Member for Communities  ...  view the full minutes text for item 137