In accordance with Procedure Rules 11, opportunity is provided for Members of the Council to ask the Chairman, the appropriate Cabinet Member or the Chairman of a Committee any question about a matter which the Council, the Cabinet or the Committee has powers, duties or responsibilities.
Questions must be sent in writing to the Monitoring Officer at least 3 clear working days before the meeting.
Minutes:
Councillor D Flude had submitted the following five questions:-
Question 1 - Home Office Consultation May 2009.
Together we can end violence against women and girls.
Can this Council be assured that there was a response from this council to this consultation?
Can this Council be assured that the survivors of domestic and or sexual violence in Cheshire East are provided with the services from this Council, that they need to be safe to enable recovery from their horrific experiences?
How is this Council implementing the Co-ordinated Community Response model, which has been evaluated nationally and proved to be cost effective and ensures an integrated response to all parties, including children who experience domestic and or sexual violence?
What funding is this Council allocating to the work, to prevent and respond to domestic and sexual violence now and how does it envisage securing sustained funding, as part of a strategic long term response?
The Sexual Assault Referral Centre, that is planned to be opened at Leighton Hospital has funding from our partners, Health and Police, what contribution to this vital resource will Cheshire East Council be making?
Question 2
A recent survey has found that that more than six out of ten people providing unpaid care for someone who is ill, frail or disabled have not had a break for more than a year and a third of them have not taken time off since they started caring.
Of particular concern are young carers who provide care for family members who have mental health, drug or alcohol problems.
Can this Council be assured that?
All carers who request or require a carer’s assessment are assessed and a timely review of their caring needs takes place and that any changes in their circumstances are acted on promptly?
That within each social work team there is sufficient clerical support to enable the vital role and expertise of Social Worker’s who carry out the social work function of assessing, setting up care packages and reviewing, to be enabled to carry out their function, recognising the ever increasing referrals to social work teams?
Are technological systems in place and are these systems fit for purpose to enable social workers to carry our designated functions in a cost and time efficient manner?
Question 3 - Criteria for Care
Cheshire East Cabinet have stated that the new model of Social Care puts the person and their carers at the heart of all we do.
A large percentage of older people fall just outside the stated group of people who would qualify for care, i.e. they are not in the Critical or Substantial range of need.
Preventive work is vital, if we are to enable older people to retain their independence. Current guidelines have excluded many older people with lower needs from the most basic care provision, such as bathing, shopping and housework.
Recognising that basic needs are vital in preventive work; will there be greater investment in preventative services through the Supporting You Budgets, via other agencies?
The Adult Services Portfolio Holder undertook to provide written responses to questions 1, 2 and 3.
Question 4 - Response times to communications received by Cheshire East Council.
What are this Council’s response time for letters and emails?
Does this council send important letter by recorded mail i.e. final notices for the payment of Council Tax arrears?
What is the response time for telephone calls to this council i.e. how many
rings before telephones are answered?
The Performance and Capacity Portfolio Holder responded as follows:-
We aim to acknowledge letters and emails within 3 working days. We will typically provide a full response within 7 working days. If it is clear, however, that the matter will require more in-depth investigation, then we will advise the customer within 7 working days that the matter will require more detailed investigation and a response will be provided within a further 20 working days. Does this council send important letter by recorded mail i.e. final notices for the payment of Council Tax arrears?
We do not send these types of notices by recorded mail. Costs would significantly increase if we adopted this approach (recorded mail is approximately 75p extra per item). Also, the courts have deemed that 1st or 2nd class mail is sufficient even in the case of a court summons.
We aim to answer 95% of all calls received by our Contact Centres, with
80% of calls answered within 20 seconds.
Question 5
When will the residents of the town of Crewe have a kerb side glass collection service and will the silver bins, at present used for recyclable waste, be used for this service?
The Environmental Services Portfolio Holder responded as follows:-
Glass is currently collected separately in the old Macclesfield and Congleton areas. We are able to sell it for a small amount, which is much less than the cost of collection. It is not possible for the single container recycling vehicles operating in Crewe to collect glass, as the materials recycling facility (or Merf ) to which we send all this waste stream will not accept glass.
In order to collect glass in Crewe we would need either to change our vehicles or gain access to a Merf that is able to handle glass. There is of course a third alternative and that is to have a separate round to collect glass. This as you can imagine would be prohibitively expensive. It would also mean a fifth wheelie bin or suitable collection box for each house.
When the waste staff have dealt with the change to fortnightly collections in Congleton and the extra green waste bin in Crewe, all rounds will have to be rerouted and several smaller depots closed. We are then going to bring before you our plans for the energy from waste plant for which two selected tenders are in final stages of submission. These may have some effect on the sort of residual waste we collect.
Once all those schemes are finalised, we will be able to bring forward our overall plan for the collection and disposal of waste. This will include details of whether we kerbside sort or use a Merf, which we may or may not operate ourselves. If that Merf is designed to handle glass, then we can collect glass in the silver bin. If not, we may have to replace all our vehicles with new ones with multiple containers for recyclable waste that has been sorted at the kerbside. Hopefully we will complete this process by 2015.
Question 6
The following question was submitted by Councillor D Cannon
The May edition of the Newsletter of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils was distributed by e-mail to Cheshire East Members earlier in the year. The Chairman of the Association writes about his meetings with the Leaders and Chief Executives of Cheshire's Unitary Authorities. He says, "The two Authorities have stated their keenness to support the parishing of the unparished areas in their Boroughs".
Does the Leader of the Council regard this as an accurate expression of the views of the Cabinet? Is this a subject which the Council as a whole should debate and consider how it might be actively pursued as a policy?"
The Leader of the Council responded as follows:-
The Council has received a petition for a new town council for Crewe. The Borough Solicitor is currently reporting to a sub-committee of the Governance and Constitution Committee with proposals for carrying out a community governance review.
With regard to Macclesfield and Wilmslow, the Council is in the early days of developing local working and a decision will be made in due course as to whether to conduct community governance reviews, notwithstanding the possible receipt of petitions from those areas.
Question 7
The following question was submitted by Councillor S Jones:-
The Cabinet at their meeting on 19 May 2009 approved the amended Notice of Motion first put to Council on 2 April, 2009 that:-
“This Council Supports Fair Trade principles where consistent with Value for Money”.
How does this Council intend to demonstrate its commitment to Fairtrade principles and how will the extent of this commitment be monitored?
The Procurement, Assets and Shared Service Portfolio Holder responded as follows:-
We will shortly be introducing a procurement guidance note on how to integrate fair-trade principles into procurement activity.
We will shortly be introducing a tender and contract management system that will give visibility and control over procurement activity. We will introduce a performance monitor within this system that will enable us to identify where fairtared alternatives have been requested and accepted etc. Specific measures are yet to be developed.
In addition the Procurement officer will be meeting with the Fairtrade steering group to establish an action plan as to how we can support fair-trade principles and the Town Centre Manager is also developing an action plan to support town centres to obtain / maintain fair-trade status.