An opportunity for the Committee to question the Leader and Chief Executive on the Council Priorities for 2012/13
Minutes:
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 had written to the Borough Commander to ask for assurances that the borough would not be left short of officers on the ground. However, many resourcing issues would be beyond the control of the Borough Commander, as they would be dealt at Assistant Commissioner level.
· In response to whether an options appraisal had been carried out for the provision of front line services through post offices, the Leader confirmed that Lyn Garner – Director of Place and Sustainability – would be able to provide an update, following a meeting that she had attended. ACTION: Director of Place and Sustainability
· The role of the Health and Wellbeing Board would be to bring critical players in commissioning together in the Health and Social Care sector. The Voluntary and Community Sector would feed into the work of this Board.
· Adoption and Fostering service
It was not usually encouraged for children to be placed with adoptive parents in the same borough as their birth parents. It may be helpful for the child to have some separation and distance. However all applications were judged on their own merits. When processing applications for adoptive parents, this was on a national level and information was shared with other authorities across the country. Haringey was part of a North London adopters consortium.
Foster carers were dealt with in a different way, as it was usually intended that the children would return to home once officers had worked with the children and the birth parents.
Adoption scorecard and diagnostic was positive on the whole but with room for improvement and would be beneficial to have further scrutiny.
· The Technopark was part of the wider regeneration for Tottenham.
· The facility for paying for parking by telephone was an additional facility and would not remove the facility for parking at meters.
· Although results had not yet been validated, there had been an improved in KS2 SATs results across the borough. Some schools had introduced booster classes.
· There was an extensive summer programme for young people.
· There would be Olympics summer lettings at Tottenham Hale, although it was thought that it would be for media personnel as opposed to maintenance staff. There was not likely to be an increase in vehicles in the roads, as most staff would travel by public transport. If there were any issues, then it was up to local people to report these to the Local Authority.
· With regards to Olympic legacy, the authority would concentrate on promoting the borough as a good place for business, investment opportunities and there was hope that in the future, Haringey would be considered for hosting large events.
The Chair thanked the Leader and Libby Blake for attending the meeting.
Clerks note – at the request of the Leader, the Chair varied the order of the agenda to take the Pay and Display item immediately following this item. The minutes reflect the order of the agenda.