Agenda item

Announcements

To receive announcements and business brought forward by the Mayor, Leader, and Members of the Cabinet or the Chief Executive.

 

4.1       By the Mayor:

 

4.2       By the Chief Executive:

 

4.3       By the Group Leaders:  Any apologies for absence

 

4.4       Council Leader and Members of the Cabinet:

 

Councillor Williams                 Leader of the Council

Councillor Marshall                 Environmental, Sustainability and Regulatory Services

Councillor Elliot                       Finance & Resources

Councillor Mrs Griffiths           Housing

Councillor Harden                   Residents & Corporate Services

Councillor G Sutton                Planning and Regeneration

 

 

Decision:

1.      By the Mayor:

 

There were no announcements from the Mayor.

 

2.      By the Chief Executive:

 

There were no announcements from the Chief Executive.

 

3.      By the Group Leaders:

 

Councillor Williams gave apologies on behalf of Councillors Bhinder, Griffiths, Guest, Imarni and S Hearn.

 

4.    By the  Leader and Members of the Cabinet:

 

(Full details are in the minutes under Announcements of the Leader and Cabinet).

Minutes:

1.      By the Mayor:

 

There were no announcements from the Mayor.

 

2.      By the Chief Executive:

 

There were no announcements from the Chief Executive.

 

3.      By the Group Leaders:

 

Councillor Williams gave apologies on behalf of Councillors Bhinder, Griffiths, Guest, Imarni and S Hearn.

 

4.    By the  Leader and Members of the Cabinet:

 

Councillor Williams, Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Community Leadership

 

Councillor Williams advised that the demolition of the Civic Centre was due to commence the week commencing 20 November.

 

Councillor Fethney arrived at 7.32 pm.

 

Questions

 

Councillor Tindall expressed his concern on the new Arriva mini-buses. He said they were tiny and inadequate and he asked the Leader if he would consider writing to Arriva and Hertfordshire County Council to pass on the complaints he had received. Councillor Williams said he was happy to write to Arriva and Hertfordshire County Council as he understood the concerns but expected limited success. He said he understood that the smaller vehicles would be used outside of peak hours and were much more efficient.

There were no further questions for the Leader.

 

Councillor Mahmood arrived at 7.34 pm.

 

 

Councillor Marshall, Portfolio Holder for Environmental, Sustainability and Regulatory Services

 

  • Thank you to the Mayor for officiating at this year’s Clean Safe & Green Community Champion Awards.  Individuals and residents’ groups are given awards for working selflessly to keep their neighbourhoods clean, safe and green.  Winners of the award were David Drew of Nash Mills and the Friends of Halsey Field.  Halsey Field is a wildlife site that has been developed by the Friends over the last few years on part of the site of Halsey School in Gadebridge.  Supporters of the Friends include the Chiltern Society, Hertfordshire Conservation Volunteers and the Osborne Property Group.  Well worth a visit, well worth joining in activities.  David Shaw is the Parish Warden for Nash Mills and, goes far beyond normal Warden duties, regularly working to improve the area in his spare time. 

 

  • Environmental Health are developing a festive education programme to advise the public and food businesses about the risks of Christmas related food poisoning. This is intended to go out to the community through the Dacorum digital newsletter and with officers during food premises inspections.

 

  • In October, the Dog Warden served three Community Protection warning letters to residents of a house in Tring, instructing them to clear up dog fouling outside the boundary of their property and prohibiting their dogs from straying, as it is causing fear and distress to local residents.  The results todate are promising but, should the issue not be resolved, then the next steps could be to issue Community Protection Notices – and should those Notices not be complied with, then prosecution in the Magistrates Court is an option.

 

  • Communications followed Sarah Lewis around for a day to cover some of the jobs she does – this was fed in to Twitter and other Social Media as a “Day in the Life of the Dog Warden” in order to raise the public’s perception of the Dog Warden service as a whole, to prevent a negative image being portrayed across social media. 

 

  • The Dog Warden took a case to court where a dog owner had failed to change a dog’s microchip details. For the 6th time, this dog was collected as a stray in March.  Its microchip had still not been updated with the current owner’s details.  The current owner was given 21 days to have the details updated – she failed, was prosecuted and found guilty of not having a tag on her dog and not updating the microchip database.  She was fined £100 for no tag, £50 for not updating the microchip database, £405 costs and £30 victim surcharge. 

 

  • The new waste calendars for 2018 will be going out at the end of this month, giving details of collection days for the bins, including the garden waste.  Garden waste finishes this season in the weeks commencing 27 November and 4 December.  In 2018, the garden waste will restart in the weeks commencing 26 February and 5 March and finish 3 and 10 December 2018 – effectively householders will receive a further week’s garden waste collection during 2018 compared with 2017.

 

Councillor Howard arrived at 7.38 pm.

 

There were no questions for the Portfolio Holder.

 

 

Councillor Elliot, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources

 

Finance

 

Work continues on scrutinising and challenging growth and savings proposals for the 2018/19 budget. The finance team have worked closely with service managers on their proposals and these have been presented for review and consideration by Budget Review Group prior to being submitted to joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 5th December.

Finance training on Local Government Finance and how the budget setting process works here at the Council was delivered to members and was well received by those that attended.

 

Revenue & Benefits

 

Following on from the decision made at the last Council meeting, the business rates team have now awarded:

  • £49,000 rate relief to local pubs,
  • £24,000 rate relief to small businesses and
  • £170,000 rate relief to other local businesses particularly affected by the revaluation.

The team are continuing to make further awards as applications are received. This reflects the ongoing support by the Council to support small and medium sized local businesses.

 

Commercial Assets & Property Development

 

We have completed on the sale of 6 acres of land at Jarmans’ Park to Kier who intend to develop a prime 72,000 sq ft retail warehouse scheme. The Council will benefit by £3.1m from this sale.

 

The contract for the demolition of the Civic Centre has been let with the contractor due to commence works the week commencing 20 November.

The demolition of the market square toilets and bus office has commenced, clearing the site for potential development.

Work is ongoing to dispose of garage sites in line with the approved policy and to generate capital receipts for the Council whilst providing additional much needed homes across the borough.

 

Commissioning, Procurement & Compliance

 

The team continue to support and provide compliance advice to officers with their commissioning & procurement activities.

There are a number of high profile tenders that are close to being awarded and the team have worked with managers to arrange clarification meetings and to consider responses, including Parking Enforcement, Leisure Management & Berkhamsted Multi Storey Car Park.

 

Questions

 

Councillor Adshead asked what action was being taken to help individuals before Bailiffs are required. Councillor Elliot felt it was a sad and worrying situation. He said he was happy to speak to his colleagues to find out more about the process.

 

Councillor Tindall referred to the market square demolition and queried what the potential development was. Councillor Elliot said there had been rumours but nothing was confirmed yet and they were open to offers; the priority was value for money for residents.

 

There were no more questions for the Portfolio Holder.

 

 

Councillor Griffiths, Portfolio Holder for Housing

 

TENANT & LEASEHOLDER SERVICES

 

·         Our Supported Housing Service has been successful in retaining our 3 star ‘Outstanding’ rating in a recent accreditation from the Centre for Housing and Support (CHS). The assessor particularly highlighted how more included and positive the staff were compared to his visit 3 years ago and was very impressed with our approach to safeguarding and tenant involvement.

 

·         We have completed the tenant consultation about water rates and have served notice on the water companies. From April next year tenants will pay water charges directly to Affinity and Thames Water depending on the area in which they live. We will shortly be notifying tenants of the outcome of the consultation and the next steps to support them with the transition between now and April. This will include a number of sessions with staff and tenants alongside the water companies to help answer any questions.

 

·         Our Income manager has carried out some rough calculations based on tenants who are currently receiving Universal Credit. This has shown a huge increase in the level of arrears and gives us an indication of what we might expect as tenants move onto UC over the coming 12 months. Additional research has demonstrated a number of internal changes we might need to make to support tenants through the process, with many examples of confusion and hardship that will have an impact on tenants and us. We have a project group to consider any changes we may need to respond to these challenges and are working closely with other departments across the council to build a joint approach.

 

STRATEGIC HOUSING

 

Strategic Housing Service have now completed full consultation in relation to the Allocations Policy and the new policy will be presented to Cabinet on 29 November, subject to approval implementation will commence thereafter.  The TLC are currently working closely with the Homeless Prevention & Assessment team to review and score funding bids received from local partners for projects aimed at preventing homelessness, the outcomes of bids will be announced mid-November to successful organisations.  Additionally the service has launched its smart clothing bank, aimed at enabling individuals without access to appropriate clothing for job interviews, to ensure that they are fully prepared.

 

HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

 

Able House – Practical Completion took place on 6th June and all units have been let. Cladding has been replaced with render post Grenfell concerns. 

 

Wood House – Works are progressing on site and we are up to fifth floor with the concrete frame. The tenure mix will now be all affordable as opposed to some shared ownership. Sucessful topping out ceremony held last week.

 

Swing Gate Lane – On site undertaking construction of ground floor

 

Martindale School Site – The Planning application has been approved for this development. We have started the process to tender for a suitable Building Contractor.

 

Stationers Place – A delay to starting on site due to resolving issues with the Environment Agency and opening up a culvert that is at the rear of the site.

 

Northend and Westerdale Garage Sites – Planning applications have been submitted and we are preparing tender documentation.

 

PROPERTY & PLACE

 

Gas Contract Sun Realm

 

·         The Q1 audit for this financial year has been concluded. The gain share has increased by £26K to £131K since the same period last year due to efficiencies within the site operation, which enabled the team to deliver more work with the same level of overhead.

·         The compliance rates remain consistently high with all months since July achieving 100%, except October, where one service was overdue.

 

Osborne -  Total Asset Management

 

The year-end review of performance in the financial year 2016-17 was concluded and reported to HCOSC.  As Osborne had achieved compliance with the five strategic indicators during the period, it was agreed to grant the one year extension to the contract. The Strategic Indicators are being reviewed to ensure they still reflect the requirements of the contract and to ensure continuous improvement.

 

 

There were no questions for the Portfolio Holder.

 

 

Councillor Harden, Portfolio Holder for Residents and Corporate Services

 

Resident Services:

 

Youth Democracy events

Visit to the Forum by winners of the ‘Coat of Arms’ competition, Leverstock Green Junior School to have tea with the Mayor   

Youth Democracy Challenge Day – John F Kennedy, Astley Coper, Cavendish and Hemel Hempstead Schools spent the day working with Trestle Theatre to design their political party and manifesto with a vote at the end of the day

 

Community Engagement

Making Dacorum Better Together meeting- 50 residents attended

 

Old Town Hall

The OTH supported Community Action Dacorum 70th anniversary. 

Hosted a sell-out performance by comedy star Griff Rhys Jones.

 

DCSP

Mon 20.11.17 @ 7:30pm

 

Legal:

The legal team led on the negotiation and agreement of all legal documentation to facilitate the sale of land at Jarman Park, Hemel Hempstead to Kier Property. Kier have acquired the land to develop a retail warehouse scheme which will bring forward a site for development which has remained vacant for over 20 years. 

The team have been leading on a consultation for a Public Spaces Protection Order aimed at preventing various forms of anti-social behaviour in the town centre. The consultation closed in October and over 800 responses were received. The responses are now being analysed and a report will be taken to Housing and Community overview and scrutiny committee and Cabinet to decide if members wish to proceed with the order.

 

The legal team have been very active representing the Council in various courts over the last few weeks and have successfully concluded 9 cases which were a mixture of anti-social behaviour injunctions and prosecutions, possession proceedings, a planning prosecution for breach of enforcement notice, and an animal welfare prosecution.

 

Democratic Services:

Annual Canvass of Electors

Door to door enquiries to contact all those households who have not yet responded to the initial Housing Enquiry Form (HEF) have now been completed; production of the Electoral Register for 2017-2018 is in its final phase; and we are on target to publish on 1 December 2017.

Since the start of the Canvass in august, 63,896 Household Enquiry Forms (HEF) have been sent to all properties across Dacorum. Reminder forms were then sent to around 26,000 properties during October and in accordance with the legislation, any occupied properties where no form had been returned were ‘knocked on’ twice to complete the contact phase.

The number of HEF’s processed (as at 9/11/17) is:

53,968 properties responded of which 51,477 properties processed to date.

5965 properties with changes to date

45,512 properties with no changes

31,413 Imported Individual Voter Registration records (people who have responded via internet (18,930), text (4,245) or telephone (8,238))

2,500 new Invitations to Register, plus a further 600 first reminders sent out as a result of the canvass.

The canvass has now been completed with 84.15% of the properties contacted responding. Once all details have been compiled it is anticipated the final return will be in the early 90% range.

 

Town & Parish Conference – 24 November 2017

The annual Town 7 Parish Conference is scheduled for 24 November 2017.  A full agenda has been prepared for the day including items on Community Grants, Data Protection, Emergency Planning, etc.  In addition, there will be a Market Place setting out various services the Borough Council provides for and with the towns & Parishes – this is an opportunity for the participants to ask questions of Dacorum Borough Council Staff and Partners.

 

People:

 

Communications and Consultation

Local Plan Consultation – Heavily involved with marketing and supporting the exhibitions

Staff Conference – Leading on the content and supporting the event on 15 November.

Community Partnerships

Shopmobility Service – CAD Awarded contract

CAB Move – Finalising move in details such as snagging, parking arrangements, badges etc.  Move in date confirmed WC 18 December 2017.

Armed Forces Day 2018 – Finalising paper on the plan for the day.

 

Innovation & Improvement

Digitalisation Plan 2017 – Now received requests for all GMs and next steps is to agree a corporate implementation plan with current development resources and what future resources are needed to speed up implementation.

 

Human Resources

T&Cs Review – Received consultative ballot results and the Chief Executive has responded to the TUs confirming that the Council’s position has not changed. We shall wait for written confirmation whether they will formally ballot their Members.

 

Customer Services

Service Review completed following return to inhouse.

 

ICT:

The contract for the desktop replacement project will be awarded November/December.

A major upgrade of the Finance System (Agresso) is in planning

A tender for the replacement of the current planning system, Acolaid, is currently being prepared

 

Questions

 

Councillor England asked if the Portfolio Holder agreed that Youth Democracy week was an excellent opportunity for young people to understand and get involved with democracy. He also thanked the Mayor for attending the Hemel Hempstead Beavers and Cubs event. Councillor Harden agreed that it was very beneficial and had been running for a number of years. He said he was very grateful to the Council for the resources they provide each year.

Councillor Douris asked, as Chair of the Hertfordshire Armed Forces board, if an event date for next year had been confirmed yet. Councillor Harden advised it would be the last Saturday of June 2018. He said to look out for information after the New Year and advised they have been booking acts already.

There were no further questions for the Portfolio Holder. 

 

Councillor G Sutton, Portfolio Holder for Planning and Regeneration

 

Strategic Planning and Regeneration:

 

  1. The consultations on the Issues and Options for consideration of growth to 2036 will be happening this week and next week:

 

13 November - Kings Langley

14 November - Tring

17 November - Berkhamsted

20 November - Hemel Hempstead

22 November - Markyate

24 November - Bovingdon (2pm-9pm) 

 

The consultation is open until 13 December 2017.

 

  1. The Bury project received approval at October Cabinet to move the project forward with an Expression of Interest to the Heritage Lottery Fund to help fund the Bury Museum project and to prepare the work required for Stage 1 submission  next Summer. This work will also include external help to upskill Dacorum Heritage Trust appropriately to enable them to run a museum.

 

  1. The annual Halloween event was held on 29th October and many thousands of people enjoyed the spooky fairground and the fantastic fireworks. The Christmas lights switch-on event will take place on 26 November and will be another fantastic family event.

 

There were no questions for the Portfolio Holder.