Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the minutes from the previous meeting

The minutes of the Housing and Community OSC meeting on Wednesday 10 June 2015 were agreed by members.

At the last meeting there were questions on drones. Cllr Mahmood circulated an email covering this. The committee agreed that all information was covered

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies received from Cllr S Adshead, Cllr Mclean, Cllr Fethney, Cllr Link and Co–Opted TLC Members Cook and Horn.

To receive any declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)           may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct For Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

There was no declaration of interest.

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements or ask questions in accordance with the rules as to public participation

There was no public participation.

None.

Nicholas presented the Mobile Homes Policy which sets out how fees and charges will be administered for inspections and licensing. Failure to comply with this requirement could leave this authority open to legal challenges. This policy is drafted in accordance with the Mobile Homes Act 2013.

Nicholas highlighted an error with the dates on page 5 and will amend these and was happy to take questions on the report.

J Howard referred to page 9, 3.2 – site Licencing fees point 3, if they don’t confirm will they lose their licence.

Nicholas said there are possibilities of prosecution and they serve an improvement notice on the site and it would depend what the non-compliance was. Sites have been inspected and have all been set as low risks for this year and any non-compliance for this year will have until next year to get those issues sorted.

J Howard then referred to 3.2.3 when a problematic site then becomes manageable and how do you react to it.

Nicholas replied that if that was the case then they would take action however sites in the area are good, some issues that they may have may relate to conditions of licensing which they will be enforcing against. The authority is with the site manager/licence holder.

Cllr Bassadone referred to page 3, how many sites are we talking about.

Nicholas confirmed that there are five sites and when they inspect them some are reasonably larger than others and couldn’t specify exactly how big the sites were.

Cllr Bassadone asked if farms where vans are kept are included in this policy.

Nicholas said yes they would be if they have planning permission for those mobile homes to be there, this would only include ones that are lived in.

Cllr Conway asked if there was a list of fines.

Nicholas said it would be impossible to do that; legal action would go to court and it will be the courts that decides.

Cllr Harden arrives at 19:43

Cllr Wyatt-Lowe asked how they operate and how much time is spent operating and how do we know we are not over charging.

Nicholas said the fees have been agreed for 2014/2015. They were estimated at this time as a result of bench marking  with other authorities, next year they will be reflecting on the actual time spent doing it, so if they over charged last year then they will be reflecting that next year as they can’t make a profit.

Cllr Imarni referred back to the question ‘when is a site is deemed unmanageable’, at the moment we don’t have a problem but a policy should be in a position so that we have not left ourselves open. Section 3.2.1, page 9, if this is going to be a policy that is issued, should we not put something in there that says it’s not limited to these points just to protect ourselves if something on this list did ever come up.

Nicholas agreed and confirmed he will add  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

Nicholas presented this enforcement policy stating it’s aimed at shadowing the Regulators code and outlines as an authority how we would go about carrying out an enforcement activity, it doesn’t replace any specific departmental enforcement policies what it does do is gives the overarching approach and prevents the need to put this in every policy.

Nicholas was happy to take questions from members.

Cllr Imarni said there are some things that are unclear, you say you will do things but no indication how, she believed that the policy was very vague. Example 4.6.3.

Chris said the answer of how is in each specific departmental policy, the initial of how it’s done is elsewhere.

Cllr Mahmood asked if they will be adding an appendix so they can see that there are further detail policies.

Nicholas said that as it’s only an overarching policy the others would sit as an appendix and he doesn’t know each specific department policy as there is rather a lot and most departments have several and this is stated in the policy 4.7.1 and they expect each department to add it in there.

Cllr Hearn referred to page 23, 4.24. How will this be achieved?

Nicholas said training is undertaken and a certain number of CPD hours must be achieved, they also go out with staff and check consistency.

Cllr Howard asked if there is a formal record of training that the individuals have done.

Nicholas said within Regulatory services yes there was a record, they keep all records and as Environmental Health Officers they have to do a minimum of 20 hours CPD non-chartered and 30hours if they are chartered and it’s also audited. Their hours are made up of core and non-core hours which they have to do as part of their CPD.

Cllr Wyatt-Lowe added, should policies like this include naming and shaming as part of the enforcement process and if they were appropriate to go to other scrutiny’s how would they know that. There needs to be a reference to every policy that exists.

Cllr Conway said that she called for an inspection and didn’t get any feedback on this.

Nicholas said he couldn’t comment as he doesn’t know about specific case in other departments and Cllr Conway should chase them up and ask for feedback directly.

Cllr Harden had highlighted that the Portfolio Holders names were correct on the front page but not correct in the report.

He also stated that he feels there should be a link not necessarily an appendix to refer people to other policies, all the policies that are affected by our enforcement policy.

Nicholas said it’s quite complicated and will look into the visibility of doing this.

Cllr Mahmood asked if we had a head of enforcement?

Nicholas replied that there is no overall person; they should go to the Group Manager that has enforcement activity underneath their area.

Chris added to that explaining that we do have an Enforcement Group, and all the key Team Leaders  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

To consider passing a resolution in the following terms: That, under s.100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972 Schedule 12A Part 1, as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006, the public be excluded during the items in Part II of the Agenda for this meeting, because it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted, that if members of the public were present during these items there would be disclosure to them of exempt information relating to: information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege could be maintained in legal proceedings.(Item 13).

Agreed.

Items to be scheduled on the work programme for September and October by Elliott Brooks were agreed by the committee and have been put on the forward plan.