Agenda item

Councillor David Renard, the Leader of the Council, attended this first meeting of the Scrutiny Committee for the Municipal Year 2019/20, to report to the Committee on (a) the Authority’s achievements in 2018/19 and (b) the Administration’s challenges and priorities for the 2019/20 Municipal Year.

The Leader, in his report, highlighted achievements during 2018/19 which included:

·       The creation of a cross-party Working Group to consider ways in which the Council can stimulate climate change mitigation in Swindon.

·       Pledge 2: With our wholly owned company, Public Power Solutions, enhance Swindon’s reputation as a sustainable energy exemplar, by exploring technology that converts energy from waste, facilitating the move to electrified transport, and delivering opportunities to invest in renewable energy to reduce carbon footprint. This placed waste reduction at the heart of the Council’s services and encouraged the investigation of new and emerging technologies. 

·       Pledge 5 – Enhance Wellington Street as a Prime Thoroughfare for the Town. The Council had overseen the design and implementation of a publically funded public realm and highway improvement scheme at Wellington Street.

·       Pledge 15 - Work to secure a viable and sustainable future for our key heritage assets.  Work had been undertaken to secure funding projects in the Railway Heritage Area by working with Historic England, the National Trust and local groups. The Cabinet had also agreed a new pledge that our existing museums are more closely linked to our schools and utilised as an educational resource.

·       Pledge 6F - Ensure that there is a range of good quality housing options in Swindon, including affordable opportunities to buy and rent. The Council had delivered 70 homes to the Council’s housing stock and enabled a further 186 affordable homes in partnership with housing associations and housing developers during 2018/19.

·       Pledge 26 - To prevent homelessness wherever possible, including using additional measures such as the temporary winter housing provision and offering a day centre to prevent rough sleepers from returning to the streets. Rough sleeping in the town had reduced from a high of 45 to 23 in a recent census.

·       Pledge 6 - Strategic Development. Progress continued with Tadpole Garden Village and Badbury Park and the search for additional smaller scale sites for housing through the SHELAA (Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment).

·       Pledge 10: secure a range of options to access Higher Education. Work was continuing with the Royal Agricultural University Swindon and with a joint bid with Swindon College to secure funding for an Institute of Technology.

The Leader, in his report, also highlighted the challenges for 2018/19 which included:

·       The wider regional and national issues such as the creation of England’s Economic Heartland and the country’s decision to leave the European Union. 

·       The continued long-term financial stability of the Council and the funding vital services despite pressures on Local Government finances.

·       The delivery of services through partnerships and building on relationships with the police, schools, the hospital, the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and the relevant charities and third sector groups in order to ensure that all residents are protected. 

·       The delivery of new schools including, the William Morris Primary School and the Deanery CE Academy.

·       Progress in delivering services under the Better Care Fund (BCF) through joint partnership working.

·       Changes to the Multi-agency Safeguarding Arrangements for Children and Adults at Risk from end of July 2019.  The new model, approved by Health and Wellbeing Board in March, focuses on continuous learning and improvement with a clear line of sight on frontline safeguarding practice. The

·       Ensuring that relationships with the police, schools, the hospital, the Clinical Commissioning Group, and the relevant charities and third sector groups are enhanced in order to ensure that all residents are protected. The service re-design programme continues to support more individuals to become less dependent.

·       Continued work to improve the services of children’s services through the strategic improvement plan for children’s services and to regularly monitor its delivery.

·       Economic Prosperity and work to mitigate the closure of the Honda car manufacturing plant and support its workers and the local community.

·       Maximising the benefits from Zurich who will build a new state-of-the-art office building in the heart of our town and from The Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) which is one of only 20 in the country, will boost Swindon’s economic growth by using its heritage as a catalyst.

·       The delivery of the New Eastern Villages Development and provision of the initial infrastructure.

·       The rationalisation of the Council’s estate programme to make the council more modern, efficient and effective by 2020.

·       Work to identify how the Council can mitigate Climate Change in Swindon and to make Swindon Carbon Neutral by 2030.

The Leader responded to a number of questions put by Councillors Steve Allsopp, Emma Faramarzi, Jim Grant, Brian Mattock, Des Moffatt, Barbara Parry, Roger Smith, Carol Shelley, Tim Swinyard and Vera Tomlinson and the Chair on the following matters:

·       The success in moving to the next stage of the Future High Street funding bid, talks with neighbouring authorities to highlight Swindon’s future role in shaping the regional economy, and the submission of a bid to the Historic High Street Fund.

·       Work to provide a strategic plan for Coate Water Park.

·       The objective of making Swindon the best business location in the country, by emphasising “Swindon Works”, Swindon’s location was a cross-road between areas and Swindon as a gateway to the West of England, the electrification of the London to Bristol rail line and work to promote a Swindon to Heathrow rail line and a connectivity to Oxford and beyond by means of technology as well as transport by road or rail.

·       Work to support Honda staff and their retraining and a broad overview as to the current position of negotiations between management and the unions and future production at the car plant.

·       Reputed interest by Dyson in using part of the Honda facility for electric car production. 

·       Work by a variety of Task Groups and Steering Groups that the Council were represented on and reasons for elements of this work to be kept out of the public domain with Members signing Non-Disclosure Agreements.

·       The Cabinet Member Working Group which would be scrutinising the work of the Honda Task Groups and Working Groups as well as the £200,000 approved by Council to facilitate Honda related work.

·       The work of England’s Economic Heartland and how (i) the benefits to Swindon of its membership would be quantified, and (ii) its work would be affected by a change of Prime Minister and the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

·       The synergy between Swindon and both Cambridge and Oxford and work to build on these ties and in promoting growth in the immediate and wider region.

·       The Council’s estate rationalisation and work to reduce running costs whilst providing environmental benefits.

·       The Council’s trial of electric vehicles within its service fleet and costs associated with the introduction of these electric vehicles which would use energy from the Council’s solar panels.

·       How the introduction of electric vehicles affected the Council’s involvement in hydrogen powered vehicles and hydrogen hub.

·       The refresh of the Swindon Programme to promote the Council’s priorities and pledges and to deliver the efficiency savings required for the Council up to and including 2024.

·       How the integration process of Swindon Borough Council and Clinical Commissioning Group joint commissioning of services and work would be affected by the merging of the Baines, Wiltshire, North East Somerset and Swindon Clinical Commissioning Groups.

·       Problems experienced by local residents in North Swindon arising from contacting and booking appointments in local General Practitioner Surgeries and work to remedy this situation by the Care Quality Commission and the Clinical Commissioning Group.

·       Raising the aspiration of Higher Education for Swindon’s young people and how to people with relevant skills can be encouraged to live and work in Swindon.

·       Addressing the issue of suitable housing accommodation for students coming to study in Swindon and the additional pressures this might add to the local private rented housing stock.

·       Progress in meeting the three year Improvement Plan for Children’s Services.

·       Work to ensure that there were enough Building Control Officers employed to deal with the increased workload associated with the New Eastern Villages Development.

·       The Council’s current Design Guide and whether this met the needs of planting requirements when considering Highway development.

·       The use of recycled materials as a fuel substitute and how this affected Swindon’s climate change ambitions.

·       The quality of replacement boxes and lids for recycling and how breakages by waste collectors can be minimised.

·       Remedial and snagging works for the recently completed Wellington Street upgrade.

·       The effect of gifted pupils in Swindon attending a limited number of schools outside their catchment area and the impact on schools across the Borough in raising educational standards.

Resolved – (1) That the Leader of the Council be thanked for attending the meeting to present his Annual Report and for his full and open responses to members’ questions and observations on the issues raised.

(2) That information requested by members during the course of the Committee’s consideration of this item be forwarded to them via the Committee Clerk.

(Councillor Barbara Parry made a pecuniary Declaration of Interest in respect of the discussion on Honda under this item as her husband was employed by Honda and left the room during this discussion.)