Agenda and minutes

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any personal and /or prejudicial interests in any item on the agenda.

A total period of 15 minutes is allocated for members of the public to make a statement(s) on any matter that falls within the remit of the Committee.

Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes, but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned, where there are a number of speakers

The Committee considered a report on the consultation on the equality objectives that had been discussed at the Committee’s meeting on 1 March 2012. The report also contained examples of equality issues regarding employment procedures which the Committee requested on the 1 March 2012.

The Performance Manager and the Senior Personnel Officer attended the meeting to present the report. The officers gave an outline of the report. Members asked questions and the following point arose:

·        An Equality Impact Assessment had to be carried out with every business plan to consider how decisions made to change a service affect equality.       

·        Members believed the equality of Councillors and Service Users should be as important as the equality of staff and should be reflected as such in the equality objectives of the Council.     

·        Bullying and Harassment were difficult to define. Personal perception played an important role in whether an individual was being bullied or harassed. There were management structures in place to deal with disputes. Managers would be responsible for making a judgement in each case and the Human Resources service was there to offer advice.

·        Members believed that Social and Economic status should not be included in the list of protected characteristics as social and economic status was considered to be irrelevant when managing and hiring employees.     

·        There was an objective to “develop a culture where staff understand their role in relation to equalities and behaviour in a way that illustrates this understanding”. Members wanted to know how this culture change would be carried out.

RESOLVED:

(a)   That the report be received.

(b)   That the Performance Manager and HR Manager be requested to amend the equality objectives to include Councillors and Service Users as well as Officers so that Councillors and service users are equally protected.

(c)   That the Performance Manager and Senior Personnel Officer be requested to report back to the Committee to explain how Councillors and Service Users will be supported in future as well as Officers.         

(d)   That “social or economic status” should be removed from the list of protected groups in the Council’s policy on equality for staff however that “social or economic status” should be a protected group for Service Users.          

(e)    That the Performance Manager and Senior Personnel Officer be requested to show the practical steps that will be used to “develop a culture where staff understand their role in relation to equalities and behaviour in a way that illustrates this understanding” and the method that will be used to measure achievement of the culture development.

The Community Safety Operations Manager attended the meeting to present an update to the Committee on the current status of work to remove trees obscuring the sightlines of a number of CCTV Cameras. At previous meetings Members had expressed concern that the safety of communities was being put at risk by the effect trees were having on the coverage of CCTV cameras.

The Community Safety Operations Manager outlined the process which had to be carried out to trim or remove trees so that they no longer obscured the view of CCTV cameras. If a tree was subject to a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), planning consent would need to be obtained from the relevant planning committee prior to any alterations being made to the tree. Trees without TPOs could be trimmed or removed without the need for planning permission which made the process of dealing with obscuration much quicker.

There were currently a significant number of trees obscuring various cameras throughout the Borough which would take time to deal with. Once the current issues with tree obscuration had been dealt with a plan would need to be put in place whereby CCTV staff were able to anticipate future obstruction by growing tree so that action could be taken before issues arose.

The Committee was keen to ensure that community safety was maintained at all times, by making sure that no CCTV cameras were obscured. The Committee also recognised that it was important acknowledge the adverse effects of poor lighting in an area covered by CCTV cameras. The Committee wanted to ensure that these issues were also dealt with by Officers.

There was no specific budget for the work that needed to be carried out and the cost of the work was being borne by Highways and Streetscape as they were responsible for the trimming of trees under their jurisdiction. The Committee was keen to see a specific budget for the work associated with maintaining the effectiveness of CCTV cameras so that the budgets and duties of Highways and Streetscape were not adversely affected by the extra work.

The Portfolio Holder for Communities and Regulatory Services was in attendance and addressed the Committee by thanking them for their work and that she would do what see could to help improve the situation regarding obscuration of CCTV cameras.

RESOLVED:

(a)   That the report be received.

(b)   That the Community Safety Operations Manager be requested to formally document the process by which the removal of tree obscuration is carried out and present it to the Committee at a future meeting.

(c)   That it be recommended to Cabinet that a budget for tackling tree obscuration should be included in the next annual budget for the Safer Communities department. 

(d)   That the Committee write formally to the Portfolio Holder for Communities and Regulatory Services to express their belief that the process to ensure that CCTV cameras are not obscured should be reviewed to improve the process in order to protect community safety.