To provide an opportunity to pose questions to Cabinet Members in line with Standing Orders.
Process:
No more than 10 minutes will be allocated at the Council meeting for questions to each Cabinet Member.
Members must submit their proposed questions in writing in advance in accordance with Standing Orders. If members are unable to ask their question orally within the allocated time, remaining questions will be answered in writing. The question and response will be appended to the minutes.
The question must be addressed through the Mayor or the person presiding at the meeting and not directly to the person being questioned.
Questions will be posed to Cabinet Members in the following order:
i. Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Assets and Member Development
ii. Cabinet Member for Education and Skills
iii. Cabinet Member for Social Services
iv. Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Housing
v. Cabinet Member for Community and Resources
vi. Cabinet Member for Streetscene
vii. Cabinet Member for Licensing and Regulation
viii. Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure
For information: A digest of recent decision schedules issued by Cabinet, Cabinet Members and Minutes of recent meetings of Committees has been circulated electronically to all Members of the Council.
Minutes:
The following questions were submitted and answered.
Cabinet Member for Education and Skills
Councillor Joan Watkins asked:
After a recent visit in March by Estyn Inspectors St Julians comprehensive School remains in special measures. Newport High School in Bettws is also in the special measures category. Stemming from recent Welsh Government rankings assessment, in Jan 2017 Llanwern High School slipped into the red zone.
Can the Cabinet Member responsible for Education give a cast iron guarantee that Llanwern High School will not also sink into the special measures category and what actions are being taken to prevent this happening.
The Cabinet Member responded:
The Cabinet Member referenced the similar question answered at the Council meeting in February, and added that all schools had areas of strength, and there was a lot to be proud of within Newport schools. Every local authority had schools in all categories, including red schools, but Newport had the highest number of green schools in the region. GCSE rankings had improved, and performance was above expected levels for the numbers of children in receipt of free school meals.
The Cabinet Member stated that Estyn and the EAS were experts in identifying needs for support, and red categorisation ensured the highest level of support. Support was provided by the EAS and the local authority working in partnership to consistently review the capacity of schools to move forward. The Cabinet Member also noted that Newport had never been placed in special measures, and with the high levels of success this was unlikely to happen in the future.
The Cabinet Member recognised Estyn as Her Majesty’s Inspectors of schools, who gave an unquestionable judgement. The local authority would continue to do what it could, but there could not be any cast iron guarantees as inspection judgements were for Estyn to determine. In reference to Llanwern High School, all appropriate support had been put in place, and outcomes were looking significantly better than last year. The Cabinet Member closed by thanking the school staff for their continued hard work, as well as the governors, community and education department for their ongoing support.
Supplementary question:
Councillor Watkins’ questioned whether raising standards was Estyn’s responsibility, and stated that the authority should be doing what it could to raise standards. In response the Cabinet Member confirmed that the authority fulfilled all requirements for its responsibilities, and support given was down to all agencies and schools working together.
Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Housing
Councillor William Routley asked:
Between April 2016 to March 2017 Newport Council received £174,400 in 'transitional funding' from the Welsh Government to help assist the authority with Homelessness Prevention. Between April 2017 and March 2018 Newport Council received another £139,440. Also, in August 2017, a further £159,615.51 in funding was received. The Council has also made £75,000 available from its own budgets from 2016 to 2018. It is good that £58,933.06 has been spent on assisting Edengate with opening an all year night-shelter. However if all the funding were channelled more efficiently into one project such as funding the renovation of a block of flats and incorporating a permanent night-shelter on the ground-floor, does the Council feel this would greatly reduce homelessness in the City?
The Cabinet Member responded:
Homelessness across the UK was rising, for many and varied reasons. Street homelessness was at the acute and visible end. The authority in fact saw around 2,000 households each year who were homeless of at risk of becoming homeless. The problems varied greatly, so a multifaceted approach was required. The funding was to support delivery of the authority’s duties under the Housing Act 2015. The majority of this was revenue funding, so could not be used for capital projects, so negotiations would be needed with officers for any capital funding to support a night shelter. Additional interventions were also needed for rough sleeping and developing other support schemes, and the Cabinet Member did not feel that putting all funding into one project would benefit the many causes of homelessness, as solutions needed to be varied.
Supplementary question:
In response to Councillor Routley’s supplementary question on the allocation of transitional funding for homelessness prevention, the Cabinet Member confirmed that a considerable amount of money was received through grant funding, being fed into a wide range of different projects, including Llamau mediation, securing more private rented accommodation, additional rough sleeper interventions, increasing funding for homelessness prevention, the Solas café, extending night shelter provision, and increasing the supported lodging scheme. The focus and been on homelessness prevention and each pound invested saved £4 for Council services, and £8 across all public services. The most recent rough sleeper count for Newport was 18 people – while this was 18 people too many, rough sleeping was at the acute and visible end of homelessness, and needed to be considered in the context of interventions for 2,000 households each year.