To consider Announcements under Procedure Rule 10:
a) Mayor’s Announcements
b) The Leader’s Announcements
c) Chief Executive’s Announcements.
(Oral report)
Minutes:
a) The Mayor
At the start of this item the Mayor circulated a list of civic engagements that he had attended over the past two months.
The Mayor then welcomed representatives of the Redditch LGB&T community and of Stonewall to the meeting, who were attending to celebrate the outcomes of the work of the Provision of Support Networks for the LGB&T Community Task Group, which concluded in July 2015.
To begin with Mr Peter Willis, a teacher from a local school in Worcestershire, delivered a presentation about the importance of the Task Group’s second recommendation, which encouraged schools to take part in the Stonewall Schools’ champions programme or to make use of the Birmingham LGB&T Group’s Schools toolkit. Members were advised that significant progress had been achieved since the 1980s in terms of challenging homophobic and transphobic attitudes and behaviour towards the LGB&T community. Schools which participated in the School Champions’ programme helped young people to feel confident about expressing their sexuality and gender identity in the school environment and encouraged young people to have positive attitudes towards equality.
Following this presentation the Chair and Vice Chair of the Redditch LGB&T Community Group, Ms Sharon Harrison and Ms Sue Smith, presented awards on behalf of the community group. This included four awards to Councillors Joe Baker, Natalie Brookes, Gay Hopkins and David Thain in recognition of their hard work as members of the Task Group. Councillor Baker also presented an LGB&T Hero award on behalf of the Redditch LGB&T Community Group to Jess Bayley, Democratic Services Officer in recognition of her work supporting the Task Group.
The Mayor subsequently invited Mr Daniel Smith from Stonewall to deliver a presentation about the work of Stonewall and the benefits for organisations of participating in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. Mr Smith explained that Stonewall had been established in opposition to S28 of the Local Government Act 1988 which had prohibited local authorities from promoting homosexuality or discussing sexual orientation within schools. The organisation continued to campaign in support of the LGB&T community having supported recent initiatives such as the introduction of same sex marriage legislation in 2015. Stonewall also managed the Workplace Equalities Index which over 500 organisations took part in every year, though only the top 100 were advertised on Stonewall’s website. The benefits of participation included the potential to improve working policies and practices, enhanced opportunities to advertise staff vacancies to talented LGB&T staff and a chance to benchmark progress compared to other organisations.
Following the delivery of this presentation Mr Smith presented an award to the Leader of the Council on behalf of Redditch LGB&T Community Group in appreciation of the Council’s support for the LGB&T community locally.
b) The Leader
The Leader provided an update on the civic engagements he had participated in over the previous two months. This included attending a celebration at Evesham Rowing Club of the achievements of Olympians and Paralympians from Worcestershire, taking part in the Diwali celebrations at the local Gudwara and at Ridgeway Academy, attending the Herefordshire and Worcestershire annual sports awards, taking part in the Polish Independence Day celebrations and meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury at St Stephen’s Church. Councillor Hartnett also congratulated Councillors Greg and Debbie Chance following their recent wedding.
A number of key issues were raised during consideration of this item:
· Meetings of the Health Commission, discussed at the previous meeting, had been postponed until the New Year due to circumstances outside the control of the Council.
· Further powers had been requested from the government for non-constituent members of Combined Authorities. Support had been received from the constituent members of the West Midlands Combined Authority.
· The Leader had written to the Redditch Town Centre Partnership to request that the former covered market area be returned to the control of the Council as it had not been possible to introduce a play barn on the site as originally planned.
· The Remembrance Sunday events had been well attended in both Redditch town centre and Astwood Bank.
· The Leader had attended a church service at St Philip’s Church in commemoration of the centenary of the end of the battle of the Somme in the First World War during which over one million people had been killed.
· Local businesses and five county Councillors had pledged funding to support the continuation of the Bike Race in Redditch. Initial talks had been held with the event organisers, which were felt to be positive - feedback was currently awaited.
The Leader also notified Members that he had recently been advised about proposed changes to specialist stroke rehabilitation services. These changes, if implemented, would lead to the reduction in the number of specialist care units from three to one, with specialist services in future being based in Evesham. General rehabilitation services would continue to be provided at the Princess of Wales Community Hospital in Bromsgrove and at the Timberdine Community Unit. Specialist support would also continue to be provided, where appropriate, on an in-reach basis by the Community Stroke Service. Councillor Hartnett had contacted the Leader of Bromsgrove District Council about these proposed service changes and they intended to raise their concerns in writing in due course.