Name

Minute Number

Reason

Interest

Councillor Mrs Beer

Minute 20: Transforming Rehabilitation Motion on Notice

Employee of Devon and Cornwall Police

Disclosable Pecuniary

Councillor Darcy

Minute 20: Transforming Rehabilitation Motion on Notice

Serving magistrate

Private

Councillor Nicholson

Minute 20: Transforming Rehabilitation Motion on Notice

Serving magistrate

Private

Councillor Ricketts

Minute 20:  Transforming Rehabilitation Motion on Notice

Works for company that bids for contracts in this sector

Disclosable Pecuniary

Councillor Singh

Minute 18: Provision of school places in Plympton Motion on Notice

Member of the School Admissions Forum

Disclosable Pecuniary

Councillor Stevens

Minute 20:  Transforming Rehabilitation Motion on Notice

Employee of Devon and Cornwall Police

Disclosable Pecuniary

  Committee, Outside Body etc

Membership

(a)

Ambitious Plymouth Overview and Scrutiny Panel

Councillor Mrs Nicholson to replace Councillor Ricketts

(b)

Your Plymouth Overview and Scrutiny Panel

Councillor Ricketts to replace Councillor Mrs Nicholson

(c)

SACRE

Councillor Dr Salter to replace Councillor Dr Mahony

(d)

Standards Advisory Group

Councillor Bowyer to be replaced by Cllr Churchill

(a)

Former Lord Mayor, Alderman and Councillor Claude Miller MBE

referred to the recent death of former Lord Mayor, Alderman and councillor Bernard Claude Miller MBE, known as Claude, on 2 May 2014 at the age of 99 and the City Council stood in silence for one minute as a mark of respect;   

(b)

Lord Mayor’s Day

referred to the success of Lord Mayor’s Day, which he took part in on 14 June 2014, and brought together the entire community of Plymouth, showcasing how well the public and private sector work together;

(c)

Armed Forces Day

reported that on 28 June 2014, he had the honour to be a part of the RAF and Allied Air Force 25^th Anniversary Memorial Service and he thanked the event’s sponsors, the Royal Navy, the Army, the Air Force and our military personnel, veterans and their families;

(d)

Apprentice Award

announced that Joshua Coomber, Apprentice Gardener from Street Services had won the Top Horticultural Apprentice Award from Duchy College for Devon and Cornwall. He had also gained his NVQ Level 2 in Horticulture. He also paid tribute to the team across the Council who had supported the apprentices.  He congratulated Joshua, Brian Deacon and Barry Wilmott from The Hoe, Lee Jones from Devonport Park and Emily Bullimore and Ken Holder.  

(e)

Association for Town and City Management National Partnership awards

referred to the success of the Your Space project which was transforming the City Centre and had been recognised at the Association for Town and City Management National Partnership awards where the project gained two awards for diversifying business mix and national partnership of the year.

He congratulated all concerned; 

(f)

Land Registry

advised the Council of the Government announcement that the privatisation of Land Registry had been dropped but that the plan for the Land Registry to undertake some part of the Land Charges function, currently undertaken by Local Authorities, were proceeding despite the results of a pilot that had failed;

(g)

History Centre

referred to the success of the Heritage Lottery bid for a new History Centre which would be delivered by Spring 2019.  He paid tribute to David Draffan and his team for their work;

(h)

Kelechi Nnoaham, Director of Public Health

welcomed Kelechi Nnoaham, the new Director of Public Health to this his first meeting of the City Council. 

(i)

Prince Rock Primary School which was one of only six schools in the whole of the country to have been shortlisted for the ‘Primary School of the Year’ title.  She congratulated Mr Spry (Head Teacher) and his team on their achievement;
 

(j)

Morice Town Primary School which had received the first pupil premium award last week. She congratulated David Maddison (Head Teacher) and his team on their achievement.

Question No

Question By

Cabinet Member

Subject

Q1/

14-15

Mr Williams

Councillor Lowry (Cabinet Member for Finance)

Unspent capital receipts from the sale of Council housing properties

What happened to the unspent capital receipts from the sale of Council housing properties under the Thatcher Government’s “Right To Buy Act, 1980”, upon transfer of the housing stock to Plymouth Community Homes?  Were the monies retained by the authority, or transferred to the new registered social landlord? 

Response:

Prior to the ‘Right to Buy Act 1980, local authorities already had powers to sell their houses to eligible tenants, although such cases were extremely rare.  As a local authority, Plymouth City Council transferred ownership in November 2008 to the new organisation: Plymouth Community Homes. Under the terms of Council house sales, 75 per cent of any sales receipt was passed directly to the Department for Communities and Local Government. Therefore in the period post the new legislation and the stock transfer, the City Council received £2 million from the sale of houses of which only £0.5 million could be legally retained in the city. There have been no transfers of these receipts made to Plymouth Community Homes. This money was retained by the authority, and treated in the same way as all other capital receipts from the sale of any asset. However, there has been significant expenditure by Plymouth City Council on refurbishment and enhancements through use of our disabled facilities grant, in excess of £1 million each year, and on Home Improvement Assistance Schemes which can be up to £5,000 per scheme, easing the demand on social housing.

The City is investing significantly in new housing through its Get Plymouth Building and Plan for Homes initiatives.  We have secured £10.1 million for affordable housing schemes and a further £666,000 from the Empty Homes Fund. Seven bids amounting to £18.4 million have been made to the 2015-2018 Affordable Housing Programme. A submission has been made, to the £1 billion Large Sites Infrastructure Fund, to support housing growth in Derriford and three submissions have been made to the £525 million Builder’s Finance Fund.

Question No

Question By

Cabinet Member

Subject

Q2/14-15

Mr Morris

Councillor Lowry (Cabinet Member for Finance)

Collection of monies on behalf of political parties

What arrangement(s) exist within the City Council administration for the collection of monies on behalf of political parties and how much has been paid over to which political parties in each of the past five years?

Response:

There are no arrangements in place within the City Council administration for the collection of monies on behalf of any political party.

Our Payroll Department do actively promote collection of monies on behalf of its employee and councillors for a number of arrangements, such as payment to charities, donations, child care payments,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

‘Provision of SChool places in plymPton

This Council expresses its concern that some Plympton children who are approaching five years of age have not been allocated a primary school place in Plympton despite living in Plympton.

This Council notes that the former Cabinet Member for Children and Young People and her department failed to notify Plympton councillors of this grave situation.

Council calls on the new Cabinet Member for children and young people to urgently address the provision of an additional form of entry at one of the Plympton primary schools.’

(a)

children were required to attend schools where the mode of travel would be two buses or a taxi;  

(b)

the situation would worsen with the development of Sherford next year; 

(c) 

ward councillors had not been advised of the issues at the Plympton schools;

(d)

a decision had been taken to expand Woodford School but that the expansion plans had not yet been made available to ward councillors;

(e)

the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Public Health acknowledged the stress caused to parents but advised that, through the schools’ admissions process, they had been encouraged to nominate three schools and not all had chosen to do that.  Not all parents had submitted their form by the deadline.  The Council followed the published admissions criteria but all the schools in Plympton were oversubscribed.  The children were currently on waiting lists for the school of their preference.  She emphasised that, on paper, there was a school place for every rising five.  However, the Plympton schools, having accepted children from outside of Plympton, now had an obligation to receive their siblings, which reduced capacity for children living in Plympton;

(f)

the former Cabinet Member for Children and Young People was not present to defend herself;

(g)

the current capital programme provided for two new schools at Honicknowle and Derriford.

‘TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION

Council notes that the Government is in the process of changing the way offenders are managed in the community including -

?

the creation of a new National Probation Service;

?

forming 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) replacing the former 35 Probation Trusts; 

?

creating a market to encourage new providers to manage the majority of offenders. 

The Council is deeply concerned that -

?

despite the Probation Service being awarded the British Quality Foundation’s highest honour in 2011 – Gold Medal for Excellence - for outstanding, sustained excellence, the transformation is going ahead with a high risk that the new CRCs will not meet these standards;

?

there is a potential for CRCs to put profit before the best interests of the public; and questions over their expertise and experience point to delivery risks; 

?

the top down approach to change provides little opportunity for local influence and flies in the face of the Government’s claims to promote localism;

?

the significant cost of the reform will have to be met from budget that could be better directed at front line offender management;

?

despite Devon and Cornwall already being one of the largest Probation Trust geographical areas, and coterminous with the Police, Dorset is being added to our Contract Package Area (CPA);

?

Plymouth’s voice could get lost in such a large CPA and partnership working compromised;

?

it is hard to see how consultation feedback from stakeholders including local authorities, has influenced the proposals;

?

it is unclear who will be responsible for the financial risks (and any subsequent harm to the community) if a CRC should ‘go under’;

?

it is unclear whether there will be robust and credible measures for reducing reoffending;

?

there is no evidence that the changes will help address current concerns about transition for offenders between Youth Offending Services and adult Probation Services.

Plymouth City Council therefore agrees to –

(1)

make representations to the Ministry of Justice regarding our outstanding concerns;

(2)

ask local MPs and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall to similarly lobby the Ministry of Justice in respect of our concerns.‘ 

(a)

all offenders would have statutory supervision of at least 12 months;

(b)

offenders would have supervision with one provider from the time of custody until they were reintroduced into the community;

(c)

at present there were staff shortages, sickness, vacancies and court reports unwritten with senior management spending their time on restructuring;

(d) 

the services would not be joined up and CRC would not have access to the  full information;

(e)

the National Probation Service had been excluded from bidding for CRC services;

(f)

there was uncertainty as to who held the financial risk if CRC was unsuccessful;

(g)

the wasted money on IT and consultancy.

From

To

Subject

1

Councillor Rennie

Councillor Penberthy

With increasing evictions by private landlords, what action was Plymouth taking to provide homes?

Was he aware of the successful initiative at Mount Gould where the former social club was being developed for social housing following discussions with the community?

Response:  He was concerned at the behaviour of private sector landlords and more homes were needed.  Sites were being released for homes and a good mix was required to cater for families, couples and singles.

He congratulated Councillor Rennie on the initiative at Mount Gould which reflected local community needs.

2

Councillor  Jordan

Councillor Lowry

Why had the sale of green spaces proceeded in the light of pressures on local schools and doctors’ surgeries and without consultation with the local community and ward councillors?

Why was a community park with a football pitch (not regulation size) sold?

Response: Surplus property declarations were sent to all councillors to give them the opportunity to respond. They are then presented to Councillor Lowry prior to public consultation.  20 plots of land had been released predominantly on brown field sites (four had been on green field sites). Councillors were reminded that they had all supported the Plan for Homes.

3

Councillor Ball

Councillor Evans

Would Councillor Evans retract the comments he made in the Herald about the use of the camera car?

Response: No.

4

Councillor Foster

Councillor Vincent

Would he investigate the complaints procedure relating to bin collections as it was not working?

Response:  All complaints made were investigated.

5

Councillor Bowyer

Councillor Evans

Was the earlier reference made by the Leader to people being snobs, appropriate?

Would he withdraw the comment and apologise to residents?

Response:  The reference during the discussion on school places, related to members of the opposition, not residents.

6

Councillor Dr Mahony

Councillor Peter Smith

Would he guarantee that ice skating provision would continue at the Pavilions until alternative arrangements were in place and what was the proposed timescale for the replacement of the facilities?

Response:  Yes, ice skating provision would continue at the Pavilions until alternative arrangements were in place.  The timescale was not known as discussions with the developer were ongoing.

7

Councillor Casey

Councillor Evans

What was he doing to achieve openness and transparency? Will he stop councillors tweeting during meetings?  

Response:  Meetings were webcast. The Council was committed to openness and transparency and had published its record on Freedom of Information requests.  The public were able to attend meetings and to tweet. 

The Acting Monitoring Officer indicated that it was inappropriate to discuss this matter as a complaint had been made to him on this issue.

8

Councillor Mrs Bowyer

Councillors Penberthy /Peter Smith 

Why were the minutes of the Have Your Say meeting not posted on the Council’s website?

She had drafted the minutes herself.  What plans were there to improve the process?

Response: He would ensure that they were posted on the website and delays had been due to a lack of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.