To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from co-optees Mark Jervis and Tony Wilson. Councillor Clark attended the meeting virtually as a non-voting member of the Panel.

To receive any declarations of interest.

No declarations of interest were received.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 8 December 2022 be a true and accurate record.

To consider items relating to People Services and make any recommendations to Cabinet.

Kevin McDaniel, Executive Director of People Services, gave a presentation to the Panel on the proposals for People Services within the current draft budget.

Adult Services had a proposed growth bid of £3.816m and targeted savings of £4.899m. This would be achieved through a focus on independent living for all and looking to discharge home first. The service would look at reviewin­g its use of agency and other staffing, while looking at the longer-term impact of working collaboratively with Health.

Housing and Environmental Services were looking at a growth bid of £0.120m and savings of £0.853m. This would be achieved through combining skills across housing, licensing, environmental health and trading standards teams to maintain a full service offer. The service recognised the loss of income on Hackney Carriage Licenses and the increased pressure on housing and temporary accommodation while looking at how to use property in a smarter way across the entire Council portfolio.

Children’s Services had a proposed growth bid of £2.992m and targeted savings of £3.571m. Fundamentally, the service looked to continue good progress on ensuring that children weren’t brought into care when they didn’t need to be. More was needed to replace the case management system (CMS) in order to increase efficiency. In the short term, the scale of the family hubs would be reduced.

The proposals for the Capital Review Board were to continue to support the fully funded scheme using as much as money from developer contributions in the form of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and s106 payments as much as possible and as appropriate. A focus would be kept on capital programmes that were affordable. Within the programme were two significant IT investments in replacing the CMS for both Adult’s and Children’s Service as significant drivers of long-term improvements in the way the borough worked with families and became more efficient over time.

Kevin McDaniel highlighted the key dates for the budget. The consultation portal was open until the 24 January 2023 and was available on the RBWM Together website. After the consultation ended, Cabinet would consider this feedback and propose their final budget on 9 February 2023, which would then go to Full Council for approval on 22 February 2023.

The Vice-Chair asked how schools were faring as concerns had been raised at the Schools Forum meeting on 19 January 2023 about government funding being reduced, and asked if this would impact on the draft budget.

Kevin McDaniel confirmed that the schools’ budget did not impact the budget being discussed currently. There was a separate ringfenced budget for education of £151m in the coming year for RBWM. Schools were rightly concerned that the budget had not increased with the level of pay offer that was under discussion, but there were very few lines that crossed over between the two budgets.

Councillor Knowles asked if the pay rises overall for staff was a generalised 3%.

Kevin McDaniel stated that a flat percentage of the pay pot had been modelled, which is where this figure  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

To consider the report.

Carl Griffin, Environmental Protection Team Leader, introduced the report and stated that the Council currently had five Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) across the borough that were declared for exceedances of the annual mean for air quality objectives for nitrogen dioxide. Since these declarations, air quality across the borough had improved to the point where monitored concentrations of nitrogen dioxide were well below the objective level of 40 µg/m³. PM10 was monitored at Frascati Way, Maidenhead, as this was a main arterial route through the borough and was a route that was expected to be in an area that was exposed to the highest PM10 in the borough. PM2.5, a finer scale particulate matter, was not currently monitored as there was no statutory requirement for the borough to do so under the local Air Quality Management regulations. However, PM2.5 levels could be calculated using PM10 levels.

Particulate matter had been modelled for the local plan and found no exceedances of national objectives across the borough. Mean concentrations for PM10 at Frascati Way decreased from 25 µg/m³ in 2016 to 19 µg/m³ in 2021, well below the national objective of 40 µg/m³. For PM2.5, there had been an estimated decrease of around 17.5 µg/m³ to 13.4 µg/m³ since 2016, also well below the current legal limit of 20 µg/m³.

The borough recognised that there was local concern regarding particulate matter concentrations, even though the borough was confident that the national objectives were being met across the borough. Cabinet had agreed to fund an expansion of its particulate matter monitoring in order to increase confidence that national objectives were being met. The borough intended to source and deploy low-cost particulate matter sensors across the five AQMAs for one year to identify areas of elevated particulate matter. It was then intended that the borough would source and deploy higher cost particulate matter monitoring units in two areas that merited this monitoring based on the low-cost sensor trials.

It was recommended that the Panel noted the report and agreed that the Council will continue the current monitoring regime and report back to members with 2022 results. The report also committed the borough to three additional monitoring stations to monitor PM10 and PM2.5 to provide data for the Council to base air quality monitoring and actions going forward. The Council were investigating the proposal to use low-cost sensor equipment to determine the current prevalence and potential sources of PM10 and PM2.5 within the five AQMAs and then install high-cost air quality monitoring units in two locations that merited it.

Councillor Carole Da Costa asked if, in addition to the proposed monitoring within the report, there would still be the mobile monitoring equipment that could be taken to an area to monitor what was going on at a particular time.

Carl Griffin confirmed that these mobile stations were the same as the low-cost equipment, but there was a cost of moving these as there was an installation cost which would be a couple of thousand pounds  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

To review the ongoing work programme.

Becky Oates stated that the work programme had been included in the agenda papers, and asked Members if there was anything further that they wished to be brought to the Panel.

Councillor Baskerville asked if it was possible to receive a presentation on diabetes, given it was the centenary of Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and John McLeod winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering insulin and its therapeutic potential.

Kevin McDaniel echoed Councillor Baskerville’s statement on the importance of diabetes, though it was not in the remit of the Council in this forum. This may be better suited to be brought to the Health and Wellbeing Board.

Councillor Del Campo asked if the items that were on the work programme as suggested but not yet programmed would remain on the work programme after the end of the municipal year.

The Chair confirmed that these items would stay on the work programme.

Councillor Del Campo suggested that the item on asylum seekers be brought to the April meeting as this was an ongoing crisis.

Kevin McDaniel stated that he would need to check availability with officers but bringing this item to the April Panel would be a good idea. This could potentially be swapped for the Adult Social Care Reforms item.

Lin Ferguson provided an update on the domestic abuse task and finish group. The first meeting would go ahead at some time in February and asked for members who would be interested in forming this group.

Councillors Del Campo, Tisi and Carole Da Costa expressed interest in being part of this group.

The Chair thanked all for their time and closed the meeting.