(i) Mayor (or person presiding)
(ii) Members of the Cabinet
(iii) Chief Executive
Minutes:
Mayor
The Mayor announced that in honour of Halloween and to help raise funds, he and his Consort were happy to support the Black Cat Awareness day and fete at the Bridgend Cats Protection Adoption Centre. He felt that It was lovely to see so many people supporting this worthwhile cause, and enjoying all the attractions. Tempting though it was they did manage to come away without adding to their animal family he added.
They also had the pleasure of visiting the photographic exhibition which was recently held in Carnegie House celebrating Bridgend’s past. This retrospective photographic exhibition was extremely interesting, and it was a joy to see the images of the town through the years and compare how Bridgend looks today.
On a more solemn note, the Mayor confirmed that it was an honour to represent the Borough at the 50th Commemorative Anniversary of the Aberfan disaster in Merthyr Tydfil. This was a moving and reflective service and he felt was an important and fitting memorial.
The Mayor confirmed that it was that time of year again and he was pleased to announce that Monday 7th November will see the opening of the annual Mayor’s citizenship awards. The awards are open to people who live in the County Borough, as well as local groups and businesses based locally. More information could be found on the Mayoral webpages where a nomination form could be downloaded. The deadline for nominations is Friday 27 January and the winners would be honoured at an event in March.
Finally, the Mayor announced that tickets were now available for his Mayoral Charity event.
Cabinet Member Communities
The Cabinet Member Communities refreshed Members with the fact that Bridgend County Borough Council had been supporting an initiative from The Nappy Gurus which is offering parents a 50 per cent discount on ‘real nappy’ starter kits.
She recently received an update on the scheme, and was happy to report that as a direct result of the promotion, almost 140,000 nappies will be diverted from being disposed of as landfill waste over the next two and a half years.
As the average child goes through 5,520 nappies, huge numbers end up in landfill. The scheme offered a clean, convenient alternative that is far more environmentally friendly, and delivers huge savings for parents too.
She hoped Members would urge their constituents to find out more about the scheme. Details were available on the Council’s website, and the nappy Gurus could be found on Facebook too.
The Cabinet Member Communities stated finally, that Carolyn Harris MP was spearheading a campaign for Council’s to waive child burial payments which she was happy to support. The current situation was that the Crematorium Joint Board had decided that there would not be any charges for 16 year olds and under, for cremations. With the burials service there was also a free child service, but this was for ages 0 – 11 years.
Cabinet Member Children’s Social Services and Equalities
The Cabinet Member Children’s Social Services and Equalities advised that National Safeguarding Week will take place between Monday 14 and Friday 18 November, and together with Western Bay partners the Authority will be marking the week by highlighting the work that we do in looking after and protecting vulnerable adults and children.
Here in Bridgend, holding learning events would be held on topics ranging from Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking, and an information stand would be placed in the Customer Service Centre featuring safeguarding information from the Police, Fire service, Carers, Trading Standards and Barnardo’s, amongst others.
South Wales Police will be touring the area with a mobile display focusing on hate crime, whilst schools will be delivering lessons about safeguarding and bullying to pupils, with a safeguarding quiz being distributed to all Social Work Team Managers, so that they could share t with staff and test their knowledge about issues surrounding child sexual exploitation.
We would also be promoting White Ribbon Day and the Western Bay Safeguarding Boards’ Annual Conference at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, which will bring together up to 400 professionals from Children and Adult Safeguarding. Both of these events would take place on 25 November.
The Cabinet Member Children’s Social Services and Equalities, was sure that Members would show their support for National Safeguarding Week.
Cabinet Member Resources
The Cabinet Member Resources advised that a number of pre-Council briefings have been arranged between now and the New Year. On 30 November, a Corporate Parenting update will take place. There will be a presentation on Dementia Friendly Communities on 11th January, and one on Sustrans for 1 February.
He added that several member development sessions would also take place later this month. There will be Annual Safeguarding refresher training on the 8th and 13th of November, and a budget workshop on 30th November. The workshop will follow the same format as the Council’s public sessions, and will be an interactive event aimed at gathering member’s views on a range of financial options and proposals.
Finally, the Cabinet Member Resources mentioned a good cause that Councillors DBF White, C Smith and D Owen are involved with.
If Members seen any of them sporting luxurious ‘Freddy Mercury’ or ‘Magnum PI’ moustaches later this month, it’s because they were taking part in Movember, an annual campaign that aims to raise awareness about men’s health issues.
It highlights a very serious issue as statistics suggest that men die four years younger than women in the UK. One in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem every year, and more than 10,500 male deaths in 2017 will be due to prostate cancer.
So as he was sure Members would appreciate, this was a very worthwhile cause, and he hoped that they would give Owen their full support to the above Councillors.
More could be find out more about the Movember campaign by visiting www.uk.movember.com the Cabinet Member Resources concluded.
Cabinet Member Regeneration and Economic Development
The Cabinet Member Regeneration and Economic Development stated that he was extremely pleased to confirm to Members that the all-new Rhiw Multi-Storey Car Park was gearing up for an imminent opening. The car park has been handed over to the Council, and Officers had been giving it a thorough check. He had been informed that it was looking fantastic, and once BT had connected power to the new lift and payment system, it would be opened immediately.
Advertising and publicity was ready to go on this once an opening date had been confirmed, and the Authority would be marking the occasion by offering free weekend car parking for all visitors in the run-up to the festive trading season.
This will be available at the Rhiw every Saturday and Sunday between now and New Year’s Eve, as a thank-you to local businesses and shoppers for their patience and co-operation during the construction of the new car park.
Elsewhere in the County Borough, he confirmed that free car parking had also been arranged to help support traders during the festive shopping season. It will be available on Saturdays and Sundays after 10am at council-run pay and display car parks between 3 – 31 December 2016.
The new car park is the first phase of the Vibrant and Viable Places project to be completed at the Rhiw. It will be followed in Spring 2017 by a new commercial unit and 28 modern apartments, that aimed to establish a community of residents who will live at the heart of the town centre and support local trade.
This was the first completed phase of what promises to be a major new landmark development in Bridgend town centre.
The Cabinet Member Regeneration and Economic Development, thanked Coastal Housing and Kier Construction for ensuring that this fantastic new facility had been delivered in time for the festive trading season, and acknowledged the essential funding that has been contributed by Welsh Government.
Chief Executive
The Chief Executive advised that he had two announcements to make.
Digital Transformation Programme aimed to make the Council’s services more accessible online, so that with the click of a few buttons, residents can use our website to pay for Council products and report any local issues.
The Authority already have the facility for Council Tax to be paid online, while some school meals could also be paid for electronically, but this list was going to expand considerably in the next few years.
At the moment the Council were focusing on the creation of something called ‘My Account’. This is a new feature that will make it possible for each resident to log in securely and carry out any transactions they require.
It was anticipated that ‘My Account’ will be up and running by spring 2017, and that residents will be able to use it for Council Tax payments and Housing Benefit. By winter next year, it will become possible for them to log in to report problems such as fly-tipping.
Further online services will continue to be added in a phased approach, and this will enable residents to manage the ways in which they interact with the Council to suit their own lifestyle. Part of this work involves a complete redesign of the Council website.
Another element of the digital programme is being looked at by the Members ICT group working with the Head of Democratic Services, on proposals to bring a full digital approach to Members allowing for paperless Council meetings. This is proposed to be introduced for the New term of office in May next year.
The Member element was a critical part of the Digital Transformation programme, and we are asking residents and staff to adopt new approaches. It is important that Elected Members and Senior Managers can demonstrate that we are all taking a lead in this change to the way we do business.
The Chief Executive confirmed that he would bring Members further details about this ambitious initiative as it developed over the coming months.
He also had a few developments on the City Deal to update Members with. He felt that it would be timely to have a fuller update to Council in due course, but wanted to share some key developments in the mean time.
As part of the City Deal, the ten Councils appointed a growth and competitiveness commission chaired by economist professor Greg Clerk. This commission is charged with developing an evidence based economic strategy for the region and a regional investment strategy.
The commission’s work is coming to an end in the next few weeks, and both he and the Cabinet Member Regeneration and Economic Development, attended an interim update from the commissioners yesterday.
Early indications are that there is a clear evidence base to support the City Deal focusing on skills development, connectivity and housing.
About a third of our gap in GVA compared with the rest of the ULK was attributable to low employment, and two thirds was due to lower productivity than elsewhere in the UK.
The commission was formulating some specific recommendations but from what he had seen yesterday, they will be a great help in focussing the efforts of the partnership and maximising the investment of the City Deal fund in order to create sustainable job growth, increased productivity and generate private sector investment.
With regards to joint working, a joint transport authority in shadow had already been established, which was chaired by the Leader of the Council and which had now had its first meeting.
Leaders have discussed the need to adopt similar regional approaches to strategic land use planning, housing and inward investment in order to advance the deal and work will be underway to explore that further.
A considerable amount of work behind the scenes had been carried out, in order to tie up the necessary legal agreements to allow the money to flow to us.
All Councils were seeking to approve the formal creation of the joint Cabinet that currently exist in shadow form and it was anticipated this being presented to Cabinet and/or Council in January 2017.