(i) Mayor (or person presiding)

(ii) Members of the Cabinet

(iii) Chief Executive

 

Mayor

 

The Mayor welcomed those present to the meeting of Bridgend County Borough Council on 17 February 2015. As Members/Officers aware, an annual Holocaust Memorial is held every year within the county borough. The Mayor had the great honour of being part of the event, and this year’s theme was “Don’t Stand By”. It asked people to consider their personal responsibility, and not be a bystander to persecution and genocide. Listening to the life stories of individuals who chose not to stand by during the Holocaust was both moving and humbling he stated, and illustrated that there is always the capacity for good in the face of such evil. He was privileged to light the Holocaust Memorial Day candle, and fully supported this ongoing remembrance which demonstrates that we continue to value a free, tolerant and democratic society.

 

Litchard Primary School hosted 30 Chinese children who were visiting from the Beijing area recently, so the Mayor had taken the opportunity to invite them into the council to meet him and see for themselves how local government works. He felt that they fully enjoyed the visit, and he was also pleased to be able to attend their farewell presentation at the Sony Theatre in Bridgend College where he wished them a safe journey home.

 

The Mayor and his Consort were also delighted to host a school council at Betws Juniors after children aged between five and 11 expressed an interest in visiting the civic offices to find out more about his role as Mayor. They were an absolute joy, and we had a very lively question and answer session that Jeremy Paxman would have been proud of he added! The children were a real credit to their school throughout this event.

 

Porthcawl Comprehensive has a long established record of staging outstanding musical productions, and this year was no exception. His Consort and himself attended their “We Will Rock You” show at the Grand Pavilion and thoroughly enjoyed this celebration of the life and music of Freddie Mercury and Queen. The hard work and talent of pupils and teachers was evident, and he congratulated them all on another excellent show.

 

Finally he announced that, tickets were still available for his Charity Lunch at the Great House on Friday. The guest speaker will be Non Evans MBE, a former sports broadcaster and rugby, judo, wrestling and weightlifting international. He hoped Members could find time to attend this lunch.

 

Deputy Leader

 

The Deputy Leader announced, that when children at Afon y Felin Primary School in North Cornelly wrote to rugby legend Gareth Thomas to ask about how he became a Welsh sporting hero, he did not think they expected a personal visit, but that’s exactly what happened. ‘Alfie’ spent several hours talking to the children and answering questions as part of a special project they were working on, and left them with the message that it takes hard work, commitment and resilience to accomplish a goal (or even a drop kick) in rugby terms. The event was a triple celebration for the school as in addition to moving from red to yellow in the school classification tables in just under a year, they also recently learned that attendance increased over the last academic year and is up to 94.9 per cent. The school had done a great deal of work to encourage improved attendance, including the production of a weekly school newspaper, working with our Educational Welfare and Family Engagement officers and encouraging pupils to compete for a class attendance trophy. He was sure that Members would join him in offering our congratulations.

 

Talking of school categorisation, Members would have no doubt noted that just over 40 per cent of our local schools received a top ‘green’ rating indicating that they are ‘highly effective’. This was a significant rise from last year’s figure of 24.6 per cent and confirmed that Bridgend County Borough has the highest percentage of ‘green’ schools in the Central South region. Our ‘green’ primary schools increased from 26.5 per cent to 41.7 per cent, while the increase for our secondary schools was up from 12.5 per cent to 33.3 per cent. While it is important not to view the school categorisation as any kind of ranking system, we are still never the less delighted with this year’s results. Overall, we have 53 schools in the green and yellow categories with seven classed as being amber or red, so I think that Members would agree that the new categorisation process has demonstrated some very interesting results.

 

Estyn had carried out an inspection of Newton Primary School and while the inspectors found that the school is generally good, they have recommended that Bridgend County Borough Council monitors the school’s progress over the next year as it carries out work on a small number of specific areas that require attention. BCBC were currently working with the governing body of the school on an action plan to address these issues, and he looked forward to being able to confirm to Members that progress has been made.

 

To share best practice, the Deputy Leader confirmed that BCBC would continue to provide support and advice to families. The next steps would also include regularly reminding all schools, including independent schools, of the protocol when families de-register, in addition to carefully monitoring and capturing de-registrations on the pupil database.

 

Cabinet Member Communities

 

The Cabinet Member Communities extended his thanks to staff and workers who were out in the thick of Storm Imogen recently making sure that roads remained open, premises weren’t flooded and people could stay safe. This was a particularly bad storm, as it had brought down a number of trees at locations throughout the county borough and delayed refuse collections after part of the M4 was closed, preventing refuse lorries from getting to the waste transfer station at Crymlyn Burrows. The high winds also dislodged roofing tiles from seven different properties in Bridgend town centre and brought them crashing down into the pedestrianised area. Following a prompt response from South Wales Police, the council and the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, this led to the town centre being effectively closed to the public until the following morning in the interests of public safety, something that he didn’t think had ever been done before. Thankfully, no one was hurt and the town was able to re-open as normal the following day. Needless to say, staff worked around the clock and were absolutely fantastic, so he was sure that Members would join him in offering them our thanks and appreciation.

 

It was also that time of year again when green-fingered residents can start to register for the return of the garden waste collection which begins in April. The fortnightly collections will make it possible to recycle green waste including plants, flowers, weeds, grass, leaves and hedge clippings. The service will run during the main growing season up to the end of October, and residents can sign up to the service for a one-off payment of £27 per household with a discounted rate of £23 for pensioners.  Once payment is confirmed, households will be supplied with two reusable sacks for their green waste which will be collected every two weeks on the same day as their black bags. All of the green waste collected in Bridgend County Borough is taken to local firm Cowbridge Compost where it is turned into a fertilizer.

 

Around 2,400 homes signed up for the scheme last year, which was 20 per cent more than in 2014. He hoped Members will help encourage constituents to take part in the scheme, as it helps cut down on the amount of recyclable materials that have to be disposed of as landfill. Garden waste can also be taken to household recycling centres located at Tythegston, Brynmenyn Industrial Estate and the Heol Ty Gwyn Industrial Estate in Maesteg.

 

Cabinet Member Adult Social Care and Health and Wellbeing

 

The Cabinet Member Adult Social Care and Health and Wellbeing, confirmed that Members will be aware that the Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act is a new law that aims to give people more of a say in the care and support they receive.

 

He was sure that this was going to be of interest to people across all of our communities, so Members may like to help spread the word about a new FAQ document produced by the Welsh Government, that explains what the new Act will mean for local people.

In general terms it aims to enable people to make decisions about their care in partnership with professionals, provide easier access to information and advice about what is available, give carers an equal right to be assessed for support to those that they care for, and ensure that more people are entitled to direct payments.  

A new assessment process for care and support will be based on what matters to you as an individual which will consider personal strengths and what support is available to you from your family, friends and others in the community.  

The assessment will be simpler and can be carried out by one person on behalf of a range of organisations.

 

There will also be more services to prevent problems getting worse, so the right help is available when it is needed.

When it comes into force on 1 April 2016, the Act also aims to create stronger powers for keeping people safe from abuse or neglect.

 

The FAQ document is available to view either at the Welsh Government website or via the front page of the council’s own website, and Members may find it useful to familiarise themselves with it as well as letting constituents know that it is available.

 

Cabinet Member Children’s Social Services and Equalities

 

The Cabinet Member Children’s Social Services and Equalities, stated that Members may be aware of the Invisible Walls project at Parc Prison which is doing excellent work with prisoners and their families. Delivered by the council alongside G4S, Barnado’s, Gwalia and the Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice, the project aimed to reduce re-offending and intergenerational offending by strengthening family ties. As such family intervention workers at both the prison and in the local community provide offenders who are 12 months away from the end of a sentence with access to parenting programmes, advocacy services, family group conferencing, volunteering programmes and more. They also work with them for six months after release. The project received some official recognition recently after Parc Prison received the Investors In Families Award from Andrew Selous MP at the House of Lords. David Wright, the Family Support Services Manager for the Central Hub, was in attendance and the award was presented in recognition of work undertaken with prisoners and their families, with the Invisible Walls project playing a major role in this success.

She congratulated Mr Wright and everyone who is involved in the Invisible Walls project. It is undertaking important work and is helping to raise aspirations and improve lives throughout our local communities.

 

She also wished to mention that Bridgend Youth Council was organising its second youth democracy conference for 15^th April here at the Civic Offices.

The conference aims to help educate young people about the meaning of democracy and the ‘who’s, why’s and what’s’ of Bridgend County Borough Council. Year nine and ten pupils from local schools will be invited to attend and she was sure that the event is going to prove every bit as successful as last year’s.

 

Cabinet Member Resources

 

The Cabinet Member Resources felt that Members would be pleased to hear that arrangements are being made for the official opening of an all-new £2.4million health and wellbeing centre in the borough next month.

Based at Celtic Court in Tremains Road, the centre has been designed and built by the council’s Built Environment team to offer support for local residents who are experiencing issues with substance misuse. The opening will mark the culmination of a nine month project that has used Welsh Government funding to transform Celtic Court into a purpose-built base for a wide range of support services offered by the council’s third sector partners. The centre will also offer bespoke modern healthcare provision.

The official of the new facility is planned for 11 March and more news on this project would be available very soon.

 

The next pre-Council presentation has been provisionally scheduled as a briefing on the Welsh Language Standards. The new requirements are going to have a significant impact on how the council provides services in future, and it is important that all members are fully aware of the implications. This will be confirmed and put into Members calendars shortly. Members may also wish to note that the presentation prior to April’s meeting of Council will be on the subject of digital transformation.

 

As regards regional events, the joint training with Swansea and Neath Port Talbot by Disability Wales will take place next Tuesday 23 February starting at 10am in Committee rooms one, two and three. This was a one off session delivering a training programme on behalf of Welsh Government to support understanding of the requirements of the Equality Act 2010, the Wales Specific Equality Duties and the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People and how they can be used to underpin a human rights based approach to service delivery. Places were limited, so it would be appreciated if Members could confirm their attendance by accepting or otherwise the appointment in order that the Democratic Services Section could track numbers.

 

In terms of Member Development sessions, an update session on the Social Services and Wellbeing Act will be scheduled for March, and an information session on carbon reduction for April. Dates and times were in the process of being agreed.

 

A number of elected members were experiencing difficulties streaming the recent webcasts and this may be due to laptops running an old version of internet explorer. If Members had not already done so, he asked if they  could your take their laptop into Member Services, so that they could check for updates and resolve this issue. Members would need to log onto their machine and take into consideration that if some time has elapsed between updates, it may take a while for the downloads to complete.

 

The works to improve the disabled access in the Civic Suite were continuing and have to date been very unobtrusive with minimal disruption, however, he thanked Members and Officers you for their patience during this period.

 

Cabinet Member Regeneration and Economic Development

 

The Cabinet Member Regeneration and Economic Development advised that a new cycling-friendly café in Porthcawl was on the road to success with the help of a ‘Kick-start’ grant from Bridgend County Borough Council and UK Steel Enterprise. The Broom Wagon café on Station Hill opened only a few months ago with £1,000 grant-funding. Designed as a family-friendly stop that can cater for people making the most of the local cycle network, it has already attracted a wide range of clientele from both the local community and visitors to the seaside town. He felt this was a great example of why the Kick-start grant was put in place. It had given start-up or new businesses a helping hand to develop products and services, and as a keen cyclist himself, he thought this new business offers a fantastic feature in the newly regenerated Station Hill area. Anyone who would like to find out more about opportunities for starting up a new business in the area is advised to visit the Business Zone website or contact the council’s economic development team for expert advice.

 

He also advised Members that the demolition works at the site of the former Rhiw multi-storey car park have been completed ahead of schedule.

A small ceremony is being organised to formally mark the start of construction on the all-new car park and apartments, and some very visible progress would be seen in this respect over the coming months.

In addition to establishing a community of people living within the town centre who will help support trade, when it is completed, the new car park will incorporate a number of features including customer lifts, dedicated parking for drivers with children, disabled parking bays, a ground-level pedestrian crossing to give easy access to the nearby market and town centre shops, flexible parking payment options, modern security measures including CCTV coverage and improved lighting, new safety standards designed in partnership with South Wales Police and much more. All 248 spaces at the new car park will be aimed at shoppers and visitors, while residents of the 28 apartments will have separate parking, and there will be provision for up to 54 cycles as well, so this will be a very modern facility that will serve the town well.

 

Chief Executive Announcement’s

 

The Chief Executive announced that he wished to keep Members abreast with latest developments in the efforts to establish the Capital Region City Deal that could bring in excess of one billion pounds worth of investment to the region over the next 10 to 15 years.

Significant progress has been made in recent months, with both the Welsh Government and UK Government making public statements of their intention to each commit 580 million pounds of additional funding to an investment fund for the region.

In the next few weeks, a Proposal or Offer Document will be finalised and presented to all ten council Leaders for approval.

This will set out a strategic statement, the proposed funding composition of the Deal, the proposed governance structure for the local authority partners and a series of asks and offers. Before the document is finalised, challenge sessions are due to be held with both the Welsh Government and UK Government to test the robustness and deliverability of our outline proposals.

Subject to these sessions and agreement of the proposals document by all parties, a formal announcement may be made in the week commencing 7 March, with the signing of a City Deal in principle taking place quickly thereafter.

Signing the deal proposal document would not commit BCBC to any expenditure. Over the next six to 18 months the full Business Case would then be developed and this will lead to greater clarity over the anticipated costs and benefits for Bridgend County Borough.

Further reports will then be brought to Members, as appropriate, to set out the financial implications and how these would be met.

 

The Leader had already mentioned that we are adding a new YouTube channel to our social media activities.

 

He wished to advise Members that he would be participating in a social media debate next week, where he would be answering questions and gathering opinions on how we should measure the Council’s delivery against its corporate priorities.

 

As Members were aware, we’ve developed three new priorities to help improve lives across the County Borough while dealing with significant financial savings. They are of course supporting a successful economy, helping people to be more self-reliant, and a smarter use of resources.

 

We found as part of last year’s ‘Shaping Bridgend’s Future’ consultation that there was widespread support for the priorities, so we now want residents to put forward ideas of their own on how the council should measure its success in achieving these three aims.

 

As Members would also know, some performance indicators that we are measured by can be a bit esoteric, counter intuitive or not immediately accessible or meaningful to people outside of the workings of councils.  So it may be that people can come up with some useful measures for us.  It will also serve to raise more awareness of the corporate plan. 

 

For the budget consultation, our Facebook event was viewed 49,811 times while for Twitter the figure was 79,861. The recent waste event drew a Facebook audience of 8,446 and on Twitter it was 15,977, so we know that this is an effective way to communicate with our residents.

 

As part of this he confirmed that he would be talking to Facebook for a live Q&A on Tuesday 23 February between 6pm and 7:30pm.

 

He hoped Members would encourage their constituents to come and take part, and that they also advise them, that they can express their views by completing a short online survey which can be found on the consultation page of the Council’s corporate website.