Agenda and minutes

Councillor C Evans (Chair) declared an interest as Ward Member and Community Councillor for Rogerstone in relation to Item 3, Budget Proposal (CS1920/10 – City Services – Introduce Parking Charges within Tredegar Park and Fourteen Locks) and also declared that he was an employee of Newsquest, but had no influence on what was written editorially.

A Councillor referred to the Minutes of the meeting held on 19 November on page 9 where Digitalisation of Services was mentioned, a comment upon the need for Member training had been omitted.

The Scrutiny Adviser clarified that the Member’s comment regarding the requirement of IT Training for Members was included over the page, in the 3^rd paragraph from the end of page 10 of the Minutes.

The minutes of the meetings held on 19 November and 3 December were approved as a true and accurate record.

Attendees:

-        Paul Jones (Head of Streetscene and City Services)

-        Rhys Cornwall (Head of People and Business Change)

-        Meirion Rushworth (Head of Finance)

-        Keir Duffin (Head of Regeneration Investment and Housing)

-        Alastair Hopkins (Senior Finance Business Partner)

The Strategic Director – Place sent her apologies that she was unable to attend for this item as she had to attend another meeting.

CS1920/06 – Refuse Collection – Review of Charging for Waste Special Collections

The Head of Streetscene and City Services presented a brief overview of the proposal to the Committee. The Authority currently charged £6 per item and the proposal would change the price to a minimum charge of £20 for up to 3 items which would recover the full costs of the service.  Other Councils’ charges had been benchmarked and most Councils recovered their costs by charging an initial payment for 2 or 3 items of bulky waste collected. Based on the Council’s current take up for the service it was expected that the Council would break even based upon the proposed charge of £20 for collecting up to 3 items.

Members asked the following:

·             Was the Head of Streetscene and City Services in post the previous time this revised charge was proposed as a budget proposal. The Officer advised that he was not in post at the time.  A Member explained that that this proposal was made 2 years ago but that as a result of consultation and comments made it was not implemented, partly due to fly tipping and the costs of a potential increase in fly tipping.

·             A Member expressed concern that the introduction of a minimum charge for up to three items could increase fly tipping in Newport and make the problem worse. The Officer advised that the proposal  was not asking for a minimum of 3 items to be collected, it is for a minimum charge of £20. The Officer agreed that fly tipping was a real problem however he did not accept that Newport was massively different from other authorities in this area.

·             Members voiced concerns that when payments rose, some people fly tip and get away with it whilst those who follow the rules picked up the costs. Members asked if there were any plans to implement an enforcement regime to deal with people who fly tip. The Head of Streetscene and City Services sympathised and agreed that it was frustrating that there were a small number of people who fly tip, unfortunately a lot of the time items were dumped on private land. There were interactions with Newport City Homes to work together, and work was ongoing between the Waste and Street Cleansing Teams. Cameras had been installed in known hotspots and the possibility of more surveillance cameras was being explored, and was hoped that these would make an impact.

·             Members were told that the team were looking into recycling bulky waste however some bulky waste could not be recycled.

·             Members discussed CCTV and cameras, it was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

a)       Forward Work Programme Update (Appendix 1)

b)       Actions Arising (Appendix 2)

c)       Information Reports

d)       Scrutiny Letters

Attendee:

- Meryl Lawrence (Scrutiny Adviser)

a)           Forward Work Programme Update

The Scrutiny Adviser presented the Forward Work Programme, and advised the Committee upon the proposed topics for the next two committee meetings, as follows:

·        Monday 18^th February 2019:

Change from a Committee meeting to the outstanding Committee Briefing upon Housing from the Committee’s Forward Work Programme to be held in February 2019.

·        Monday 8^th April 2019:

Draft Highway Asset Management Plan (following the presentation requested by the Committee upon the Quality of Road Network delivered on 24 September 2018, the Committee were asked if they wished to be consulted upon the Draft Highways Asset Management Plan).

The Committee agreed the topics, as above.

b)           Action Sheet

The Scrutiny Adviser presented the Action Sheet and advised the Committee that as indicated in the table, all items had been actioned and the information circulated to Members of the Committee accordingly and the Housing Briefing had been discussed as part of the report upon the Forward Work Programme update in a) above and scheduled accordingly.

c)           Information Reports

The Scrutiny Adviser informed the Committee that there were no Information Reports to bring to the Committee’s attention.

d)           Scrutiny Letters

The Scrutiny Adviser informed the Committee that there were no Scrutiny letters to report to the Committee.