Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Juliet Brunner, Gay Hopkins and Nina Wood-Ford.

To invite Councillors to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Other Disclosable Interests they may have in items on the agenda, and to confirm the nature of those interests.

Councillor Bill Hartnett declared an other disclosable interest item No. 9, Planning Committee Minute 96 – land off Dixon Close, Enfield.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the Annual meeting of the Council held on 21^st May 2015.

RESOLVED that

That subject to the inclusion of Councillor Roger Bennett as a representative on the Redditch Highways and Transportation Forum, the minutes of the meeting of the Annual Council held on 21st May 2015 be agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

a)         The Mayor

            The Mayor gave a summary of some of the events she had attended since the previous meeting including:

·         Town Twinning visit to Auxerre;

·         YMCA event;

·         Bandstand performances which had been re-located to St Stephens due to bad weather with kind permission of Reverend Paul Lawlor;

·         Brownies Sports Day;

·         25th Anniversary of the Bel Canto Singers 

b)         The Leader’s Announcements

The Leader referred to recent events he had attended including a meeting of the Redditch Mental Health Action Group, musical performances from  8 Groups in St Stephen’s Church and the Arts in Redditch pop up gallery in the Kingfisher Centre.

The Leader then spoke in detail about the situation in respect of the Alexandra Hospital arising from the publication of the long awaited  West Midlands Clinical Senate report. The Leader stated that Members would have seen in the news reports that the report contained very little good news for Redditch, particularly in respect of maternity services and Accident and Emergency Services.

The Leader stated that he felt that the report did not address access and capacity issues and that the Authority would need to continue to work with partners to find the best solution for local residents.

The Leader also read out a statement from the Worcestershire Local Medical Committee who represented

 General Practitioners in the County. The statement had been issued following the publication of the Senate Report and concluded by urging the Senate and the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust to urgently review the call for other options to be urgently developed. 

The Leader concurred with these views and referred to the Health Commission which had been set up but which had not yet met. It may be that this would meet in future to discuss the further consultation.

There were no questions on notice on this occasion.

No motions had been submitted.

To receive the minutes and consider the recommendations and/or referrals from the following meetings of the Executive Committee:

14^th April 2015 – there are no recommendations from this meeting;

9^th June 2015 – there are likely to be recommendations from this meeting about the Equal Opportunity Policy.

Reports are attached.  Minutes from 14^th April in minute book no.1, those from the 9^th June to follow. 

Members considered the minutes of the meetings of the Executive Committee held on 14th April 2015 and 9th June 2015.

Equal Opportunity Policy (Minute141)

The Leader reported that at the Executive Committee a number of queries had been raised in respect of the application of the Policy to employees under the age of 18. Officers had since requested that consideration of the recommendation on the Equal Opportunity Policy be deferred to enable additional information to be included within the Policy.

Write Off of Debts 2014-15 (Minute 143)

In response to a query from Members, the Chief Executive undertook to provide additional information on the procedure in respect of debt recovery of Housing Benefits payments in particular and whether any errors had been logged against the Council.

RESOLVED that

(a)       the Minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee held on 14th April 2015 be received and adopted; and

(b)       the Minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee held on 9th June 2015 be received and adopted subject to further consideration of the recommendation within Minute 141 as referred to above.      

To formally receive the minutes of the following meetings of the Council’s Regulatory Committees:

Licensing Committee:         2^nd March 2015

Planning Committee:          11^th March

                                                8^th April

                                                29^th April

Minutes in Minute book no.1 2015-16

The Council received the minutes of the recent meetings of the Licensing Committee and the Planning Committee.

RESOLVED that

(a)       the minutes of the meeting of the Licensing Committee held on 2nd March 2015 be received and adopted; and

(b)       the minutes of the meetings of the Planning Committee held on 11th March 2015, 8th April 2015 and 29th April 2015 be received and adopted.

To consider a report updating the Officer Employment Rules as required by new legislation.

Members considered a report on revised Officer Employment Rules in relation to a Senior Officer Disciplinary Panel.

RESOLVED that

(a)       the officer Employment Rules and terms of reference for the Senior Officer Disciplinary Panel be approved;

(b)       the Borough Council’s membership of the Panel comprises 5 Councillors, politically balanced (currently 3 Labour and 2 Conservatives); and

(c)       it be noted the following members were nominated to the Panel by Group Leaders: Councillors B. Hartnett, Greg Chance, John Fisher, Juliet Brunner and Brandon Clayton

To appoint one representative and one substitute to the Joint Committee.

RESOLVED that

 Councillor Pat Witherspoon be appointed as the Borough’s representative on the Joint Scrutiny Committee for the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Supervisory Board  with Councillor Mark Shurmer as  substitute.

To note that Councillor King has been appointed to the Licensing Committee in place of Councillor Y Smith.

RESOLVED that

It be noted that Councillor Wanda King had been appointed to the Licensing Committee in place of Councillor Yvonne Smith.

There were no urgent decisions to note.

To consider any additional items exceptionally agreed by the Mayor as Urgent Business in accordance with the powers vested in her by virtue of Section 100(B)(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

(This power should be exercised only in cases where there are genuinely special circumstances which require consideration of an item which has not previously been published on the Order of Business for the meeting.)

There were no separate items of urgent business to consider at this meeting.