To elect the Chairman and Vice-Chairman for the municipal year.

Councillor Hari Sharma and Councillor Eileen Quick were elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively, for the ensuing municipal year.

RESOLVED: That Councillor Hari Sharma be elected Chairman and Councillor Eileen Quick be elected Vice-Chairman, for the ensuing municipal year.

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Wisdom Da Costa, Paul Lion and Julian Sharpe.

To receive any Declarations of Interest.

None.

To approve the Part I minutes of the meeting held on 17 May 2018.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 17 May 2018 be approved with the following additional text:

Regarding the Cycling Action Plan, Councillor Hunt had mentioned bike racks being installed in two schools in Hurley and the Walthams but she was concerned regarding cyclists getting back and forth with few people cycling because of the difficulties of cycling in that area.

To comment on the Cabinet report.

Russell O’Keefe, Executive Director, presented the report to Panel and Members noted the following key points:

Ø  The report set out the performance of the Council for 2017/18.

Ø  The report set out how the Council has been doing against 25 key performance measures.

Ø  The report was due to go to both Cabinet and Full Council.

Ø  The covering report stated the key projects such as AfC, Optalis, the joint venture with Countryside, the Maidenhead Golf Club site, School Expansion Project etc.

Ø  The annual reports were designed to be in a much more accessible format for Members, residents and businesses.

The Chairman stated he remembered the document being presented to Full Council in 2017 and the objective of the report was to improve the Council’s services overall whilst looking to reduce costs with residents still receiving good services. The report also helped to eliminate any lack of transparency. The Chairman was pleased with the report and the improved performance on last year.

The Chairman stated in table one of page 18 of the agenda pack, the strategic priorities showed two green indicators and one amber. There was also one red indicator in the customer service category. The Executive Director stated page 30 of the appendix showed each measure. The red indicator was for all two year olds being offered a review but the take up was only 57% however, reviews were not mandatory. The service launched the programme to promote services and the focus was on health and wellbeing.

The Executive Director confirmed that the amber in customer services was for calls answered in 60 seconds, and there was a range of work ongoing to improve the customer service experience which would improve that measure.

Councillor Quick stated the report looks like the Council is beating itself up on a target that had not been met even though the measure for 2 year olds to attend a health review was optional. The Executive Director responded there was a range of promotions of the service being implemented and he would feed comments back to the team. The service was offered to all parents, but it was up to them to take up the offer.

Councillor Quick asked if there was a specific issue with customer service calls being answered within 60 seconds; the KPI was sat at 66.2%. the Executive Director stated there was a range of factors and things had improved. The Council provided a very extended service as a Council, the Royal Borough was the only Council to offer a seven day a week service. Other customer service contact centres were only open 4.5 days per week whereas, the Royal Borough provided a far reaching service. So, there were peaks of phone calls received during the week but, also a new telephone system had been installed which should improve things, but, it would take a while for those improvements to flow through.

The Chairman stated looking through the document, the Council had met a lot of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To comment on the Cabinet report.

Councillor D. Evans introduced the report to Members and stated that with their support, the Council would be able to provide a new car park in Maidenhead by 202. He added the car park was a central piece in a jigsaw to deliver more parking in the Town Centre of Maidenhead as promised.

The site was occupied by businesses which vacated at the end of 2017 so it was now part of the plan for parking in Maidenhead. Last year, a paper came to Panel asking for a budget of £12m to provide mainly temporary car parking in Maidenhead. The proposals within the report were better as it would mean a reduction in temporary parking and the £8m that was originally earmarked for temporary parking could now be put towards permanent parking with some additional funding being received from the LEP. The funding would not only pay for permanent parking but, would also see 60 temporary spaces being made at Clyde House while the permanent car park was being built.

Councillor D. Evans stated he expected work to begin in the last quarter of 2018 and for the car park to be completed by January 2020. A planning application would be submitted for Broadway car park which would follow the completion of Vicus Way car park. Broadway car park and Vicus Way car park would give the Borough substantially more parking in the centre of Maidenhead. Councillor D. Evans said he had ensured at no point would there be a reduction in parking during the redevelopment of Maidenhead and the proposals in the report made sure that happened.

The Chairman stated he was involved in the discussions on temporary parking in the Town. The Panel was critical of those proposals so the new proposals were welcomed, it was a much better solution. Councillor D. Evans responded the original proposals contained a lot of temporary parking as the site had not been available at Vicus Way. Officers had worked very hard to obtain the site.

The Chairman stated having parking for a wider transport strategy was a good plan. Greater accessibility would generate income for businesses so it was a great investment for the Borough. The Borough had a transport strategy and he felt the Borough had a good balance between public transport and cars. He did however, query the size of the parking spaces as to why they were quite large. The Executive Director responded the spaces contractors had opted for were generous as they were more attractive for people to use. In response to questions as to why ANPR cameras were not being used, the Executive Director stated the market advice was that they were not a sensible route to go down.

Councillor Quick stated there had been mention of a busy car park in Windsor being expanded. Councillor D. Evans stated that was still going ahead at the River Street car park. Councillor Hunt commented the proposals were really great and she was pleased at not having the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To note the Work Programme.

Members of the Panel noted the details of the Work Programme.

To consider passing the following resolution:-

“That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the remainder of the meeting whilst discussion takes place on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraphs 1-7 of part I of Schedule 12A of the Act"

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That under Section 100 (A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public can be excluded from the remainder of the meeting whilst discussion takes place on item 9 on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 1 – 7 of Part I of Schedule 12A of the act.

To comment on the Part II appendicies.