Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting held on 25 March 2010 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman

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

None

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. It would be helpful if any person wishing to speak would give prior notice to the Scrutiny Officer listed below.

There were no members of the public present wishing to speak

Further to the meeting held on 17 September 2009, the Committee is to scrutinise the Community Warden Service.

T Potts the Community Safety Manager was called to the table and informed the Committee that the Community Warden Service was established to address public concerns in relation to Crime and Disorder, and tackle issues in relation to anti social behaviour. This was achieved by working in partnership with the local community and its partners, to provide a safer environment in which to live work and visit.

With regard to the review of the service, it was highlighted that from 1 April 2009, Cheshire East Council had inherited 2 existing warden services from Congleton and Crewe. Macclesfield had Environmental Enforcement Officers, whose main focus was based around the Clean Safer Neighbourhood agenda and mainly dealt with fly tipping offences. A review was therefore undertaken to harmonise and integrate the existing services into one service that would be in a better position to deliver the new authorities objectives, in a more focused and cost effective manner.

The review had resulted in 10 Community Wardens and 2 team leaders at a cost of £426,000. However there were still 3 Community Warden positions to be filled.

The main priorities for the service were to:

• Provide a highly visible uniformed presence to reduce the fear of crime and promote public reassurance.
• Address issues relating to anti social behaviour through proactive and reactive enforcement and education.
• Encourage and enforce the safe and proper use of outdoor recreational areas and public open space.
• Adopt a proactive role in encouraging all sections of the community to use public open spaces for supporting activities and environmental appreciation.
• Enforcement of Hackney Carriage and Private Hire license conditions.
• Environmental Enforcement including, removal of abandoned vehicles, vehicles for sale on the highway, collection and detention of stray dogs, issue of fixed penalty notices and fly tipping.

With regard to abandoned vehicles, Members commented that the procedure for abandoned vehicles was not on the web site and that this should be rectified as soon as possible.

Members questioned the Community Warden Deployment and it was highlighted that in the last 6 months, the service had issued 51 litter and dog notices, dealt with 153 abandoned vehicles reported 54 untaxed vehicles, picked up 195 stray dogs, issued 4 vehicle for sale warnings, participated in 6 police operations, provided security at election count centres and delivered ‘lets bike’ safety campaign in 5 local schools. The Committee felt that good news stories should be publicised in the press.

Members then went onto question what areas of work the Community Warden Service delivered that could not be covered by the Police Community Support Officers. T Potts highlighted this work focused around vehicles on the highway, abandoned vehicles, stray dogs and fly tipping investigation and prosecution.

It was highlighted that that the Fire Service had also started to concentrate on Community Safety and the Police Authority also dealt with some of the same issues as the Community Safety Wardens. Members expressed concern regarding the overlap of work between Cheshire East Council, the Police and Fire Service.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

To review the draft Sustainable Community Strategy prior to it being considered by Council on 22 July 2010

Consideration was given to an update on the developments of the Sustainable Community Strategy, to which Members made the following comments:

• That the document was aspirational rather than based on reality and that there were gaps in some areas that needed to be addressed
• With regard to ‘unlocking the potential of our towns’ Members expressed concern that Congleton had be omitted from the strategy and that the report should refer to service areas rather than market towns.
• With regard to ‘our vision for Cheshire East’ it was felt that this was an overview of what the Borough had already achieved rather than a vision for the future. Therefore this should be rewritten to include priorities for the future.

It was agreed that, following the consultation process, the Committee would receive a further update, prior to the strategy being submitted to Council for approval.

RESOLVED

That the above comments be taken into consideration and the final Strategy be brought back to the Committee prior to its submission to Council on 22 July 2010

To give consideration to the work programme

The Committee consideration to the process to approve the work programme for 2010/2011.

Corporate Scrutiny Committee at its meeting held on 19 April 2010 had approved a paper entitled ‘Strengthening the Scrutiny Function’ which proposed a more formal approach to the work programme setting process in 2010 to enable the views of Cabinet to be fed into the process. This approach was also considered and endorsed by the Scrutiny Chairs Group. The main aim of the new approach was to share work programmes with colleagues in Cabinet and Corporate Management Team (CMT) at the outset, so that Overview and Scrutiny became an integral part of the Corporate business planning process of the Council.  Work programme items would subsequently be linked to relevant Corporate plan targets, and where appropriate, Performance Indicators and LAA targets.

            It was intended that emerging work programmes of all five Overview and Scrutiny Committees would be presented to Cabinet informally in June, and then each Committee would formally endorse its work programme before the summer recess.

RESOLVED

That the report be approved