Agenda and draft minutes

1.1  There were no apologies for absence.

2.1  There were no urgent items and the order of business was as laid out.

3.1  Cllr Adams advised that he was a leaseholder.

4.1  The Chair thanked the Officers in attendance for having provided the paper which had been sent to Members some days previously.

4.2  She said that the background to the item was that Members of the Task Group had been keen to explore and receive information on, any movement towards the brining together of waste and cleansing functions currently delivered separately by the Council and Hackney Homes.

4.3  Invited to begin a presentation on the paper, Tom McCourt, Assistant Director, Public Realm advised Members that it was split into three main sections.

4.4  Part A gave an overview of the standards and principles that integrated public realm services would seek to achieve and operate within. Part B looked at how an integrated approach would look in practice and pros and cons around it. The final section gave a proposed timeline for further design work and implementation.

4.5  Further to the Chair inviting questions and a Member asking who was leading on the work, the Assistant Director, Public Realm said that it would be vital that the correct governance was in place. It was therefore proposed that the governance of the programme was overseen by the Public Realm Cross Cutting Review Programme Board which was already in place, and on which senior Officers and Members were represented. Dedicated project management resources would be allocated to the work from the relevant service area of the Chief Executive’s Directorate.

4.6  A Member said that he fully agreed that adequate oversight and Governance needed to be in place. He was keen that a wide range of Members were given opportunity to hear updates on progress and to feed in their ideas, throughout the process.

4.7  The Cabinet Member for Housing said that the Cross Cutting Review of Public Realm (within which the plans for integration would be made and delivered) would have the same Governance Structures as the other Cross Cutting Reviews which were being delivered, and that all had project boards with a Member voice.

4.8  The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Sustainability confirmed that other cross cutting programmes which the Public Realm work would follow the principles of, had effective Governance arrangements in place which ensured Member input. In particular, the Enforcement Programme was well progressed. This said, she would welcome any opportunity to attend the relevant Scrutiny Commission (Living in Hackney) to give a single update, or to be asked to give stage by stage progress reports.

4.9  The Chair noted that there was significant interest amongst many Members in there being progress towards the joining up of cleansing and waste services, and that many wanted to be kept updated throughout the process. As an action arising from the meeting, she suggested that she write to the Chair of Living in Hackney to suggest that his Commission considered requesting regular progress updates on the integration of Public Realm services.

5.1  Members of the Task Group agreed with a point that another Member made around point 5.37 of the Minutes, which had been recorded as per below:

“In response, the Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Culture said that he had found the discussion useful. He had heard a clear commitment from Members that parks remained at a high standard, and continued to be a key Council offer to residents and visitors. There appeared to be a willingness to explore the capacity for and value of catering for large events. Finally, there was a view that community events and the charges attributed to them might be reviewed. This should help ensure that while there was still a community event offer, that the charges applied to them were more reflective of their size and the costs in officer time which were associated with them.”

5.2  The Member said that he felt that the Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Culture had confirmed that the view of the Task Group had been more equivocal around events than the passage suggested, and also that he had given his support towards this stance. The Member felt that the Task Group and the Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Culture had agreed that the approach towards events needed to be revisited. This was both towards the levels of support given to community events and also the extent to which the Council would work to enable large events to be hosted. The Member said that it had been agreed that if it was found that a revised approach to events would secure the maintaining of a high quality offer across parks which would not be secured otherwise, that the Council should pursue a revised approach.

5.3  Aside from this point, the Minutes were agreed as an accurate record.

5.4  The Chair noted that at the last meeting, Members had requested information around other borough’s experiences of moving from a free bulky waste collection service to a charging one, in terms of any impact on levels of flytipping. She advised that a paper had been appended to the Minutes in response to this.

5.5  After the Chair asked him to provide a brief summary of the report, Mark Griffin, Head of Environment and Waste Strategy for the Council, said that the paper brought together the best evidence which was available at this time.

5.6  The Head of Environment and Waste Strategy advised that available data from other local authority areas suggested that:

·  There was no direct relationship between a move to a bulky waste service and a significant increase in flytipping activity.

·  That a move to a charging model would have an impact on the number of bulky waste collections as some residents rationed their use of the service or chose alternatives.

5.7  A Member said that he would be keen to explore where the waste previously collected via a free bulky waste collection would be redirected to, if the impact of introducing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1  The Chair reminded Members that they were now coming to the end of the first phase of the Budget Scrutiny work process.

6.2  The aim of this phase had been for Task Groups to review proposals for savings for 2016/17 within specific areas of Council operations, and to reach a view on whether as a group they endorsed these or not.

6.3  The Chair noted that the proposals put to the group around achieving savings for 2016/17 were:

• For Leisure and Green Spaces, the renegotiation of the leisure contract

• For Bulky Waste, the introduction of a charging model

• Reductions to Council graffiti and street cleansing services.

6.4  The Chair felt that the Group had reached a position of agreement on the first two of the three proposals above.

6.5  She suggested that on the third proposal (around reductions to graffiti and street cleansing services), Members had felt unable to endorse these. This was due to a view amongst the Group that further exploration was needed around the capacity to achieve required savings through the integration of Hackney Homes and Council cleansing and waste services, rather than through a reconfiguration of Council functions in isolation.

6.6  She noted that in addition to reviewing the immediate proposals for 2016/17, the Group had heard information and made suggestions for, areas for potential savings for after 2016/17. She said that these had included:

• Exploring how events in parks might be used more effectively as an income generator.

• Exploring roles of volunteers / community groups in parks

• Exploring the room for media activities on the public highway

6.7  The Chair advised that further phases of the Budget Scrutiny process would explore these and other options in more detail.

6.8  At this point the Chair asked for Members to give their views on the process, and around the responses which the Group should make to help inform the budget decision process.

6.9  A Member said that he had found the meetings beneficial and useful. He felt that in addition to the group giving a view on whether proposals were endorsed or not, their response should also set out a range of principles which they felt that explorations for savings should be made within. He felt that these principles should include:

·  The Council working to achieve a common level of service and standards across the borough

·  Charging for more services to be accepted if this was done fairly and ensured strong public services

6.10  Another Member agreed that there needed to be a set of principles around the Council’s approach to delivering the savings required. These could aid discussions between Members and residents around changes (events in parks for example) which would be contentious. He named the following as principles which he felt to be appropriate:

• Common service standards for all residents

• A commitment to integration

• Maintaining good levels of service and exploring options on how this could be funded.

6.11  A Member said that while some of the proposals for 2016/17 involved discussions of savings  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1  There was no other business.