Agenda item

Members will recall that O & S had requested that Portfolio Holders present their Business Plans at the first meeting of the new O & S Cycle on the 6 June.  As the Business Plans are developed on a Directorate basis, such a presentation would have required some careful choreography.  However, agreement has been reached, that it makes more sense for the Business Plans to be presented to the relevant Select Committee, where there would be better alignment.  This way the Select Committees would have time to undertake a more in-depth scrutiny role regarding the numerous services which make up their Select Committees. 

On this basis, the relevant Portfolio Holders are requested to attend this meeting and take the Select Committee through their plans for the coming year.

The Director of Communities, Mr Hall, introduced the Communities Directorate’s Business Plan for 2017-18. This was a slimmed down version of the usual plans (the HRA Business Plan, Community Services and Safety Business Plan and Private Housing Business Plan, and more akin to an action plan for the directorate. The three relevant portfolio holders were attending the meeting to take the Committee through their sections of the plan.

Councillor Helen Kane, the Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Community Services, noted that in April 2016 the Cabinet agreed to establish a Development Trust to support the Epping Forest District Museum and Broxbourne Council’s Lowewood Museum; they had in turn secured new external funding for the museums projects and development. They were having regular meetings with Broxbourne Council now that the plans for the Development Trust were well underway. They had an excellent relationship with Broxbourne and were hoping to establish relationships with Chelmsford Council. They had applied for accreditation from the Arts Council and had applied to secure ‘National Portfolio Organisation’ (NPO) status which would open the door to a lot more external funding and would allow the Council to work on behalf of the national organisations.

As well as this there were a lot of organised summer events, including art and leisure activities organised by officers, who put in a lot off work. They also organise actions within the ‘Impact of an Ageing Population’ action plan resulting in improved and relevant health and wellbeing services for older people.

Councillor Baldwin asked if they had achieved NPO status. He was told that they were presently working towards it and they should know the outcome of the bid by next week.

Councillor Gary Waller the Portfolio Holder for Safer, Greener and Transport went on to cover the Community Safety aspect of the plan. He noted that it was a big area within the council. They currently had no large scale projects, but many ongoing operational arrangements and plans, including the ongoing development of a ‘Hub’ involving the Police with the Community Safety Teams. Although not co-located with the Police (in Loughton), they were looking into having even better direct communication facilities with them, both in sound and vision. The community safety section has been recently involved in a case of modern day slavery, which was still a major problem in our day and age. In fact there were more slaves now than ever before. They were involved in a recent raid where people were charged with slavery and rape.

Councillor Waller commented that we were recently sent a letter of thanks for dealing with a case of Anti Social Behaviour, where we investigated and found that drug users and dealers were taking over a property. Our officers were there helping the police and helped subdue the offenders concerned.

We have received recognition for our work in designing out crime which has helped reduce crime by up to 25%. ITN had made a short film on this and this would be shown at a conference of Chief Executives from all over the country.

Our team was highly regarded and our work valued by the Police.

Councillor Butler asked if it was premature to close the Police station in Waltham Abbey. Councillor Waller said that this was a question for the Police, which depended on people and not premises. It was very expensive to keep premises and they were currently concentrating resources on people. He acknowledged that the way the public contacted the police was still not quite right and this had to be reviewed.

Councillor Girling was concerned about drugs and drug dealers and how widespread they appeared to be across Epping Forest. He said that he believed their network spread out over the various towns, even involving school children. He said that the Police did not have the manpower as there was a definite lack of officers on the ground; and that there was also the problem of nuisance motorbikes all over our area that were financed by the drug dealers. With all these things to report the given telephone number of 101 did not work. The Chairman, Councillor Shiell asked that Councillor Girling itemise his specific complaints and give them to Councillor Waller to consider. Councillor Kane noted that there was a lot more crime nowadays and so more resources were needed. Mr Hall said that resources were always a problem for the Police and the Police were aware of problems contacting 101. He also commented that he had been to a recent presentation given by the Police on organised crime in Essex and how the police were combating this. He said that we have a very good relationship with the Police, which has brought many mutual benefits and resulted in the District’s residents being made much safer than they otherwise would have been.

Councillor Waller noted that there has been more Police staff employed to man the 101 number and improve it.

Councillor Baldwin asked how many staff was there in our Community Safety Section. He was told there were about 9 people in the team; funded by EFDC and with a lot of funding for the various initiatives funded by the Community Safety Partnership, which itself received some funding from the PCC.

Councillor Stavrou the Portfolio Holder for Housing, took the Committee through the Housing part of the business plan. She noted that also on this agenda was the draft Housing Strategy that related to the business plan. The Plan was a very comprehensive document, well presented; mostly noting that it was business as usual for Housing.

She noted that the Council House building programme was progressing. The recent HRA Financial Options Review had concluded that the housebuilding programme should continue, but at a slower pace. Some of the first houses that we had built have now been occupied and phase 2, the 51 new homes in Burton Road, Loughton was underway with phase 3 due to start soon. Planning for Phases 4 to 6 were in progress at present. They were looking at brownfield sites such as garages etc., rather than greenfield sites. They were also purchasing 8 new affordable homes in Roydon from a private developer.

They were also undertaking to provide 3 modular units to accommodate 6 single homeless people temporarily at Norway House, although no planning application had been submitted as yet. The units were expected to have a life span of 20 to 30 years. They were relatively easy to install and were transportable. They were also looking at a pilot at Zinc Arts, Ongar to house 3 single homeless people there.

Under the Transformation agenda we were looking at new ways of working such as co-location at Oakwood Hill for the repair service. They were also undertaking a review of Council’s Sheltered Housing Scheme Assets to make sure they were fit for purpose and still required.

On the Housing Operations side they were looking to outsource the Careline Monitoring Service and were also looking to provide an additional homelessness prevention officer. They would also be working with other Council’s to secure county wide funding under the DCLG’s trailblazer’s initiative in response to the new Homelessness Reduction Act.

Officers were looking at the arrangements for loans to homeless applicants to secure accommodation in the private sector and would also be increasing the staffing at the Council’s Homeless Persons Hostel to give some relief to the duty managers.

They would also be working with tenant’s partnership groups to reinvigorate the Council’s approach to tenant participation and engagement.

Councillor Stavrou noted that the proposals for Private Sector Housing and Communities Support remained largely unchanged for the coming year.

Councillor Surtees commenting on the outsourcing of the Housing Reviews work wondered what sort of safeguards were in place to ensure the job was done properly as he was happy for it to be carried out in-house but not outsourced. Mr Hall acknowledged that this was a valid point as they too liked to ensure that the job was carried out properly. The reviews were currently undertaken by one of two senior managers which was time consuming for people with limited capacity due to other work demands and a relatively expensive way of doing this. However, there are companies out there who specialised in this work and charge competitive rates. We have gone to tender and have now appointed a company. They will be doing the reviews and we will monitor them closely. We always have the option, if we thought their work was not up to scratch, to appoint another company.

Councillor Girling said that the Debden Tenants Panel was looking for tenants to be involved; have the others taken off? Mr Hall replied that officers and the Tenants and Leaseholders Federation were looking to set up more of these panels, but continued to struggle. They were now trying to introduce a new consultative group of tenants and were trying to re-energise tenant engagements, trying a new approach with new people.

The Chairman thanked the Portfolio Holders for their comprehensive and informative report to the Committee.