(a)

the Board made the following recommendations to Cabinet relating to the Medium Term Financial Strategy 2010-14 –

?

a review of the reserve provision of the insurance general fund for future years be undertaken;

?

the update strategy be adopted by the City Council;

(b)

a full report on Transformational Change Programme would be provided to the Board early in 2011;

(c)

discussions would be held between the Scrutiny Chairs and LSP Theme Group Chairs, in order to foster better links;

(d)

the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board would form the membership of a task and finish group to undertake a review of how the scrutiny function could better engage with the media;

(e)

a PID was being drafted for the Management Board to undertake a task and finish group into the final sign off of the Devonport Regeneration Company Partnership Succession Strategy;

(f)

recommendations from the scrutiny of the draft Corporate Plan 2011-2014 and the Revenue and Capital Budgets 2011/12 would be made to Cabinet for consideration.

(a)

programme governance;

(b)

programme work stream overview –

?

Plymouth Life Centre – progress;

?

leisure management contract including the procurement timetable;

?

ice and associated facilities;

(c)

Project Manager’s report.

(d)

as a result of the recent adverse weather conditions, the construction timetable for the project would be delayed by five weeks, although the project was still on target to be completed by autumn 2011 and there were no cost implications;

(e)

the procurement process for the leisure management contract was progressing; Cabinet approval would be sought at the end of March 2011; (the pane would have an opportunity to scrutinise the award of the contract prior to its submission to Cabinet);

(f)

approval had been given by the Cabinet to progress with the soft market testing of the Pavilions site, to ascertain if there was any interest from the private sector in the site and also the delivery of the ice and arena facilities.

(g)

the ice facility would close five weeks later than anticipated to reflect the current delay in the construction process;

(h)

the contractor was currently undertaking an assessment of what the effect of the adverse weather conditions had on the project and the implications to the programme;

the contractor had extensive experience of delivering a project of this size and was doing everything it could to keep the project on target for completion in autumn 2011;

(i)

the Assistant Chief Executive was currently working on proposals to bring forward a solution for Brickfields;

(j)

clear communication plans were in place for all staff in those facilities that would be affected by the award of the leisure management contract;

(k)

it had been previously estimated that the facility would attract one million attendances a year; in order to achieve this the facility would be actively marketed.

(a)

at present there were 1400 allotment tenants , on a total of 32 sites city wide;

(b)

the budget in 2009/10 was £87,799 which combined both private and commercial rents; this budget had been used to fund the daily maintenance of each site together with officers’ salaries;

(c)

the cost of a full plot was £31 per annum and a half plot £15.50 per annum; all tenants were required to pay an initial £5 for the key to the allotment site; water charges were shared equally by all the tenants on each site;

(d)

the total income received for 2009/2010 which included private rental income, commercial rent and other income totaled £31,563;

(e)

in 2010 there were 1201 people on the waiting list for allotments;

(f)

Knowle Avenue was the newest site in the city which offered 40 full sized plots and one school plot;

(g)

accessibility to the sites had been increased which had included a series of adaptation works (raised beds, car parking closer to the sites, gravel and tarmac footpaths and handrails);

(h)

following a successful pilot scheme, half size plots had been introduced in 2003, as people had been finding it difficult to maintain full size plots;

(i)

future projects included the Central Park Action Plan which proposed amendments to some of the allotment sites within Central Park and the production of an allotment strategy;

(j)

both section 106 and capital receipts from the sale of land used for allotments could be used to develop new sites, or improve capacity and function of existing ones;

(k)

the service regularly benchmarked against other local authorities to ensure the delivery of an excellent service and to adopt best practices.

(l)

the provision  of the allotment service was a statutory one;

(m)

in order to increase the fees in line with other local authorities, a benchmarking exercise was being undertaken; although it was anticipated that the increase in the fees would not be substantial as this could lead to the service being unaffordable to residents;

(n)

Cardiff was just one of the local authorities that the city benchmarked itself against;

(o)

the council was currently looking at increasing the capacity of the service via extending current sites and renting private land;

(p)

there were specific issues with the number of people on the waiting list; some people wanted particular sites and were unhappy to accept other sites that were offered;

(q)

work was currently being carried out with the planning department to build into the planning process the use of section 106 monies to fund the provision of allotments;

(r)

the area near the castle at Plympton St Maurice was unsuitable as an allotment site, due to the large trees shading the area and inhibiting the growth of plants;

(s)

additional facilities, such  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58.

(a)

the level of violence at the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy match, at Home Park between Plymouth Argyle and Exeter City on 9 November 2010, had not been seen in a considerable number of years;

(b)

sixty-six police officers together with dog handlers had been deployed at the match;

(c)

the migration of home supporters to the away supporters’ end had been difficult to manage by police officers and stewards; this had been due to people standing in the footways and stairways; both police officers and stewards had been forced to stand on pitch side during the match to prevent any confrontation between the rival supporters;

(d)

following the game it had taken 40 minutes to clear the stadium and move the Exeter supporters to the coaches;

(e)

the traffic management on match days of the car park, was the responsibility of Plymouth Argyle Football Club, although all parties were working together to improve this.

(f)

there had been a change in the law which meant that the police did not have the responsibility for traffic management at pre planned events, unless there was an emergency (police officers were permitted to direct traffic if there was a road traffic accident or an emergency); the current traffic management arrangements had been agreed between the council, police and Plymouth Argyle;

(g)

the police had not given the match a low priority, as the potential for trouble had been recognised albeit at a lower level than was witnessed; 66 police officers had been deployed at the match compared to much lower numbers at normal matches;

(h)

the Safety Advisory Group had been established for all league football clubs following the Hillsborough tragedy; the group –

?

allowed all relevant parties to discuss and resolve any safety issues;

?

comprised representatives from the council, police, fire, ambulance and Plymouth Argyle Football Club;

?

oversaw the Safety Certificate which was issued by the council’s Licensing Committee;

(i)

the car park was licensed to Plymouth Argyle on match days and associated traffic management arrangements were the subject of discussions between Plymouth Argyle and the Council with the view to identifying improvements;

(j)

one flare had been thrown onto the side of the pitch (if the flare had landed on the pitch, the game would have been stopped); all stewards had been trained to NVQ level 2 which included fire training (it was a requirement of the Safety Certificate that all stewards received fire training); as a result of this incident buckets of sand were available at pitch side should this event occur in the future; one person was due in court in February 2011 in relation to this incident;

(k)

the issuing of the Safety Certificate was the responsibility of the council, however, if the requirement of the certificate  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59.