To hear questions from the public in accordance with the Council Procedure Rule 11.9 to the Leader or other Members of the City Executive Board for which the required notice (1.00pm on Thursday 21^st February 2013) and the full wording of the question has been given to the Head of Law and Governance and to hear responses from those Members.

Three questions were submitted by members of the public as follows:

(1)       Question to the Board Member, Leisure (Councillor Van Coulter) from Nigel Gibson

            Action following submission of petition

At the last Council meeting, a petition with 1,666 signatures concerning university building in Roger Dudman way and the view across Port Meadow was rightly supported by Council, who immediately responded by instituting an enquiry, and now, we hear, discussions with the University to remedy the situation. Why did Council not respond with similar speed and decisiveness when a 12,000 signature petition to keep Temple Cowley Pools open, affecting the health and well-being of thousands of people across Oxford, was presented to council?

Response: The Council takes all petitions seriously.  Having considered and debated the matter, Council then resolved to take action, weighing the views in the petition with all the other factors that must be taken into account.

(2)       Question to the Board Member, Leisure (Councillor Van Coulter) from Sarah Lasenby

            Fusion Leisure Contract

At the last Full Council meeting a question was asked by Nigel Gibson concerning the payments to Fusion Lifestyle as the information then available did not add up. But the answer given did not answer this question in anyway as far as I could see. This really shocked me as the Council has a policy to make information publicly open and transparent. In this case it did not happen.

I am confused; did the Councillor or whoever constructed the answer for him, not agree with the policy of openness or with the Contract or what?  Please could I have an answer to the question this time? Can you please publish a breakdown by Leisure Centre and by year of the payments to Fusion Lifestyle up to the end of this financial year?  You show the totals and I should be grateful if you could show how these are made up.

Response: At the commencement of the leisure facilities contract with Fusion Lifestyles, an annual fee was agreed for the running of leisure facilities in the City.  This payment is a maximum guaranteed payment for the whole contract and it is not reliant upon the performance of any particular leisure centre.  The payment is not broken down by centre.  Therefore it is not possible to show the payments by centres as there is not one.  In order to make comparisons of operations for the development of facilities the Council has estimated the net costs of the Temple Cowley Pools and the Blackbird Leys Pool.  The Council has been open and transparent about these estimates.

(3)       Question to the Leader of the Council (Councillor Bob Price) from Jane Alexander

            Ethical Procurement            

At the last Full Council meeting, there was a motion proposed by Councillor Hollick that was out of time for debate. It asked Council to enforce an ethical procurement approach by not using suppliers operating tax avoidance schemes. Will the Leader of the Council endorse this approach, and instruct the Chief Executive to cancel the contract with Fusion Lifestyle who operated a tax avoidance scheme through its charitable status?

Response: Councillor Hollick was not getting at the issues of Charities using their charitable status to recycle surpluses into their charitable purposes and I have no intention of asking Fusion Lifestyle to do anything different from what they do at the moment.