Agenda item - Leader of the Council - Bill Randall

10-10.40am

4.1             The Leader of the Council - Councillor Bill Randall advised Members of the following:

(1)   Personalisation budget - This gave people the freedom to decide how to spend their social care budget in order to meet their specific needs and desired outcomes. Examples were cooking with friends, going to Bingo or the cinema. There were concerns as to how individuals would cope with managing their own budgets. It was understood that the new system was working well. There had been a decrease in the number of people attending Day Centres. It was noted that Brighton & Hove had not changed the criteria for accessing services, (whilst other authorities had made changes to this).

(2)   Publication of the Council’s budget – the budget had been published 2 months early. Consultation was taking part on the closure of some of the public toilets. The budget was dealing with various challenges. It was noted that there was a housing crisis. Street homelessness had increased by 15% due to tenants not being able to afford private rented housing. There was work being carried out on utilising former family homes for student accommodation and supporting improvements to council housing. An addition of £200k had been identified to the housing budget to support these changes.

(3)   The Council were looking at various offers on Fuel Policy which would help insulate homes better and reduce costs.

(4)   The authority wanted to protect the most vulnerable and had increased spending on youth services. The Council had 420 children under the authority’s care. These children came from complex family backgrounds with costly support services. The Council were working to ensure these services had efficient outcomes.

(5)   The Council was also looking at the welfare of older people.

(6)   There were new approaches to working with partners such as the Police. Both organisations would be working closer together to combine budgets.

(7)   The Preston Barracks Regeneration Scheme was moving forward. The grant for the Lewes Road development had been successful and there were plans to improve bus and road access.

(8)   The council were also looking at satellite areas such as Partridge House in supporting these places during these challenging times.

4.2             Questions were raised:

(1)   On the budget as the distribution of the Pensioner magazine had been cut back by the Council. Councillor salaries were inquired upon. Members were told how there was no increase to Councillor salaries, unlike other councils. The Leader and the Chief Executive had taken a voluntary reduction in salary and Councillors were paying to go to events as previously they would attend these for free. Money from the Council Budget was allocated towards pay increases for the lowest paid staff.

(3) On improving communication links with different elderly groups through the collective use of databases and e-mailing information out to get older people to sign up to events that they maybe of interest to them. Members noted that that there were several elderly schemes which were all different within the residential Wards, but these were not joined up. The use of smart phones had improved communication, through digital media eg. webcasting, tweeting and texting. It was important to utilise databases.  It was important to ensure that conventional means of communication were also used.

(4)   On a potential Traveller site, Members were informed that the Council wanted to ensure that everyone in our city was treated fairly and that some people within this community were vulnerable. There would be an announcement on the Traveller Strategy.

(5)   On the closure of public toilets- Members were asked to take part in the consultation. Retailers like supermarkets were providing more public toilets. The city had a high substance misuse problem which had led to the reduction in public toilet opening hours. The Eastern Road Partnership had raised the issue of the lack of public toilets in their area too. It was understood that there was redevelopment work going on at the corner of St. Mary’s Church which may open up a public toilet in that area.