Agenda item - Written questions from Councillors.

A list of the written questions submitted by Members has been included in the agenda papers (copy attached).  This will be repeated along with the written answers received and will be taken as read as part of an addendum circulated separately at the meeting.

48.1      The Mayor reminded Council that written questions from Members and the replies from the appropriate Councillor were taken as read by reference to the list included in the addendum which had been circulated as detailed below:

(a)    Councillor Miller

48.2      “Will Cllr Moonan endeavour to investigate innovative ways Scandinavian cities such as Copenhagen help rough sleepers into homes, work and a healthier way of life, for example by promoting recycling collection: and will she explore how such methods or best practice parts of them could be transposed to Brighton and Hove in order to help our rough sleepers?”

Reply from Councillor Moonan – Lead Member for Rough Sleeping

48.3      “Thank you for your question and interest in rough sleeping.  In the summer of this year a new city wide Rough Sleeping Strategy was published. It was developed by a city wide partnership between Brighton and Hove City Council, Sussex Police, local NHS organisation, Brighton Housing Trust, St Mungo’s, Equinox and YMCA Downlink. This strategy was informed by the best and most effective practice we could find from across the city, the wider country and beyond.

The priorities of the strategy are:

1.  Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping

2.  Rapid Assessment and reconnection

3.  Improving health

4.  A Safe city

5.    Pathways to Independence

We are happy to look into any additional innovative ways to help reduce rough sleeping, including those from Scandinavian cities and incorporate them into implementation of the strategy.”

(b)   Councillor K. Norman

48.4      “World Autism Awareness Week takes place from 27th March to 2nd April 2017 so what plans does the Council have to promote and support this event and what will the Council be doing within schools to use the packs the National Autistic Society has created to raise awareness of autism so that as many people as possible learn and understand autism?”

Reply from Councillor Bewick – Chair of the Children, Young People & Skills Committee

48.5      “As part of our ongoing commitment to meeting the needs of children, young people and adults with autistic spectrum conditions (ASC) in the city and to promote World Autism Awareness Week we will be offering a range of events, talks and exhibitions for parents, carers and professionals. These will take place in venues across the city. You may recall that we also facilitated such events last year.

In addition, as part of our support to schools, we will be encouraging schools to use a range of materials to offer fun, imaginative lessons, activities and assemblies to raise children and young people’s awareness of autism, developing their understanding and promoting acceptance.”

(c)    Councillor G. Theobald

48.6      “How can Cllr. Morgan justify launching a petition to Government, on behalf of Brighton & Hove City Council, when he runs a minority Administration and has no authority to do so under the Council’s Constitution?”

Reply from Councillor Morgan – Leader of the Council

48.7      “There is no constitutional bar to me setting up a petition in my own name.”

(d)   Councillor G. Theobald

48.8      “In October 2012, P&R Committee agreed to purchase and install Automatic Meter Reading equipment for water, gas, electricity and heat metered supplies in schools, housing blocks and other corporate property. In the light of recent concerns raised about water leakages on Council-owned allotments, will the Lead Member for Finance & Resources confirm whether or not energy and water usage, and hence running costs, have reduced as a result of the contract?”

Reply from Councillor Hamilton – Deputy Chair (Finance) of the Policy, Resources & Growth Committee

48.9      “Following Policy & Resources approval in 2012 a total of 760 electricity, gas and water AMRs (automatic meter reading equipment) have now been installed across the council’s operational portfolio which are actively monitored by the Property & Design Energy & Water team. Not all meters have been installed with AMRs as some site locations were subsequently found to be unsuitable due to poor signal levels. AMRs monitor energy or water consumption on a half hourly basis with a daily upload to the council’s monitoring software and have successfully contributed to a continuing reduction in our energy and water consumption.

Water AMR

Since installation of the water AMRs, the Energy & Water team have used the technology to identify several major long-standing water leaks many of which have been resolved and some of which are in the process of investigation and resolution. It should be noted that whilst AMRs will flag that a leak is present an investigation still has to take place to identify where the leak is occurring and to arrange the repair. On sites such as parks and allotments with potentially several hundred metres of pipe run and more than one leak this can be problematic and can involve specialist companies using gas detection techniques to find the leak. On sites with aged pipework disturbing the ground to repair one leak may in turn cause another to occur.Our annual property performance indicator results show a continuing reduction in water use of 21.8% in m3/m2 of floor area.

Energy AMR

The benefit of AMRs to energy meters is more around monitoring consumption and detecting unusual consumption patterns for example heating systems operating when buildings are unoccupied. The Energy & Water team have been working with our mechanical team and with site managers to identify unusual patterns in the AMR data for specific high volume buildings and to carry out tests of the heating systems to determine a cause and value for money solution which is an on-going process.Our annual property performance indicator results show a continuing reduction in energy consumption of 29% in kWh/m2 since 2012.

AMRs also assist the council in bill validation, improving the accuracy of bills and reducing our costs for example through the CRCCarbon Reduction Commitment scheme where the council is penalised for relying on estimated billing.”

(e)    Councillor Cobb

48.10   “How much money has the Council spent on paper and other stationery each year over the last 10 years or as far back as records go?”

Reply from Councillor Hamilton – Deputy Chair (Finance) of the Policy, Resources & Growth Committee

48.11   “I have set out below the information from our General Ledger system for the Detail Code ‘Office Stationery’.  I have included the last 10 years plus spend to date for the current year.”