Agenda and minutes

Venue: Virtual Meeting - Online access

Contact: Shilpa Manek  01628 796310

Video Stream: Click here to watch this meeting on YouTube

Items
No. Item

127.

WELCOME FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed all to the meeting and read out the virtual meeting note.

 

128.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

To receive any apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Parish Councillor Pat MacDonald.

129.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST pdf icon PDF 219 KB

To receive any declarations of interest.

Minutes:

Councillor Baldwin declared a personal interest that he was a volunteer and Patron of Foodshare Maidenhead in case he asked any questions in relation to that organisation at the meeting. Councillor Baldwin was not a voting member of the Panel.

 

130.

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING pdf icon PDF 378 KB

To agree the minutes of the last meeting held on 18 January 2021.

Minutes:

The Chairman stated that he had not declared a personal interest at the last meeting and wanted it added to the minutes. Councillor Bowden declared that he was an appointed trustee by the borough for The Old Court. There was no financial interest. The Old Court was in Councillor Bowden’s ward.

 

Councillor Bhangra declared a similar concern that he had not declared a personal interest that he had made a donation to Norden Farm and it was in his ward. Councillor Bhangra also declared that he was a member of the Grenfell Park user group. These items were discussed as part of the budget report at the last meeting.

 

Councillor Bowden requested an amendment to the previous minutes on page 17 in relation to page 80, Outdoor facilities, cemeteries and churchyards. Councillor Bowden requested it be changed to “With land being in short supply, should there not be a greater price differential between cremation, which I assume takes up much less land, than burial plots, again is it a statutory service.”

 

The Clerk would check the recording of the meeting and make the amendments if that was factually correct.

 

The Panel were happy with this action.

 

ACTION: Clerk to listen to recording and make amendments if appropriate.

131.

SERCO OPERATIONS UPDATE pdf icon PDF 191 KB

To receive an operations update from SERCO.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Katy Bassett, Regional Director (South), Environmental Services, Serco UK & Europe, gave a presentation to the Panel. Katy Basset informed the Panel that Roy Fulton had been appointed as the RBWM contract manager.

 

Mr John Webb, resident, asked for information about some administrative questions, these would be addressed and resolved offline.

 

Councillor Bhangra thanked Katie Bassett and asked if SERCO were confident that they would be able to deliver the two weekly collection without any misses as the last change in August 2020 had caused many problems for many months, which had now improved. Councillor Bhangra supported the two-weekly collection. He asked what had been learnt from the last set of issues and was there anything in place to prevent them happening again. Finally, Councillor Bhangra asked if an equality impact assessment had been carried out. Katie Bassett responded that sometimes the most learning could be achieved in the most challenging periods and SERCO had learnt a great deal in the last six to eight months. There were a number of things when SERCO went live with the target operating model in August 2020 that would now be done differently. The main thing was the fluctuation of tonnage that the borough and many other councils across the UK had encountered as a direct consequence of Covid 19. The fluctuations in the borough were acute since the service had been set up in an incredible efficient manner with the twin pack nature of vehicles. SERCO now had twelve months of the fluctuating tonnage data so that underpinned a lot of assumptions. The second point was that the previous change had been carried out in an exceptional timeframe due to other factors. The confidence was currently high as SERCO were now providing more crew over a six day period and meeting all demands and it had also given SERCO a really good platform for starting to plan for the change and think more about the enduring solution for several months. It had been a significant change in service.

 

With regard to the risk mitigation, there had been a number of changes especially working more closely with the borough. Staff engagement had markedly improved over the last six months. Additional raining before the go-live date had been planned and the team were working closely with drivers and supervisors and taking their views. The go-live date was set in June as there were no bank holidays so there would be no additional changes to the service. The complaints log had given SERCO a really good understanding of the borough. A response to the equality Impact assessment question would be taken away and a response would be sent to Councillor Bhangra.

 

ACTION: SERCO to provide EQIA information to Councillor Bhangra.

 

Simon Dale, Interim Head of Highways, added that the plan was to overcome a very complex change in the simplest of terms considering the three C’s; Communications which was critical to this, explaining the change that was going to effect the service as early as possible,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 131.

132.

DISTRICT ENFORCEMENT UPDATE pdf icon PDF 193 KB

To receive an update on District Enforcement.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Simon Dale introduced Warren Hodgson, Director, District Enforcement, who would be giving the presentation and answering any questions. Colin Buchanan, Head of Operations and Daniel Edwards, would also be present at the meeting to answer questions.

 

Mr John Webb, resident, asked what was the breakdown of the types of litter that had been collected? Warren Hodgson responded that he did not have the breakdown to hand but could inform the Panel that fixed penalty notices were issued for multiple amounts of litter that was found that had been dropped across the UK and the borough was cigarette litter. Warren Hodgson reported that 77% of litter dropped was cigarette litter, which was the lowest in the UK.

 

Mr John Webb asked why was there no table presented where quarter by quarter of litter collected could be compared? Simon Dale responded that it had only been a quarter so far and the pilot was in the second quarter now. Going through the pilot, the tables would be compiled.

 

Mr John Webb asked if it was known, how much volume in cubic meters of litter had been removed by the enforcement actions. Simon Dale advised that this was not known.

 

Mr John Webb asked if the activity of dog fouling was still part of the remit of DE and would it remain for the remainder of the pilot. Neil Walter, Parking Principal, informed the Panel that another team were in the process of putting together a Public Safety Protection Order for dog fouling. This would remain part of the DE’s remit but until the PSPO was finalised, DE could not enforce for dog fouling. Mr Webb asked for an explanation of why it was necessary to propose different rules of enforcement for dog fouling and unruly dogs in the recent consultation on protected spaces, when a different approach for enforcement for enforcement of dog fouling. This created a discriminatory element in favour of dog owners as they would get a warning before proceeding to enforcement. Neil Walter informed the Panel that he could not answer as he was not responsible for the PSPO. However, he was happy to take away and get a response to Mr Webb.

 

ACTION: Neil Walter to get response for Mr Webb

 

Mr Watts, public speaker, asked why do the DE target cigarette butts in the town centre? Warren Hodgson informed the Panel that the officers did not target cigarette butts but they did patrol areas. Mr Watts was advised that individual cases could not be discussed.

 

Mr Watts continued and asked that if it was the case that there were a lot of cigarette butts littered, why were there not more bins in place? Simon Dale informed the Panel that they could look into bin provision within the town centres.

 

ACTION: The provision of bins to be looked into in the town centres

 

Mr Watts suggested that maybe it was more about educating rather than fining.

Councillor Del Campo thanked Warren Hodgson. Councillor Del Campo raised one concern  ...  view the full minutes text for item 132.

133.

WINDSOR MUSEUM & TOURIST OFFICE pdf icon PDF 56 KB

To consider the report.

Minutes:

Chris Joyce, Head of Infrastructure, Sustainability and Economic Growth, introduced the self-explanatory report. This was one of the items currently going through the budget process and the main purpose was not to debate the issues around the budget but to ask questions and feed in suggestions around the development of the joint service within the Guildhall and the opportunity for people to indicate what they see as the priorities of the service moving forward.

 

Councillor Price asked about Friends of the museum and if they had been invited to be involved, they were not mentioned anywhere. Chris Joyce commented that they had been involved and had fed into the survey. They were part of the project team.

 

Councillor Rayner commented that all the volunteers had been and would be involved too.

 

Councillor Price asked what feedback had been received from the MOT and the survey. Chris Joyce informed the Panel that the survey had only just been completed so feedback was being looked at. The MOT feedback could be shared with the Panel.

 

ACTION: Chris Joyce to share feedback with Panel

 

Councillor Price asked what the project was hoping to achieve. Chris Joyce responded that the main thing was to achieve a more effective use of the resource that was there. In addition to the savings, there were potential opportunities that could be delivered by co-location of the service.

 

Councillor Price asked who had been consulted about the move of the tourist information service, what organisations had been involved? Chris Joyce informed the Panel that there was a Visit Windsor Board, this included the largest organisations or the most important organisations in terms of tourism, the big attractions and the smaller local businesses and the visit Windsor partnership. These had all been engaged with throughout the process of redesigning the service.

 

ACTION: Provide who had been consulted and their views

 

Councillor Rayner thanked the team and looked forward to coming back strong after Covid.

134.

PLASTIC FREE STRATEGY pdf icon PDF 2 MB

To consider the report.

Minutes:

Chris Joyce introduced the report. In December 2018, a motion was passed at Full Council that as part of the process, this was incorporated into the environment climate strategy. Chris Joyce thanked Paul Hinton and Jess Reid who had played a really important part in pulling together and driving forward the strategy which was endorsed by Cabinet in December at the same time as the adoption of the climate strategy.

 

Councillor Del Campo thanked Plastic free Windsor for their work with the strategy.

 

Councillor Del Campo commented that there was no specific budget in the proposed budget but the process should begin to look at low cost ways to start implementing aspects of the strategy. A good start would be to set up refill stations at the town hall in Maidenhead and at the Guildhall in Windsor. Councillor Del Campo suggested that Cabinet was asked for an implementation timetable and ask Cabinet to prioritise ideas such as the refill stations, which were both low cost and easy to implement. Chris Joyce reassured the Panel that as part of the delivery planning that was being done for the overall environmental climate strategy, all actions from the plastic free strategy were being included and built into the five year delivery plan for the environmental climate strategy. Chris Joyce informed the Panel that he would be discussing with Paul Hinton on what actions to prioritise.

 

Councillor Price asked Paul Hinton to inform the Panel about the recent award that they had received as it was something to celebrate.

 

Councillor Davey saluted Paul Hinton for being persistent and not taking no for an answer.

 

Paul Hinton thanked everyone for their kind comments. Paul Hinton continued to inform the Panel that they were an extension of the marine conservation charity, surfers against sewage. About three years ago, they set up a plastic free community campaign whereby communities up and down the country could engage in achieving five introductory objectives to become a plastic free community. There were 700 communities working towards the same award and just over 100 communities who had achieved it. On 21 December, Paul Hinton was informed that he had joined that group of communities and of the hundred, Windsor was in the top twenty in terms of size of community. Windsor was one of the largest communities to have got the award. The awards demonstrated that the Windsor campaign was sustainable and as a result the objectives pass from the charity to a steering committee. Councillors Stimson, Rayner and Lynne Jones were on the steering committee setting the direction and pace for the campaign. The award also recognised that this was a community campaign involving Windsor schools, businesses, community organisations and the council.

 

Councillor Stimson thanked Paul Hinton as an integral part of the development of the environmental climate change strategy and for being a solid supporter all the way through.

 

Councillor Del Campo asked that the comments of this discussion went to Cabinet. Chris Joyce informed the Panel that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 134.

135.

DRAFT ANNUAL SCRUTINY REPORT pdf icon PDF 163 KB

To draft the Annual Scrutiny Report.

Minutes:

The clerk gave a brief introduction about the annual scrutiny report and laid out the way to go forward. Panel members had only looked at section 7, improvements going forward. The clerk suggested that Panel Members emailed any comments to the clerk and then the clerk could draft a report.

 

ACTION: Panel Members to email Clerk by Friday 28 February with comments.

136.

COVID UPDATE

To receive a verbal update.

Minutes:

David Scott, Head of Communities, gave a verbal update on Covid 19.

Councillor Price asked about the impact on the communities and the areas with which the panel was concerned about. There had very clearly been impacts of all sorts across the borough. David Scott informed the panel that the issues were ongoing and further work was underway to assess the support available and also new initiatives were being looked into to try and get a full understanding of where else support could be given through the transformation work which included some of the community engagement work. Councillor Price wanted to know about the community groups that had been harder hit. It would help to see those community groups at a future meeting.

 

ACTION: David Scott to investigate community groups that had been hardest hit and bring information to a future meeting.

 

137.

WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 245 KB

To consider the Panel’s work programme for the remainder of the Municipal year.

 

To include consideration of items scheduled on the Cabinet Forward Plan.

 

 

Minutes:

The clerk went through the work programme. Councillor Price requested an update on SportsAble and was advised that an update was due to be given in Part II.

The clerk reminded the Panel that they could add items to the work programme at any time.

 

David Scott informed the Panel that Q2 Performance Report had been clarified by Thames Valley Police. Would the Panel like that information in March or April? The Chairman suggested presenting the figures at the April meeting.

 

The clerk informed the Panel that more timely Performance Reports would be presented to the panel.

 

138.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 - EXCLUSION OF PUBLIC

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 they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraphs 1-7 of part I of Schedule 12A of the Act."

 

139.

MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 3 NOVEMBER 2020

To agree the Part II minutes of the meeting held on 3 November 2020.

140.

SPORTSABLE UPDATE

Verbal update to be provided on SportsAble.