Borough Services Policy and Review Panel - Monday, 15th June, 2015 7.00 pm - Agenda and minutes

            To appoint a Chairman of the Panel for the 2015/16 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED: That Cr. Barbara Hurst be appointed Chairman for the            2015/16 Municipal Year.

            To appoint a Vice-Chairman of the Panel for the 2015/16 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED: That Cr. A.R. Newell be appointed Vice-Chairman for the      2015/16 Municipal Year.

            To approve the Minutes of the Meeting held on 23rd March 2015 (copy attached).

            The Minutes of the Meeting held on 23rd March. 2015 were approved and signed by the Chairman.

(1)          Mid Cycle Meetings –

            To appoint group representatives to attend the mid cycle meetings for the 2015/16 Municipal Year. In 2014/15, the representatives appointed were the Chairman (Cr. Barbara Hurst), the Vice-Chairman (Cr. A.M.J. Chainey) and Crs. M.J. Roberts and M. Staplehurst.

(2)          Elections Group –

            The Elections Group has been established jointly by this Panel and the Licensing and General Purposes Committee. Appointments to the Group were made at the Licensing and General Purposes Committee on 28th May, 2015 as follows:-

            Cabinet Member for Concessions and Community Support (Cr. A. Jackman)

            Chairman of the Licensing and General Purposes Committee (Cr. A. M. Ferrier)

            Cr. D.M.T. Bell

            Cr. K. Dibble

            Cr. Barbara Hurst

            Cr. B. Jones

Cr. S.J. Masterson

            The Committee is asked to endorse the membership.

(3)          Community Involvement Task and Finish Group

            To appoint representatives to participate in the Community Involvement Task and Finish for the Municipal Year 2015/16.

(1)          Mid Cycle Meeting –

            RESOLVED: That the Chairman (Cr. Barbara Hurst), the Vice-          Chairman (Cr. A.R. Newell) and Crs. M.J. Roberts be appointed to     attend the mid-cycle meetings for the 2015/16 Municipal Year.

(2)          Elections Group –

RESOLVED: That membership of the Elections Group for the 2015/16 Municipal Year, as appointed by the Licensing and General Purposes Committee, being the Cabinet Member for Concessions and Community Support (Cr. A. Jackman), the Chairman of the Licensing and General Purposes Committee (Cr. A.M. Ferrier) and Crs. D.M.T. Bell, K. Dibble, Barbara Hurst, B. Jones and S.J. Masterson be endorsed.

(3)          Community Involvement Task and Finish Group –

RESOLVED: That the Chairman (Cr. Barbara Hurst) and Crs. D.E. Clifford, A.H. Crawford, C.P. Grattan and J.J. Preece be appointed to the Community Involvement Task and Finish Group for the 2015/16 Municipal Year.

            To receive a presentation from Mr. Greg Alexander on the activities and working arrangements of the service.

The Panel welcomed Mr. Greg Alexander, Chief Executive Officer of Rushmoor Voluntary Services, who attended the meeting to give an update on the activities and working arrangements of Rushmoor Voluntary Services (RVS).

It was advised that RVS was a charity that provided help and support to other charities and voluntary organisations, championed volunteering and ran the Rushmoor Volunteer Centre. RVS had 410 member organisations, an increase of 21% in the previous five years. It was felt that the growing membership was very positive and endorsed the key role of RVS in the Borough. RVS was currently funded through grants from Rushmoor Borough Council and Hampshire County Council; which enabled it to manage projects funded separately from grants and contracts that delivered community benefits.

Mr. Alexander reported on the work and projects of RVS, these included:

·         Group Support, Training and Development – Group support through the provision of information and support to groups, that related to new projects, identification of funding streams and the creation of partnership opportunities. Training had been provided to 361 individuals from 94 organisations through the delivery of courses such as first aid, food hygiene, lone working and adult safeguarding. RVS also had a Development Officer who provided support to members and worked in the community with partners on a range of things, in particular key neighbourhood projects, community cohesion and links between groups and partner organisations.

·         Volunteer Centre – The priority of the centre had been to place members of the public into volunteering and, through work with RVS members, to develop future volunteering opportunities. The outreach service based at Aldershot Library and Techstart had continued to identify new volunteers in the Aldershot area. Annually RVS hosted a recognition event at the Council Offices to celebrate different aspects of volunteering, in 2014 young volunteers had been recognised and for 2015 it would be the hard work of Board members and Trustees of local organisations.

·         Blooming Marvellous – this project provided a valuable service to people with or recovering from mental illness. The group worked on a community garden based at the Aldershot allotments and carried out a range of gardening services for elderly and disabled residents. The Panel noted that funding for this project had been secured for a further three years through Broadhurst Welcome Home Ltd.

·         Broadhurst Community Access Project – this initiative supported local people and provided essential support of life skills and other relevant issues. Funding had also been secured for this project for a further three years through Broadhurst Welcome Home Ltd.

·         RVS Home Help – This service provided home cleaning and shopping services to elderly and frail people in the Borough. Clients were referred through health care professionals and adult services and users were charged for the service. The current client base was 358 individuals. Partial funding for users on benefits had in the past been provided by Hampshire County Council’s “Supporting People” initiative but this had stopped in March 2015. As a consequence, communication had been taking place with those  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

            The Environmental Health Manager, Mr. Colin Alborough to provide an update on food safety.

The Panel welcomed Mr. Colin Alborough, Environmental Health Manager, and Mr. Oliver Robinson, Principal Food Safety Officer, who attended the meeting to give the Panel an update on the Council’s Food Safety Policy including emerging issues and demand.

The Panel were made aware of a number of new issues and initiatives, including new legislation around food allergies and intolerances, food labels would highlight in “bold”, food types that could cause allergic reactions and intolerances, such as nuts, wheat, milk etc. The Government had also produced “eatwell – your guide to healthy eating”, the guide included eight top tips covering all aspects of eating a healthy balanced diet. It was advised that there had also been a new two stage cleaning process introduced to help combat germs such as e-coli.

Mr. Alborough advised of the purposes of the Food and Health and Safety Team, which were linked to the Council’s purpose and themes and were developed through systems thinking principles. The purposes were:

·         To ensure that food and drink on sale for human consumption, which had been produced, stored, handled or consumed in the Borough was without risk to the health and safety of the consumer.

·         To enable good business.

The Panel noted that the service worked to the Food Standards Agency Framework Agreement and the Food Law Code of Practice, each of which described the role of an enforcing authority and provided risk based proactive and reactive intervention and business support.

Mr. Alborough reported on the demand on the service, especially:

·         Inspecting and rating businesses – during 2014/15, 372 existing businesses were formally inspected and rated. Businesses were scored on a 0-5 Food Hygiene Rating, those with the lower score received support and intervention from the authority to bring their rating higher. It was noted that five businesses in the Borough rated one or below at the end of 2014/15.

·         Supporting new business – during 2014/15, 135 new business were supported prior to opening and inspected and rated after opening.

·         Responding to statutory notifications and having a reactive role with service requests – the service received around 550 service requests per year. These requests included complaints about food and food premises, food alerts/recalls and notifications of infectious disease.

·         The role of Primary Authority to the British Army – wherever the British Army consumed food it did so in accordance with guidance agreed with Rushmoor Environmental Health Services. A Primary Authority (PA) was a partnership between businesses and a single local authority for environmental health with the following characteristics:

o   The PA provided robust and reliable advice which had to be respected by all local regulators.

o   A national inspection plan could be produced to improve the effectiveness of inspections to avoid repeat checks

o   The PA enabled better information sharing

o   The PA had the authority to co-ordinate enforcement to ensure a consistent and proportionate response to issues

o   Businesses had the right to decide on the level of support it received from its local PA

o   A PA  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

            To note the Panel’s work programme (copy attached).

The Panel noted the current work programme.