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congratulations were offered to all nominees and winners of the Council’s Star Awards which took place on Saturday 14 September 2019; the event celebrated the achievements of staff and partners;

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Safer Plymouth (Community Safety Partnership) were successful in their application for Purple Flag status for the City. The Purple Flag was given to cities and towns that meet or surpass the standards of excellence in managing its evening and night time economy. The assessors commented that the application was one of the best they have received and as a result we were nominated for three awards which was unusual for a new applicant.  Plymouth were pleased to win the Wellbeing Award and were runners up for two other awards. Rachael Hind, Licensing Service Manager, Chief Inspector Rob Mooney and Cat Macdonald from Best Bar None attended the meeting to accept the awards;

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Plymouth had a busy weekend on 14 and 15 September 2019 hosting a variety of events including the Respect Festival, the Seafood Festival, Marine Park celebrations, the Topper Sailing Nationals, the Star Awards and the launch of the Music Fightback series of concerts;

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reference was made to Brexit planning however details would be provided at Cabinet on 17 September 2019.

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Plymouth City Council declared a climate change emergency in March 2019 and had since signed up to Devon-wide emergency declaration recognising that a collaborative approach was essential. There were plans for the Council to deliver 54 pop-up electric vehicle charging points across the city, to change 61 vehicles in the Council’s existing fleet to electric vehicles resulting in a saving of 1000 tonnes of C02 over an eight year period as well as plans to build a solar car port at Milehouse Park and Ride;

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the Council had developed a Climate Emergency Action Plan –  which had seven key themes including, engagement and responsibility, corporate emissions, city wide approach, mobility, biodiversity, homes, business and new green power generation. The Action Plan would be submitted to Full Council in November 2019;

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Plymouth declared that it was to develop the first Marine Park in the country; it was hoped that this would be a legacy for Plymouth and a great opportunity for the city, in terms of sustainability, economically and health and wellbeing;

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the customer services team were congratulated for their work in achieving improved efficiency, savings and continuing to improve housing benefit and council tax benefit support processing times. The team had also achieved the top quantile performance compared with all local authorities across the country for the DWP to reduce fraud, through data matching verified pensions and earning schemes;

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in the recent government spending review, the Chancellor announced an additional £1billion of funding for both Adults Social Care and Children’s Social Care; it was estimated that Plymouth would be allocated approximately £5.3m however confirmation was expected in December 2019. Government was consulting on an additional adult social care precept which would enable councils to access a further £0.5b. It was considered that the funding announcement, whilst welcome, wasn’t sufficient to address the level of demand experienced in adult and children social care in Plymouth or across the rest of the Country. Council Officers were thanked for their hard work despite the pressures placed upon them;

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the Plymouth School Swimming Programme had been very successful; 74 schools had attended swimming lessons, 21,000 students had been through the programme since 2012 and over 3,600 students took part in 2019. Over the course of the programme, 92% had improved by at least one level, and 71% had achieved national curriculum targets;

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the recent announcement of the comprehensive spending review detailed that public health funding to the critical services commissioned by the Local Authority would receive a real terms increase; this was welcomed as Plymouth had historically been underfunded by 22% and life expectancy of the most deprived women was decreasing and infant mortality increasing;

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the Fit and Fed Summer Project was a success for the city. The sports development unit coordinated 54 holiday clubs across the city providing 24,438 free places for children aged 4-18. They worked in partnership with 35 different delivery partners including Argyle Community Trust, Plymouth Raiders, Everyone Active, Mount Batten Water Sports Centre, Routeways, Libraries and local schools. In total 1,618 disadvantaged children enjoyed a healthy happy holiday thanks to the grant received from the Department for Education. A variety of activities were undertaken including forestry skills, science and STEM workshops, street dance and water sports. 23,867 healthy meals were provided with the thanks to CaterEd. Over 1200 hours of additional support was provided to allow children with additional needs to take part in the activities. A full impact of the citywide project was being evaluated;

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by using reusable bottles, over 36,500 single use bottles were prevented from being purchased and going into landfill;

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on 16 September 2020 the Mayflower 400 celebrations will be taking place.

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a mental health scrutiny select review assessing services from the cradle to the grave was due to commence shortly; the Chair and Vice Chair of the Education and Children’s Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee would be invited to sit however all backbench Councillors who wanted to be a part of the review were encouraged to respond to the request for attendance.