Questions on notice under Council Procedure Rule 11.10(b) may be asked of the Lord Mayor, a Member of the City Executive Board or the Chair of a Committee.

 

Questions on notice must, by the Constitution, be notified to the Head of Law and Governance by no later that 9.30am on Friday 20^th April 2012.

 

Full details of any questions for which the required notice has been given will be circulated to Members of Council before the meeting.

(a)       Questions notified in time for replies to be provided

 

1.         Question to the Board Member, Cleaner Green Oxford (Councillor John Tanner) from Councillor David Williams

 

                        Commercialisation of Services

 

Now that the Council has introduced charges for Pest Control and Garden Waste collection would the Portfolio Holdergive an indication what other Council services he intends to ‘commercialise’.

 

Could he confirm that in other Councils where this payment route to service delivery has been followed it has led to the Council withdrawing from provision of the service or its privatisation.

 

Would he acknowledge publicly that charging for these services has effectively depressed demand for actions that are generally for the common good.

 

Would he agree with me that if Mrs. Margaret Thatcher were the Rubbish Tsar in Oxford she would no doubt follow his policy directive. Could he explain how his free market actions seem rather counter to his socialist rhetoric.

 

Answer: The Garden Waste Collection Service has been a huge success with over 13,000 customers.  The Council has continued to provide the servie to those on Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit free of charge.  It is a type of household waste for which a charge can be made.  In Direct Services we already provide services from Building Maintenance, Engineering, commercial waste/recycling and provide MOT services.  These areas we hope to expand in the coming years and it is not the Council’s intention to outsource these services.

 

It has been demonstrated that the quality of services are high and that demand has increased.  This is an encouraging start to a strategy which will help maintain jobs and raise the Council’s profile of providing quality services.

 

Our strategy is to keep our Council Tax low to benefit all those who live and work in the City and to ensure that there are no compulsory redundancies, which so me are sound socialist policies that are delivering these objectives.

 

On response to a supplementary question from Councillor Williams, Councillor Tanner said that there was no evidence that the charge was suppressing demand, but he agreed with Councillor Williams that it was not a service that should be charged for and encouraged him to join him in getting rid of the Coalition Government.

 

2.         Question to the Board Member, Cleaner Greener Oxford (Councillor John Tanner) and the Board Member for Housing Needs (Councillor Joe McManners) from Councillor Jean Fooks

 

                        Water butts

 

As Oxford is now subject to a hosepipe ban, would the City Council consider providing water butts on request for Council properties, to help tenants water their gardens? Should water butts not be recommended too for all new housing, to reduce tapwater usage generally?”

 

Answer: We do stipulate some water conservation measures in new build, and I agree that for our own new build it should be part of the plans as far as possible.

 

For tenants who request water butts, we will look if there is room in the HRA to fund them (which would also require fitting)

 

In response to a supplementary question from Councillor Fooks concerning additional publicity, Councillor McManners agreed to ask officers to investigate the costs involved.

 

3.         Question to the Board Member, Finance and Efficiency (Councillor Ed Turner) from Councillor Dick Wolff

 

                        Single Person Tax Discount

 

Could the Portfolio Holder clarify if Oxford City Council will abolish the Single Persons Council Tax discount?

 

Answer: The Local Government Finance Act 1992 (section 11) states that a discount of 25% is applicable when there is only one resident of the dwelling.  This provision has not been affected by the technical changes to Council Tax contained within the Local Government Finance Bill that was published on 19/12/11.  Thus we have no discretion to abolish the Single Persons Discount, and would not intend to anyway. 

 

4.         Question to the Board Member, Finance and Efficiency (Councillor Ed Turner) from Councillor David Williams

 

                        Redundancy Pot of Money

 

Could the portfolio holder explain why there is over £750,000 placed in the Labour Party’s Budget for redundancy payments when the stated aim of the Administration  is that in future the reductions  in spending will be achieved by ‘natural wastage’ (i.e. people resigning, moving on to other jobs or retirement to an occupational pension) rather than voluntary or compulsory redundancies.

 

Would he agree with me that this seems an unnecessary pot of money unless a very large number of redundancies for lower paid workers is envisaged or there are to be large scale payouts to very senior staff in their 50s who are willing to take voluntary redundancy cheques?

 

Could he confirm that no senior officers will be offered redundancy cheques and that large numbers of low paid workers will not be made redundant shortly after the May elections.

 

Answer: The Council remains committed to minimising the requirement for any redundancies, and in particular compulsory redundancies.  As confirmed in the Medium Term Financial Strategy and the Budget (including proposals from all political groups) there is an on-going programme of post reductions (110 FTE over 4 years in the agreed version) made in full consultation with the trade unions; it is expected that many of these post reductions will be achieved by "natural wastage", as staff naturally leave the organisation, but there will be some redundancies.  Indeed, the larger the contingency, the easier it is for the council to offer voluntary, rather than compulsory redundancies.  It is obviously prudent to retain a contingency fund for severance costs as they arise.  No new programme of redundancies is proposed or envisaged.  Each redundancy is only authorised on the basis that business case gives rise to savings, factoring in the cost of the severance.

 

Councillor Williams in a supplementary question asked if there were no compulsory redundancies, why was there the need to have the money.  In response Councillor Turner said that the Council had to make cost savings on a planned basis due to the Government cuts in funding.  He explained that in the agreed Mid-Term Financial Statement, 100 plus posts had been identified over 4 years and this again was also in the budget papers which Council had.  He said that there had been a large number of redundancies put forward in budget amendments which had not been agreed.  He further added that there was an existing programme of efficiency savings and there were no new plans to add to this.  He concluded by urging Members to read the e-mail from Unison concerning the introduction of the Universal Credit and how this could mean the loss of staff.

 

5.         Question to the Leader of the Council (Councillor Bob Price) from Councillor David Williams

 

                        Travesty of Democracy

 

Does the Leader of the Council agree with Councillor Tanner’s public denunciation of single member decision making committees as a ‘Travesty of Democracy’?

 

Answer: Single-member executive decisions are allowed for in the regulations governing local authority          constitutions. Since they are governed by all the other regulations relating to executive decisions such as publication in advance and public attendance at the decision making meeting, it would be straining logic to define as any less democratic than executive decisions taken at a cabinet or executive board meeting.  Councillor Tanner’s point was more directed at the way in which the formulation of the recommendation to the single member concerned had been arrived at than the format of the meeting.

 

6.         Question to the Leader of the Council (Councillor Bob Price) from Councillor Dick Wollf

 

                        Break up of the Occupy the City of London Campaign

 

Does the Portfolio Holder regret, as I do, the removal; of the Occupy protest camp outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was so effectively drawing attention to the disastrous impact of what Prime Minister Gordon Brown once praised as a “new golden age for the City of London”?

 

Would he agree with me that since the early 1980’s successive Conservative and Labour governments have, through ‘light touch’ regulation, transferred too many levers of power into the control of an unaccountable global finance industry, and that for all its talk the present Coalition Government is showing no real intention of constraining that industry’s excesses and chicanery?

 

Answer: The origins of the banking and finance crisis can be traced back to the so-called Big Bang driven by the Thatcher government and associated measures taken in the US at the same time. These changes led to the development of increasingly complex financial tools and processes in the last decade of the 20^th century and the first decade of this century. As one of the world’s major financial centres, the City of London was at the heart of these developments, and the growth of employment, turnover and profitability in the City in that period was a key feature of the development of the UK economy from which significant wider public benefit was derived. It is a sobering reflection on the weakness of international financial regulation that no national or international body had the analytical or constitutional capacity to intervene in a system built on a derivatives structure underpinned by  unsustained property valuations and reckless lending policies. The St Pauls protesters, as well as many other campaign groups around the world, and Socialist politicians such as the French presidential candidates, Francois Hollande and Jean-Luc Melanchon, are doing a great service to the global community by maintaining a clear spotlight on the need for a globally integrated system of controls on international financial capitalism.

                       

7.         Question to the Leader of the Council (Councillor Bob Price) from Councillor Jean Fooks

 

                        The Military Covenant and housing

 

Oxford City Council has signed the Military Covenant along with Oxfordshire County Council and the other districts.  I think we all recognise the particular difficulties facing ex-military personnel on leaving the service, after many years being accommodated by the MOD.  Although the covenant does not, and was not intended to, give ex-military personnel priority in social housing, it does imply that their particular needs should be given sympathetic consideration.  I am very concerned that City Council staff should be trained to recognise that ex-military personnel may need more guidance than others in finding accommodation in Oxford’s very difficult housing situation.  Can we be assured that the City Council will recognise their particular situation and treat them with the same sympathetic understanding that they display to other potentially vulnerable applicants?”

 

Answer: Oxford City Council has signed and supports the Military Covenant, and ensures that members of the armed forces are assisted in their housing priority-for example we do not apply local connection rules which could disadvantage service personnel who move and do not spend long in the local area.

 

Oxford has exceptionally high housing demand, and is the least affordable location in the UK, outside parts of London. We have over 6,000 households on our Housing Register.  This year we expect to have 550 council or housing association homes available to let. With 475 households assessed as having exceptional or urgent need (Band 1 or 2), we already have over 100 households in emergency homeless temporary accommodation. This number is rising with the cuts to housing and welfare benefits. In addition, we have a further 1,475 households assessed with a significant housing need (Band 3), which includes severely overcrowded families and homeless persons who need to leave the city's frontline hostels.  The Government's new Right to Buy scheme and the removal of the previous limit on discounts will increase the sale of Council homes and reduce the amount of rented homes available in the city.  The Council keeps its Allocations Policy under review, and further Government guidance is expected later this year.

 

It is not practical to put service personnel automatically at the front of the queue but housing officers will treat veterans with respect and sympathy and help as much as they can within the limited resources.  Officers recently met with other Oxfordshire Districts, the County Council, and a representative of the armed services on this issue.  As a result of this meeting, it was agreed that the City and Districts would:

 

Develop an information pack for members of the armed forces, work more closely with the military information service to ensure that they are aware of policies and processes and place information relevant to armed forces personnel seeking housing on the relevant web sites.

 

8.         Question to the Board Member, Customer Services and Regeneration (Councillor Val Smith) from Councillor Jean Fooks

 

                        Lost forms

 

I am becoming aware of several cases of forms being lost by the Housing benefits and allocation services.  What action is being taken to ensure that forms, once delivered, are not lost but reach the right person and are dealt with as they should be? What checking is in place to ensure that the citizen concerned is informed if an expected form does not reach the intended member of staff?

 

Response: There are no reported incidents of lost Housing Benefits forms either in the back office or the Customer Service Centres, or lost allocation forms that may come into the Customer Service Centres.

 

In terms of the Housing Benefit Service, any documentation that is sent in by post, will be delivered to the Council’s Post Room in the first instance, and this is them given to the Customer Services Scanning Team.  The standard is to scan documentation received and return any original documentation within 24 hours.

 

In terms of any evidence brought inn person, this is either copied on the spot and the originals handed back to the customer.  Alternatively, if the customer does not want to wait, the customer can place their documentation ina sealed enveloper.  These items are then passed into the relevant back office service (i.e. either the Benefits or Allocations Team) deliveries being made twice daily.

 

In terms of Housing Benefit, if we are expecting evidence to be supplied, a diary note will be made of this on our software, and if not received by the due date the customer will be contacted for it.

 

The Housing Benefit Service is moving towards risk based verification in the next couple of months.  It is anticipated that the introduction of this way of working will mean that circa 55% of what will be classed low risk claims will only need to provide proof of identity, production of a National Insurance Number and if they are a student formal confirmation of status.  In addition, we are also going to introduce the opportunity for customers to make a housing benefit claim on-line.  Both of these initiatives will significantly reduce the amount of paper that we are currently processing.  If the Member has any further cases, then she should inform me.

 

9.         Question to the Leader of the Council (Councillor Bob Price) from Councillor David Williams

 

                        Improvement in the reduction of staff absences

 

Although there is a long way to go would the Leader of the Council join with me in praising the relevant officers of the Council in the recent improvements in attendance levels (days off work), keeping the number of registered homelessness figures down in the face of major changes to the Housing Benefit System and the increasing use of the Council Web page references?

 

Response: This reduction is a good example of management action across the Council and achieved an attendance improvement of 40% over the past 3 years.  This will be maintained through the work being undertaken through the Wellbeing Programme, but we still have a long way to go on the use of the Council’s website.

 

Councillor Williams in a supplementary question said that when something happens that is good we should congratulate the Officers, for example in holding down the number of homeless in the City which is something that we should be proud off.  In response Councillor Price said that we neglect at our peril not to show staff that Members had confidence in them and to congratulate them on improvements etc.