Agenda and minutes
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Contact: Vishal Seegoolam, Senior Democratic Services Officer Tel: 020 8424 1883 E-mail: vishal.seegoolam@harrow.gov.uk
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Attendance by Reserve Members To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.
Reserve Members may attend meetings:-
(i) to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve; (ii) where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and (iii) the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve; (iv) if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival. Minutes: RESOLVED: To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Members:-
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Declarations of Interest To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary or non pecuniary interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:
(a) all Members of the Committee; (b) all other Members present. Minutes: RESOLVED: To note that the following interests were declared:
Agenda Item 3 – Question and Answer Session with the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive
Councillor Jeff Anderson declared a non-pecuniary interest in that his wife was the Portfolio Holder for Community, Culture and Resident Engagement. He would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.
Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinane declared a non-pecuniary interest in that he was Ward Councillor for Harrow on the Hill, which was the focus of a major regeneration project. He would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.
During the course of the meeting, Councillor Susan Hall declared a non-pecuniary interest in that she owned a commercial premises in Wealdstone. She would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.
Councillor Mrs Christine Robson declared a non-pecuniary interest in that she was the Portfolio Holder for Children, Schools and Young People. She would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon. |
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Question and Answer Session with the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive Minutes: In his opening remarks, the Leader briefly outlined the three main areas of focus for his administration, which were as follows:
1. to tackle inequalities in the borough, for example, statistical data showed that there was an 8-year life expectancy gap between the most affluent and the least affluent residents in the borough;
2. to focus on successfully delivering the Regeneration Programme and to ensure that all Harrow’s residents had a stake in it and benefitted from it;
3. to improve the Council’s relationship with residents and to be more responsive to their needs.
In his opening remarks, the Chief Executive stated that, a Peer Review had been undertaken during June 2016 by a team made up of Councillors, officers and experts from the Department for Communities and Local Government. The findings of the Peer Review would be submitted to Cabinet along with an Action Plan to tackle any areas of concern highlighted by the Review. He added that the Council was also assessing any likely impact of Brexit on the Council, its workforce, its budgets and savings and on community cohesion.
A Member stated that the council-wide IT systems crash earlier in the week had meant that residents could not easily contact the Council. She asked how this tallied with the Leader’s objective that the Council should be more responsive to the needs of residents. She added that she had received a very large number of email complaints to her private email address from residents regarding the recent increase in traffic congestion on the way to the civic amenity site as well as emails regarding missed brown bin collections. She asked what swift action could be taken to deal with these complaints.
A Member stated that there had recently been a spike in the number of calls and complaints received regarding the non-collection of brown bins and asked how this would be tackled and why the brown bin scheme had not been introduced in stages.
Another Member asked for detailed figures in relation to the collection of brown bins.
The Leader responded that the chargeable brown bin scheme had been introduced as part of an overall savings strategy, and that many other boroughs had recently introduced similar schemes. He added that Harrow had the highest proportion of residents signed up to the brown bin scheme in London - which indicated that the scheme was a success.
The Chief Executive confirmed that there were forty-eight thousand brown bins in the borough and that 98% of these had been collected on time, however, as with any new initiative, there had been a small number of issues, which in this case had primarily related to IT. He added that it was important to learn from experience and officers were working to make the service simpler and more streamlined and to make it easier for residents to contact the Council regarding missed collections.
With regard to the number of calls received by the Council’s call centre, Access Harrow, statistics showed that 91% of ... view the full minutes text for item 169. |