Borough Services Policy and Review Panel - Monday, 12th September, 2016 7.00 pm - Agenda and minutes

            To approve the Minutes of the Meeting held on 13th June, 2016 (copy attached).

            The Minutes of the Meeting held on 13th June, 2016 were approved and signed by the Chairman.

            The Panel is asked to confirm the appointment of Cr. M.J. Roberts to the Borough Services policy and Review Panel, in place of Cr. C.P. Grattan, for the remainder of the 2016/17 Municipal Year.

            The Panel confirmed the appointment of Cr. M.J. Roberts to the Panel, in place of Cr. C.P. Grattan for the remainder of the 2016/17 Municipal Year.

            At the Cabinet meeting on 23rd August, 2016 approval was given to establish a Good Causes Lottery in the Borough. Ms. Amanda Fahey, Head of Finance, will provide a briefing on the action required to establish the lottery and the Panel will also  be asked to consider the eligibility criteria for the local good causes, which will benefit from the lottery.

The Panel welcomed Cr. G.B. Lyon, Cabinet Member for Concessions and Community Support, and Ms. Amanda Fahey, Head of Financial Services, who attended the meeting to brief the Panel on the actions required to establish the Cabinet approved Good Causes Lottery.

            The Panel received a presentation on an example of an existing lottery, showing how the lottery worked and projections of income for the good causes involved. It was advised that a procurement process would need to be undertaken to secure an operator for the lottery and eligibility criteria would need to be established to determine which good causes could benefit from the lottery. The chosen operator would take a percentage of the funds, usually 17-20%, a percentage would be set aside as a prize fund and the majority would be distributed to the good causes involved.

            The Council’s aim for the lottery was to empower and support local good causes with no risk to the Council. The role of the Council would be to hold the licence, authorise the monthly payments to the good causes, define eligibility and approve new causes as required. Initially the Council would also need to assist with marketing and promotion of the lottery.

            The Panel was asked how they could assist in determining the eligibility criteria for the lottery and it was AGREED that a small consultative group, involving Crs. T.D. Bridgeman, R. Cooper and M. Staplehurst would be established to liaise with the Cabinet Member for Concessions and Community Support and officers to set the guidelines for choosing good causes to benefit from the lottery.

            The Chairman thanked Cr. G.B. Lyon and Ms. Fahey for their presentation.

            To receive a presentation from Mr. Colin Alborough, Environmental Health Officer on activities and emerging issues in the Borough.

            The Chairman welcomed Mr. Colin Alborough, Environmental Health Manager, who attended the meeting to report on activities and emerging issues relating to health and safety regulation and business support in the Borough.

            The Panel received a presentation, which included changes within the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), where the Government had announced that 84% of health and safety regulations had been scrapped or improved in recent years. The HSE had rationalised and simplified the advice to businesses, making the HSE’s website easier to navigate and making it clearer for users to determine what needed to be done to achieve health and safety standards. Even though the HSE now directed the work that local authorities were required to do, the new National Code gave greater flexibility to allow officers to target local priorities.

            It was reported that health and safety ill health incidents in Rushmoor, cost the local economy between £22.1 - £33.9 million per year and between £7.1 - £12.9 million per annum for the cost of accidents.

Locally the service supported local businesses and residents and regulated their health and safety needs. This was achieved through a number of measures including interventions with duty holders identified as poor performers; the licensing and registration of tattooist and skin piercers; and leading on a number of groups, including Safety Advisory Groups, Health & Safety Executive / Local Authorities Enforcement Liaison Committee (HELA) and the Farnborough Airshow Safety Advisory Group (SAG). The service also led on Corporate Health and Safety matters within the Council.

It was noted that the service carried out both proactive and reactive work. Proactive areas locally included targeted intervention, inspections of poor performers and project specific work, such as the Retail Violence initiative, which had highlighted that 95% of local employees had been subjected to violence at work and a number of workplaces in the Borough had no policy in place to deal with violence in the workplace. As a result of the initiative, 75% of the businesses targeted had committed to making changes to reduce risk in their workplaces. The reactive work locally involved licensing, asbestos, gas and CO safety, service requests and accidents and incidents.

Mr. Alborough advised that the service had commercialised some areas of their work through selling support packages to local business, training internal and external local authority staff and initiating full cost recovery, as a Primary Authority, for the Army and Consol, a national sunbed company. The aim would be to continue to develop the commercial offer to serve purpose and to provide income for the Council going forward.

The Panel discussed the role of the HSE relating to construction sites and other areas, which fell to the HSE for enforcement, and how more responsibility could be given to local authorities to address matters locally, quicker, through flexible warrants. It was advised that the HSE had pulled flexible warrants recently and officers were lobbying to address this issue.

In response to a query around how health and safety matters were articulated to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

To receive a briefing from Mrs Karen Edwards, Corporate Director on the current situation with the group and to hold a discussion to determine the way forward.

The Corporate Director, Mrs Karen Edwards, gave a presentation to the Panel on the activities, to date, of the Task and Finish Group, to help determine the role of the group in the future.

It was reported that the Group had met twice during the last Municipal Year and had shown an interest in engaging better with hard to reach groups, had thought about ways to get greater involvement in the democratic system and more effective consultation around service priorities. The Group had considered changes and challenges with elector involvement, as a result of the introduction of Individual Elector Registration, and the councils approach to consultation with residents on priorities and budgets from the need to make significant savings.

            The Panel was made aware of the Cabinet’s emerging priorities for 2017/18. Of these, a number directly related to improving involvement. As a result, the Panel felt that the Cabinet was demonstrating that they had recognised the need for better engagement with the local community and would be taking actions accordingly. 

            It was AGREED that there was no requirement for the Task and Finish Group to meet for the time being and that a discussion would be held at the next mid cycle meeting to consider the Cabinet’s priorities further and the appropriate time to invite the relevant Cabinet Member to report back on progress.

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

            The Panel noted the current work programme.