Issue - meetings

The Leader of the Council stated that it was an interesting time for the Council and that the two new swimming pools will be opening in November 2015. He advised Members that the new Customer Services Centre will be opening on 12 October. He advised that the new refuse vehicles have been well received and are operating well.

A Member asked for an update concerning strategic authorities, to which the Leader advised that there is no update as such, but nonetheless said that at the Leader’s Meeting they had agreed to support a bid to government relating to a strategic housing, employment, infrastructure and education departments. He emphasised that this would be a high level strategic bid and that no council has taken this to a government structure. He advised Members that he will keep them updated regarding the same.

The Leader of the Council explained the ordinary context of the Leader’s Statement insofar as welcoming new Members and addressing non-agenda items. He stated that the issue in the current meeting’s Statement was the move to a strategic authority.

The Leader of the Council informed Members that both Mr Hall and himself shall be attending a meeting with other Leicestershire district council leaders on 18 June 2015 to ascertain any commonality of purposes in view of a strategic move. He made reference to the Greater Manchester Authority as such an example with greater devolved powers. He cited The Rt. Hon George Osborne, First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer, in defining the prerequisites to a strategic authority, namely: the existence of a local government organisation; and a directly-elected major.

In addressing whether the County and City Council(s) can work in partnership on strategic matters, the Leader of the Council cited local planning as a notable example and the complexity and difficulty arising at a micro-scale. He stated that matters of housing, transportation and education were currently being discussed. The outcome was said to be unknown to the Leader of the Council. He summarised the move as a simple equation insofar as if the resources required to be pooled by the Borough was greater than the resources accrued, then the move would not be beneficial and vice versa.

The Leader of the Council stated that the question was one which would be addressed in the terms of the greater good as opposed to a simple numerical equation and involving protection factors. He acknowledged that the discussions were to be long and complex, yet the outcome would guarantee the existence of the Borough in the years to come. He noted that the current climate indicated a move towards shared services for reasons of greater resilience.

The Leader of the Council said he was willing to report back any development to Members at the next meeting of the Council.

The Leader noted that a Memorandum of Understanding between all the Leicestershire authorities would be presented to the next Policy, Finance and Development Committee. This will build on all the excellent work done by the Council over the last few years in developing and approving its Core Strategy and other Planning Policies.

He went on to say that it will strengthen the protection that these documents and policies already provide. The Leader also noted that there may a slight increase in the housing numbers that the Borough may have to accommodate over the coming years.

The Leader referred to the County Council's Medium Term Financial Strategy and its proposed sweeping budget cuts. As part of this there had been discussions with all the districts councils regarding the possibility of removing the recycling credits it pays for green waste. Up until now these have only been discussions and the Leader wanted Council to know that no formal notification of any changes had been given by the County Council so no formal process has been started. If and when that were to happen then members would be updated.      

The Leader updated members on a Leicestershire Police briefing session he had attended earlier in the week with Councillor Kevin Loydall, Chair of the Oadby &v Wigston CSP and the Chief Executive. This focused on the Change Programme that the Police Force was undergoing

The Leader reported that the new policing model that is being proposed will allow Leicestershire Police to:

• handle non-emergency calls for service through an appointment system;
• refocus a smaller Force-wide Response Team on incident response;
• provide dedicated Neighbourhood Teams to focus on community engagement and problem solving;
• Neighbourhood policing also supported by new Neighbourhood Priority Teams.
• introduce a crime triage function that will allocate crimes to a dedicated investigation team or deal with the crime within the unit where that is appropriate;
• introduce an ASB triage function that will allocate ASB cases to Neighbourhood Teams or file incidents where further case management is not required and the matter has been dealt with;
• remove the crime investigation workload from response and neighbourhood and investigate through a dedicated team to improve timeliness, outcomes and victim follow up;
• handover the majority of detained persons to a prisoner handling capacity to ensure frontline officers are available for deployment and visible to communities.

The Leader's main concern, which he had raised at the briefing, was that there should be a clear understanding of how this would affect and be of benefit to residents and that there should be an effective communications plan.

It was also noted that the likelihood is that due to its geography that the Policing Command Unit for Oadby and Wigston would be combined with the south of the city and create the South Leicester Policing Area.