Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Rooms 2 & 3, Trafford Town Hall, Talbot Road, Stretford M32 0TH

Contact: Chris Gaffey, Democratic & Scrutiny Officer 

Items
No. Item

1.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 142 KB

To receive and, if so determined, to agree as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 7 November 2018.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on the 7 November be agreed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

2.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members to give notice of any interest and the nature of that interest relating to any item on the agenda in accordance with the adopted Code of Conduct.

Minutes:

No additional declarations were made.

3.

QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC

A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to public questions submitted in writing to Democratic Services (democratic.services@trafford.gov.uk) by 4pm on the working day prior to the meeting.  Questions must be relevant to items appearing on the agenda and will be submitted in the order in which they were received.

Minutes:

No questions were received.

4.

OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY REVIEW OF THE EXECUTIVE’S DRAFT BUDGET PROPOSALS FOR 2019-20 pdf icon PDF 249 KB

To receive the Budget Scrutiny Report for 2019-20, which is to be presented to the Executive on Monday 28 January 2019.

Minutes:

The Chair gave a brief summary of the report that had been circulated with the agenda. The Committee had two meetings covering the budget proposals for 2019/2020. One session had been devoted to social care as it made up a large proportion of the Councils budget with the other session covering the remainder of Council services. Members welcomed the progress that had been made in reducing the number of delayed transfers of care within the area and acknowledged the hard work that had gone into this work. There was still work to be done to achieve the targets set by the CQC and this would continue to be monitored by the Health Scrutiny Committee in 2019/2020. The Committee were reminded that adult social care was a demand led service so any changes in the expected level of demand would impact upon the budget projections.

 

The Councils reserves had been depleted over the last few years and the Committee would continue to monitor the situation. The Scrutiny Committee welcomed that a balanced budget had been proposed for 2019/20 but noted that there was an expected shortfall of £25M by 2021/22. Proposals were already being considered by the Executive to address this shortfall.

 

The Chair then noted that a motion had been passed at the Council meeting 28 November which called for the Council to declare a climate emergency and called for the creation of a new task and finish group to seek advice from experts to develop a carbon budget and set a date for carbon neutrality in Trafford. The hiring of the experts would generate a cost and so scrutiny requested that a budget be made available for this purpose.

 

Following the summary the Committee had an opportunity to raise questions but none were raised. The Committee agreed that the report was to be referred to the executive for the meeting on the 28 January 2019. The Chair thanked the executive Members and the officers for their work in creating a balanced budget without a loss of service.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted by the Committee

2)    That the report be referred to the Executive meeting 28January 2019.

 

 

5.

PROCESS FOR MANAGING AND INTRODUCING TRAFFIC REGULATION ORDERS (TRO'S) pdf icon PDF 316 KB

To receive a report of the Executive Member the Executive Member for Environment, Air Quality and Climate Change.

Minutes:

The Executive Member for Environment, Air Quality, and Climate introduced the report. The Committee were informed of the reasons why a TRO would be raised these included public safety and environmental issues. The Executive Member then detailed the process for setting up TROs such as a residents parking scheme in an area and the possible. The process involved a large amount of consultation with affected residents with up to three rounds of consultation taking between 6 and 18 months. If there was support for such a scheme then it would be implemented which could also take a long time.

 

In addition to residents all other stakeholders were consulted in relation TROs including the Ambulance Service, Police, local businesses, and bus services. Smaller scale TROs would have a single round of Consultation and only experimental TROs did not require consultation as they were for a fixed period of time. If an experimental TRO was to become permanent then consultation would be conducted at that point. The Executive Member then told the Committee about the cost assessments for each TRO. The cost assessments reviewed all associated costs such as planning, the original implementation, monitoring, and enforcement. Part of the process included discussions with the police around enforcement.

 

Following the overview of the report the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions. The Executive Member explained that he had expected an officer to be present but he would answer as many questions as he could at the meeting and any he could not answer would be taken back and answers provided.

 

A Member of the Committee explained their involvement with TROs. The Member had received a list of all the TRO applications that were ongoing several years before. When they received the list they had found that there were hundreds of TROs with some of them going back ten years or more. As there was a large backlog of TROs and the service was only able to process a small number per year the Council prioritised all TRO applications and those of the highest priority were completed each year. This meant that there were many TROs on the Councils system which would never be completed. The Member explained that it was this process that they were interested in rather than the actual process of completing a TRO.

 

The Executive Member explained that while they were aware of the list they did not know about the processes related in maintaining and updating the lists. The Committee asked whether the list of TROs that had been submitted with the report was an exhaustive list. The Executive Member told the Committee that the list provided was not exhaustive and that such a list could be provided at a later meeting. The Committee agreed that further information relating process of adding and prioritising TROs along with an exhaustive list of ongoing TROs be provided at a later meeting.

 

A member asked about the proposed play streets scheme allowing residents to close streets temporarily to hold community  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY - TASK & FINISH GROUP pdf icon PDF 144 KB

To receive and discuss a motion declaring a Climate Emergency, as amended and agreed at Council on 28 November.

Minutes:

The Committee were looking to establish a new task and finish group following the motion which was made to council in November declaring a climate emergency. The Committee were requested to consult experts in order to come up with a carbon, to consider the climate change impact of all of the council’s activities, to set an ambitious timescale for the reduction of these impacts, and to look into the feasibility of making all risk assessments include carbon emission appraisals and requiring alternative options which reduce carbon emissions be listed. The group are asked to report back on each of these areas to full Council. The Chair recognised that whilst this was a Trafford piece of work that there was a lot of work already ongoing at the Greater Manchester level. Therefore the task and finish group would need to consult with officers involved with the GM work to avoid duplication.

 

The Chair then asked for volunteers from the Committee to take part in the task and finish group. A Member of the Committee commented that there was already a lot of task and finish work being conducted by the Committee and they asked whether all Councillors could be invited to volunteer to take part. The Chair agreed that this should be widened to all Trafford Councillors and asked officers to send out an email detailing what the Task and Finish Group was to do and asking for volunteers.

 

The Chair added that funds would be required for the hiring of experts and that this would need to be done through a procurement exercise.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the Committee agree to set up a climate change Task and Finish Group.

2)    That all Councillors be informed of the group and invited be part of the group.

3)    That Officers from Greater Manchester be asked to attend the first meeting of the Group.

7.

OVERVIEW REPORT pdf icon PDF 348 KB

To receive a report of the Scrutiny Committee Chair.

Minutes:

The Chair introduced the report which had been provided for the Committee’s information. The Chair then drew Committee Members attention to the Task and Finish group reviewing the One Trafford Partnership. The Chair stated that a repot with recommendations was being drafted and would be taken to a final meeting of the Task and Finish Group for agreement prior to it being brought to a special meeting of the Committee to consider the report for referral to the Executive.

 

A Member of the Committee requested that it be found out when the update on Fire Safety in High Rise Tower Blocks the Chair also requested that the Presentation by GMFRS on Retrofitting Sprinklers be scheduled for a meeting.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the updates on Fire Safety in High Rise Tower Blocks and Presentation by GMFRS on Retrofitting Sprinklers be scheduled on for a meeting on the workplan.