Councillor McDonald (Cabinet member for Children and Young People)

(a) The 2 day OFSTED Inspection:

·         OFSTED Inspectors did not identify any children at risk of harm of whom the local authority had not provided an appropriate service;

·         Social Workers were well supported and morale was high;

·         the Out of Hours services was seen inspected as good.

(b) Together for Childhood:

·         Plymouth was one of four cities that bid for this project and was successfully chosen;

·         this was a 10 year project;

·         neighbourhoods were looked at and Ernesettle was selected.

Councillor Tuffin (Cabinet member for Health and Adult Social Care)  –

·         the social prescribing service based in Woseley trust had been awarded a Department of Health funding of £334,000 over three years;

·         the Cabinet would like to pass their thanks on to the Adult Safeguarding team for their hard work

Councillor Haydon (Cabinet member for Customer Focus and Community Safety) –

·         the consultation for the Crematorium opened on Friday 10 August 2018 and several consultation events would be taking place at Weston Mill;

·         dementia friendly signs and stickers had been placed at First Stop to help people suffering with dementia to keep their independence.

Councillor Dann (Cabinet member for Environment and Street scene) –

·         additional extra recycling bins were positioned at the Ocean City Sounds and collected 200kg of glass, 50kg of cans, 25kg of paper and 925kg of plastics;

·         there were a number flood spots in Plymouth and a project to identify where all gullies were in Plymouth is well under way they had so far cleaned 26,500 gullies across the city;

·         the consultation for Plan for Tree’s was due to start shortly;

·         work was underway to make pathways safer in Plymouth especially around schools;

·         work was underway to improve playing pitches and access to good sports facilities in Plymouth.

Councillor Coker (Cabinet member for Strategic Planning and Infrastructure) –

·         approval for the Forder Valley Link Road had been given. This aimed to improve journey times and traffic flow;

·         the Department for Transport had earmarked £22.5m towards this scheme which would cost in total £37.9m.

Councillor Taylor (Cabinet member for Education Skills and Transformation) –

·         there was a 1% increase in KS2 results which highlighted a slight improvement in reading, writing and maths;

·         Supported internships with Plymouth City Council for young people with special educational needs and disabilities;

·         the Government have withdrawn the Schools Improvement programme fund without spending £84m of the money they had allocated;

·         the LGA report that has been published highlighted that Council have a greater impact improving schools than academy chains.

Councillor Penberthy (Cabinet member for Housing and Co-operative Development)  –

·         Homes England offered a £4.42m grant from the accelerated construction  fund, this will help open up over 450 homes;

·         Plymouth City Council will be bidding to the Community Homes fund and will be open to bids until March 2020.

·         there was concern surrounding announcements from Government regarding funding for homelessness;

·         Plymouth City Council will be putting funding into homelessness;

·         Plymouth City Council will be signing off a new Housing Standards Enforcement procedure to help tackle bad landlords;

·         Co-op’s UK will be working with Plymouth City Council to map the city’s existing economy and to formulate  an action plan to double its size.

Councillor Smith (Deputy Leader) –

·         the Elizabethan house project team have been successful  in round 1 of their application to secure support for regeneration of the building;

·         findings show around £500m invested in marketing Mayflower internationally to date and has an audience reach of 772m;

·         £3m had been allocated from the Capital programme for the development of three new Heritage trails;

·         congratulations to Matt Dixon who received a silver medal in the Mens Platform Diving Syncro in the European Championships;

·         Tinside and Mountwise pools had seen their highest attendance in seven years;

·         work had commenced on the Manadon Community Sports hub;

·         highlighted the launch of the Summer Reading Challenge and that one of the city’s libraries had been awarded Beano’s library of the week;

·         would like to congratulate the Elections team for their work in the recent bi-election;

·         would like to congratulate the Events team for all their work over this busy period with Armed Forces Day, Plymouth Pride and Ocean City Sounds;

·         the unveiling of the Nancy Astor Blue Plaque at Elliott Terrace;

·         LGA commented on the high engagement of the Scrutiny training held in August.

Cabinet Agreed -

1.    to launch a campaign to give Local Authorities back the powers that have been removed for school improvement.

2.    to show SEND internship video at the next Cabinet meeting and put the video on Plymouth City Council’s website.