Agenda and minutes

It was noted that apologies had been received from Councillor Garten.

The following Substitute Members were noted:-

·  Councillor Mrs Springett for Councillor Garten

·  Councillor Perry for Councillor Webster

There were no urgent items.

There were no Visiting Members.

There were no disclosures by Members and Officers.

There were no disclosures of lobbying.

RESOLVED:  That the agenda items be taken in public as proposed.

RESOLVED:  That the Minutes of the meeting held on 30 March 2018 be approved as a correct record and signed.

There were no petitions.

There were no questions from members of the public.

The Committee considered the Reference from Strategic Planning, Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

The following comments were made by Members:-

·  That the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community were not segregated into isolated rural locations within the Borough.

·  That representatives from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Community should be invited to attend a meeting of this Committee to advise on what their vision for the future would be.

RESOLVED:  That the Committee consider the operational housing aspects of the reference in consultation with the Strategic Planning, Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

Voting:  For:  8  Against:  0  Abstentions:  1

The Committee considered the report of Ms Anna Collier, the Policy and Information Manager which set out key performance indicators for consideration.

In response to questions by Members, Officers advised:-

·  That in terms of the target for ‘Households living in nightly paid temporary accommodation last night of the month’, this was set for the last night of the month due to historic government data requirements.

·  That the target for ‘percentage spend and allocation of disabled facilities grant’ was set at 100% but as this was a rolling programme of works, sometimes the funds were not spent within the same financial year as they were requested and would roll over to the next year.

·  That the target for ‘the percentage of fly tips with evidential value which resulted in enforcement action’ had been set at 20% as this was a new target last year and Officers did not have baseline data to back it up.  As the team was not yet fully staffed, there was not  sufficient time to fully assess the service delivery.

·  That the target for ‘what percentage of all homes are delivered as affordable homes’ should not be included due to the fact that different areas create different outcomes.

·  That a target for ‘the number of eligible applicants for sheltered accommodation’ not be included as the KCC contract with the current provider had expired at the end of March and a review was being carried out at the moment so it was not practicable to have this as a target.

·  That should the target for ‘recycling rates’ be given a stretch target, this could result in the target not being met in the majority of cases due to the complexities surrounding recycling. 

RESOLVED:

1)  That the key performance indicators be agreed subject to the
  change identified by this Committee for 2018-19 which cover the
  three action areas prioritised in the refreshed Strategic Plan.

  Voting:  Unanimous

2)  That the target for ‘number of litter reports attended to’ should be
changed to a percentage (but will include expected outcome)

Voting:  For: 5  Against:  2  Abstentions:  1

The Committee considered the report of Mr Matt Roberts, the Community Partnerships and Resilience Manager, which provided an update on the tendering process that had been due to begin in January but had been delayed due to the impact of the flooding which occurred in the Town Hall.

Mr Roberts advised that a Consultant had been commissioned to look for another suitable location to relocate the CCTV equipment and an update on this would be reported to Members at the June Committee meeting.

In response to questions from Members, Mr Roberts advised that the cost of the shared infrastructure had yet to be explored and the merged desk approach would be the Council’s cost to bear alone.  Finally the shared service agreement still needed to be explored and would also be reported back to Members at the June meeting.

However, if the Council were to stay within with the existing agreement then there would be some minor savings.

The Director of Regeneration and Place, Mr William Cornall also confirmed that a fully worked up proposal would come back to the Committee in the Summer.

In view of this, Members did not feel that they could consider the item until a fully costed option had been presented to them.

RESOLVED:  That Option 1 be adopted as set out in the report of the Community Partnerships and Resilience Manager until a fully costed proposal had been brought forward to the Committee.

Voting:  Unanimous

Mr John Littlemore, the Head of Housing and Community Services introduced his report on the Homelessness Reduction Act which reviewed the preparations for the implementation of the Act.

In response to questions from Members, Mr Littlemore advised that:-

·  Indications so far from central government had been positive about the steps taken by the Council to implement the Act, and that grants had already been received and were likely to continue.

·  There was a process for early notification to the Council when a landlord is due to evict a tenant.

·  That there was due to be a change in the advice given regarding homeless prevention.

·  That central government had acknowledged that there was an increase in rough sleepers and had increased the grant available to Councils to deal with this problem.

RESOLVED:

1)  That the Committee notes the progress made towards
  implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act.

2)  That Officers discuss the process with central government for applications to the fund for rough sleepers and explore with appropriate partners the preparation of the bid against the criteria and report back on progress to this Committee.

Voting:  Unanimous

6.30 p.m. to 8.15 p.m.