A period of up to 40 minutes is allocated for questions to the Leader, Cabinet Portfolio Holders and Chairs of Overview and Scrutiny Committees.
Minutes:
(1) Question to Councillor Redford from Councillor Feeney
“A number of services in Rugby seem to be regularly cancelled in the morning at the moment. I’ve been informed by residents that the No 4 bus service at 7.45 is frequent cancelled leading to overcrowding on the next service. It is a bus that school children use to get to school and it does create problems when it doesn’t run.
Also the 85 which goes to Coventry has similarly been cancelled a number of times with passengers waiting an hour for the next bus. One lady was 2 hours late for work in Coventry one day. I also know that a visually impaired resident gets that bus with his guide dog and its very difficult for them to make alternative arrangements if the bus does not turn up.
Can we ascertain why certain buses are cancelled on a fairly regular basis and also what steps the operator is taking to ensure that this will not be happening going forward?”
In response, Councillor Redford indicated that the problem lay with bus companies having extreme difficulties in recruiting staff, not just in Warwickshire, but nationwide. This was an ongoing situation although there were some indications that these difficulties were coming to an end at a local level. There had been a few problems in Rugby, with Councillor Redford noting problems with the timetables, reductions and cancellations. However, Councillor Redford advised that he had received assurances from Stagecoach that there would be an easing of the situation in the wek following the meeting.
(2) Question to Councillor Redford from Councillor Holland
“Warwick town centre has an Air Quality Management Order in place. Computer modelling of air quality and traffic flows has shown that there is only one possible scheme. This was agreed by Cabinet in 2016 and all work is fully funded.
The scheme can be seen at www.Warwickshire.gov.uk/warwicktowncentre
There has been no progress since May 2021. Will you ensure that the street work is completed as soon as possible?”
Councillor Redford agreed to do what he could to support the process and informed the meeting that it was proposed works at the St Johns Junction would be starting in July 2023 with further engagement with the local communities in the coming weeks.
By way of supplementary question, Councillor Holland asked for serious resource to be directed to the scheme. He noted that public consultation for St Johns was expected in July 2022 but nothing had happened and in fact over the previous 12 months, monthly meetings had taken place with no action moving forward. He considered that the scheme represented approximately two years’ worth of work which could have been finished in 2018 or, accounting for some over-run, at least before the pandemic. There were other issues linked to the scheme, like a pedestrian crossing for the new GP Surgery which opened in June last year. A financial contribution had been received but the work was being held up by the work at St John’s despite there being limited connection. Councillor Holland opined that the scheme was fully funding but resourcing was an issue. Councillor Redford repeated his agreement to do what he could to push the scheme along.
(3) Question to Councillor Redford from Councillor Drew
“Does the Portfolio Holder share concern that the travel plan for the new secondary school in Kenilworth, to open in a year’s time, anticipates school runs being almost exclusively by car? Will he commit to work with myself, head teacher and officers to improve this plan?”
Councillor Redford provided the requested commitment. In doing so, he emphasised that it was a planning requirement for the school trust to submit the travel plan to the Council and that had not yet been done. He, therefore, expressed his appreciation for anything Councillor Drew could do to expedite this.
(4) Question to Councillor Kaur from Councillor Fradgley
“I have been made aware of problems with admissions this year. Have the issues behind these problems been resolved now and are you confident they will not happen again? Are all children now accommodated?
Would you please give me the average time over the last three months between an application being made for an in-year school place and a place being allocated.”
Councillor Kam Kaur advised that the most school places were allocated during the main school transfer window (March for secondary places and April for primary places). In-year admissions generally involved children moving into Warwickshire or wishing to change school, and for the current year included children arriving in Warwickshire under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Many of the children applying for in-year moves had existing school places. This was a different process to the annual process which went smoothly in the current year for both primary and secondary schools.
Councillor Kaur explained that the Council’s Admissions Service had experienced some challenges in the weeks prior to the meeting with regard to in-year admissions. In-year admissions were complex, not least because most school places were already taken making it challenging to balance parental preference with capacity, statutory class size limits for infant classes and the code requirement to apply oversubscription criteria to all those wanting places in oversubscribed schools.
Councillor Kaur went on to advise that the revised School Admissions Code in 2021 required some changes to be put in for summer 2022. The in-year process could only be run for high volumes when the schools were open. The School Admissions Code 2021 recognised that in-year admissions was a complex process and required in-year admissions to be processed within 15 school days, with an aim of 10 school days in the school year to which they apply. Some challenges had been experienced when introducing and embedding the new way of working, combined with an even higher than usual number of in-year applications received over the summer. Councillor Kaur expressed her apologies to schools and families affected by the impact of the changes, particularly noting poor service responding to calls and emails.
Despite these problems, the Council provided offers to secondary school applications by 9 September 2022 and primary by 16 September 2022. The Council had moved into a regular fortnightly process of processing batches of in-year applications received since September and expected to make further offers to those children by the end of the current week, again, in-line with the time expectations set out in the Code. The Council was embedding and refining its new processes, answering queries, apologies where the service had not met the standards aspired to and contacting schools to help support them with the changes. There was confidence the necessary changes were being embedded which would stand Warwickshire in good stead for the future.
With respect to the second part of the question, Councillor Kaur advised that as the Council had to process all the applications in the current school year from 1 September 2022, timeliness was measured against the Code requirement of 15 school days from the start of term and would measure timeliness from receipt to offer during the rest of the school year. By 16 September 2022, the Council had processed over 1600 in-year applications for the current school year and were in the process of issuing offers in the current week for over 500 further applications received since the start of term (ie approximately three to four weeks ago). In doing so, it was expected that the majority would be processed within the 15 school days required.
Councillor Fradgley sought an email of the comprehensive response. She also stated that she had been asked by two or three schools in her division if they could contribute towards a discussion with the Council as to the issues they had encountered and put their experience to the Council to see if they could improve the situation for the following year.
Councillor Kaur stated that it was important to conduct a lessons learnt exercise which would involve schools. She appreciated any feedback that was submitted through the process.
(5) Question to Councillor Redford from Councillor Feeney
“I wondered if you would be able to set out the criteria and process for requesting average speed camera installation. Is there a different criteria for high speed roads in rural areas to that of high speed roads in towns?”
Councillor Redford advised that there was currently no difference in criteria. Some pilot studies were being conducted and Councillor Redford committed to sharing the policy criteria with Councillor Feeney at an early opportunity.
(6) Question to Councillor Watson from Councillor Warwick
“Could the portfolio holder confirm what the predicted saving to Warwickshire County Council is of the changes to National Insurance, welcome the retention of the higher threshold for our staff, and advise how the savings will be used?”
Councillor Martin Watson answered this question in the absence of Councillor Peter Butlin. He stated that the cost to the Council of the 1.25% uplift introduced in April 2022 was about £1.3m. Following the Chancellor’s announcements in the previous week, that the increase would be reversed from 6 November 2022, it was expected a reduction in costs of circa £1.3m next year and a part year effect of circa £0.5m for the current year. The £0.5m saving for the current year would be redirected towards the cost of the 2022 pay award when it was agreed. The current national employers’ offer would cost £1.6m more than the 4% uplift that was included in the budget that was agreed in February 2022 and the saving would reduce the need to use reserves to close the gap.
In the following year, as set out in the report to Cabinet in July 2022, the Council needed to find an estimated additional £20m cost reduction to balance the medium term financial strategy across the next five years. The £1.3m full year benefit would be put into the mix to help limit some of the more difficult decisions that would be required. However, the financial answer was not always straightforward and it was worth noting that in the current year a one-off grant was received from Central Government of £9.6m to increase inflationary pay and National Insurance and demand pressures.
Whilst the government had said that the money that was intended for health and social care through the levy would now be funded through general taxation and borrowing until the provision 2023/24 financial statement was announced in December, the Council would not know if the £9.6m would continue to be received in full or if the way it had been distributed between authorities would change. Essentially, meaning that the government may take the £1.3m back and say effectively the position would be net neutral. The expectation was it would be used to offset some of the challenges, however, the worst case scenario was that the Council might not get it anyway or it might be taken back.
Councillor Watson considered it worth mentioning the National Insurance reduction was welcomed. He thanked Councillor Feeney for her prior statements on the economy as he believed that a vibrant economy underpinned everything the Council did.
The Treasury had estimated that 920,000 businesses would also save an estimated £10,000 in the following year as a result of the National Insurance reversal with 20,000 of them being taken out of paying National Insurance entirely due to the increase in the employment allowance which rose from £4,000 to £5,000 in April 2022. In particular, small businesses, who employed over 13m people in the UK, will see a cut to their National Insurance bills in the following year which would be worth approximately between £4,200 for small businesses and £21,700 for medium sized businesses. In total 900,000 micro, small and medium businesses would benefit from the reversal of the National Insurance increase.
(7) Question to Councillor Timms from Councillor Beetham
“As the Portfolio Holder for Environment, Climate & Culture is aware I've been long championing the mobile community pantry in Camp Hill since the idea first came up and was very glad when Camp Hill was chosen due to being one of the top 3 most deprived areas in Warwickshire. I have been talking to residents who have used the service and residents who want to use the service and have received great feedback on this as it solves more than just the food issue but is part of a wider range of services that help improve people's financial state.
This is something Warwickshire County Council should be proud of providing in Camp Hill yet we do not hear a lot about it, with most media focus being on the non-mobile solution in Lillington can the portfolio holder please confirm how the project is going from a County perspective as I imagine from the chats I've had with residents it must be quite subscribed to and can the portfolio holder confirm for me the future of the community pantry in Camp Hill as well as the County promoting the work Camp Hill branch like it has in Lillington?”
Councillor Heather Timms welcomed the opportunity to highlight the success of community pantries bearing in mind that they had only been open for four months. There was a static site at Lillington which was open two days per week and mobiles at Camp Hill and Arley which were one day per week. The decision was taken to soft launch these facilities and also to have referrals from agencies in the first instance, but due to word of mouth, consideration was being given to how those facilities were responding. Proposals were being finalised around their future and that would be coming through in a report on the cost of living to Cabinet in October 2022. There was a website for the community pantries and it was aimed to populate it with more information as it progressed. Councillor Timms reflected on a recent webinar she had attended to talk to communities about the scheme and she stated that it would be really powerful to have case studies because the wraparound services of the community pantries was a really important part of the scheme. There were those provided by the Citizens Advice Bureau and already they were starting to address debt issues and sorting out benefits for people. She was aware that the Department for Work and Pensions wanted involvement, along with MIND to address mental health issues as well so there was lots of scope within the community pantries to address those concerns and really meet the needs of residents in those emergency situations. Councillor Timms added that over 50 Ukrainian families had used the community pantries. The journey to setting up the communities pantries started at least 18 months ago but having them in place at this time had been absolutely phenomenal and they would be a real asset to Warwickshire as it addressed the cost of living crisis.
Councillor Timms acknowledged a supplementary request from Councillor Beetham seeking data with regard to the usage of the Camp Hill Community Pantry to be provided to him.
(8) Question to Councillor Seccombe from Councillor Holland
“The Council accounts were always presented to the July Council before Covid. What steps are being taken to return to this timetable now that Covid restrictions have been removed.”
Councillor Isobel Seccombe advised that the situation was not as straightforward as suggested by the question. She noted that until 2017 the deadline set by government was for all councils to present their audited accounts by the end of September. In 2018 and 2019 the government brought forward the deadline to the end of July. Whilst the County Council had been able to comply with the earlier date, many authorities had not been able to meet the deadline, and it had subsequently slipped again to the end of November. This was largely due to a number of issues, not least the increasing complexity of local authority operations and hence accounts which increased the amount of audit work required and an associated lack of capacity in the audit system. At the time of the meeting, the timetable requirements for the following year was still awaited but the Council was working to the end of November which was the required government deadline date previously.
Councillor Holland expressed concern that the deadline was the end of November but the Council meeting was not set until December. He noted the usefulness of the accounts in the judgments that councillors had to make, highlighting that information was only useful if it was accurate and timely and he considered December too late. He urged all those involved in the process to revert to July deadlines.
Councillor Seccombe responded that the deadline was set by government and it was a national requirement. She repeated that there was less capacity in the system and audits were a lot more complex than had historically been the case. The issue was not about the Council presenting its accounts for audit but more about the auditors have the capacity to deliver the audit. As much as an earlier date might be preferable, Councillor Seccombe noted that the auditors had queues of authorities and public sector bodies to audit and in the previous year it had been a struggle to get the accounts audited in time as the Council was behind other big organisations in the queue.
(9) Question to Councillor Seccombe from Councillor Rolfe
“Warwickshire is one the 38 local authority areas expected to benefit from the new Investment Zones scheme announced by the government.
Bearing in mind that not one of the 22 priority places identified in this council's draft report 'Spreading opportunity, embedding aspiration and tackling disparities' is in the Stratford district, does the Leader of the council expect that the Stratford district will benefit from the Investment Zones scheme, or will we be restricted to providing extra housing for those relocating to the new Zone?”
Responding to the question, Councillor Seccombe advised that the announcement about Investment Zones identified 38 potential sites across the county, with the site of the proposed Gigafactory having been set out specifically as one potential site. However, other locations in the county could come forward for consideration. The identification and selection of potential sites for Investment Zones would be undertaken in partnership with the district and borough councils and would be based on the criteria that government set out in terms of growth and deliverability within two years.
Councillor Rolfe asked for the response in writing and seceded to Councillor Chilvers to ask a supplementary question on her behalf. Councillor Chilvers noted that the details of the Investment Zones had not been finalised but that there was discussion about them not going through normal local authority procedures and he asked the Leader to confirm she would not allow the sovereignty of Warwickshire to be bypassed in the new Investment Zones.
Councillor Seccombe responded that the details around Investment Zones were vague but the speed of delivery was an important part. The gigafactory already had planning permission and that was one of the reasons it was part of the proposals. It was sitting within the fast track devolution proposals of the West Midlands Combined Authority. She advised that the Council had been told that all local authorities would be fully engaged. She knew little more than other councillors at this stage other than there may be flexibilities about the speed of development but she needed more understanding about what that actually meant.
(10) Question to Councillor Morgan from Councillor O’Donnell
“Could you please give an update on the progress with opening children’s residential homes in the county and in particular I am interested in the home in Stratford-upon-Avon”
Councillor Jeff Morgan reminded the chamber of the Council’s plan to open four children’s homes around the county. The homes were for children for whom finding a foster placement was not possible, for instance there may be complex needs or other issues which prevent the Council looking after them in the county. There were four homes in the plan: Stratford-upon-Avon, Leamington Spa, Nuneaton and the final property was hoped to be in Bedworth or North Warwickshire. Frustratingly, the Stratford-upon-Avon home was ready for occupation but Ofsted had not yet been able to make their visit in order to make their judgement.
Councillor O’Donnell asked what timeline was offered by Ofsted but Councillor Morgan did not have this to hand and made a commitment to provide details after the meeting.
(11) Question to Councillor Redford from Councillor Golby
“We’ve got an organisation currently waiting to complete a planning application for submission to Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council that, if passed could bring hundreds of jobs to an area of deprivation. The consultation period for the planning application expired in January 2022 and the application cannot be progressed because there is a delay in the County Highways response. In the spirit of levelling-up, can the Portfolio Holder commit to immediately expediting this response with his officers so that the application can at least be progressed to the next steps of the planning process.”
Councillor Redford answered in the affirmative.
(12) Question to Councillor Redford from Councillor Golby
“In 2017 one of the first things I voted on in this Chamber was agreeing a budget for some highways works and junction reconfiguration on College Street, Heath end Road and Greenmoor Road . There had been several dates given as a prospective start date for this project and this morning I was informed that there were more delays and this is now as a result of network management’s refusal to progress the Greenmoor Road project because of over-running works on the Bermuda Bridge project. This would potentially add another year on to the likely start date for the Heath End Road and Greenmoor Road junction reconfiguration which was not acceptable. We cannot continue with slippage on projects that would arguably deliver big benefits in my area and beyond because the Bridge project is running a year behind. Can I ask the Portfolio Holder to expedite Greenmore Road reconfiguration with his officers and push this project forward a priority regardless of the status of the Bermuda Bridge project?”
Councillor Redford answered in the affirmative.
(13) Question to Councillor Timms from Councillor Will Roberts
“Several locations have been identified for new investment zones in Warwickshire. The RSPB, Wildlife Trust and National Trust have said the new Investment Zones put forward in the mini budget will be an unprecedented attack on nature. Can you tell me whether you will be supporting investment zones that will have a detrimental effect on biodiversity in Warwickshire?”
Councillor Timms responded that she did not have enough information on what would be coming forward so she was not able to answer. However, she had taken a keen interest in the Coventry airport expansion when the Wildlife Trust had been very concerned due to the proximity of the Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve and she was very supportive at that time of their arguments with regard to the expansion. She stated that the investment zone at Coventry airport would not have the same detrimental impact on wildlife or biodiversity in the area but obviously more information would be available with the passage of time and she would be able to make a judgement about what was done going forward.
(14) Question to Councillor Seccombe from Councillor Chilvers
“In 2013 the Conservative Administration expressed scepticism about fracking like underground coal gasification when an application came forward. Given the announcement last week by the Prime Minister that fracking and UCG might be back on the agenda, will the Leader reaffirm that scepticism for this damaging technology?”
Councillor Isobel Seccombe stated as there was no viable interest at the time, she considered the question was asking her to pre-empt a situation which had not arisen and the technology was not understood. She suggested a wait and see approach was the correct response.