Agenda and minutes

When the continuous alarm sounds you must evacuate the building by the nearest available fire exit. Members and visitors should proceed to the visitors’ car park at the front of the building and await further instructions (during office hours staff should proceed to their usual assembly point; outside of office hours proceed to the visitors’ car park). Please do not re-enter the building unless instructed to do so.

In the event of a fire any person with a disability should be assisted in leaving the building.

57.1           The evacuation procedure, as noted on the Agenda, was advised to those present.

57.2           The Chair welcomed James Saunders, Early Help Partnership Manager, and Hannah Oakshott, Families First Plus Keyworker, to the meeting and indicated that they were representing Families First Plus which was due to be discussed at Agenda Item 7 – Gloucestershire Families First Update.  He also welcomed Jack James, Aston Project Co-Ordinator, and Kym Harrison, Anti-Social Behaviour Youth Diversion Worker, who would be giving a presentation at Agenda Item 8 – Aston Project and Great Expectations. 

58.1           Apologies for absence were received from Councillors R M Hatton, H C McLain and P D Surman.  There were no substitutions for the meeting. 

59.1           The Committee’s attention was drawn to the Tewkesbury Borough Council Code of Conduct which was adopted by the Council on 26 June 2012 and took effect from 1 July 2012.

59.2           There were no declarations made on this occasion.

To approve the Minutes of the meeting held on 28 November 2017.

60.1           The Minutes of the meeting held on 28 November 2017, copies of which had been circulated, were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair. 

To determine whether there are any questions for the relevant Lead Members and what support the Overview and Scrutiny Committee can give to work contained within the Plan.

61.1           Attention was drawn to the Executive Committee Forward Plan, circulated at Pages No. 13-15.  Members were asked to determine whether there were any questions for the relevant Lead Members and what support the Overview and Scrutiny Committee could give to the work contained within the plan.

61.2           It was

RESOLVED          That the Executive Committee Forward Plan be NOTED. 

To consider the forthcoming work of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

62.1           Attention was drawn to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 2017/18, circulated at Pages No. 16-20, which Members were asked to consider.

62.2           The Chief Executive indicated that most Members would be aware of the serious disruption to water supplies to a large part of the borough which had occurred on 15 and 16 December 2017.  10,000 homes had been affected and there had been considerable disruption for businesses on a significant weekend in the run-up to Christmas.  Given the extent and seriousness of the event, as well as the fact that this had closely followed another event affecting the Mythe Waterworks, he had spoken with the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee about the possibility of undertaking a scrutiny review to assess the response to the event and the impacts.  The review could potentially involve calling in a number of witnesses and it would be a sizeable piece of work for both Officers and Members; however, the outcome would be a series of agreed recommendations for the various agencies concerned to ensure that any issues identified were rectified in future.  He stressed that there would be a review of the event by the agencies involved in any case but, given the impact on residents and businesses within the borough, it was felt that it would also be appropriate for the Council to ask questions if Members were supportive of undertaking a separate scrutiny review.  If the review itself was to be conducted in public, he suggested that it would be appropriate for the Committee to meet informally as a Working Group to scope the extent of the review, agree the process that would be followed and set the timescale for the work; alternatively, a smaller Working Group comprising a few Members of the Committee could be set-up for that purpose.  He confirmed that he had spoken with the Managing Director of Severn Trent Water Authority who was happy to take part and to make staff available from Severn Trent.  He had also written to the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Constabulary and the Chief Fire Officer from Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service in terms of the emergency response and both had indicated that they would make staff available via the resilience team that had dealt with the emergency. 

62.3           A Member welcomed the review and indicated that it was something he had been intending to raise in his role as a County Councillor depending on the outcome of the debriefing which was due to take place at the end of January.  The Chief Executive confirmed that there was a ‘wash-up’ meeting taking place shortly and he felt that the timing would work well in terms of feeding into the scrutiny review.  He explained that the water outage had not been declared as a major incident and therefore Severn Trent had been in control of the response; had it been declared a major incident, the civil authorities would have taken control.  In light of this, and given that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

To receive the annual presentation on Gloucestershire Families First. 

63.1           The Community Development Officer indicated that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had received a number of reports on the Gloucestershire Families First project over the years and James Saunders, Early Help Partnership Manager, and Hannah Oakshott, Family First Plus Keyworker, had attended the meeting to give an update on the work that was being undertaken and how things had changed for this approach to become ‘business as usual’.

63.2           The following key points were raised during the presentation:

·      Recap – Families First was the local name for the national Troubled Families programme; originally a three year programme (from 2012) aimed at turning around the lives of an estimated 120,000 troubled families in the country, 900 in Gloucestershire and 90 in Tewkesbury Borough; original criteria – an adult on out of work benefit, children not attending school, family members involved in crime and antisocial behaviour, high costs to the public purse, and local discretion to include other issues e.g. mental health, drug and alcohol misuse, domestic abuse.

·      Aim – To get children back into school; reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour; put adults on a path back to work; bring down the public services currently spent on them; and, over time, change the way services are delivered – redesigning them for the longer term.

·      Evaluation – Education, employment and training – improvements in school exclusion, school behavioural problems, attendance at alternative provision, and adults in employment; crime and antisocial behaviour – improvements in youth offending, Police call-outs and domestic abuse incidents; health – improvements in adult mental health and young people using alcohol/drugs; 85% of families say they have made progress since being involved with Families First.

·      Expansion – Five year programme from 2015/16 with funding for the first year; additional 3,000 families for Gloucestershire; getting to a much wider group of families with multiple problems; greater flexibility to decide which families to work with but must prioritise highest need; payment by results based on ‘sustained and significant progress’.

·      New Criteria – Parents and children involved in crime or anti-social behaviour; children not attending school; children who need help; adults out of work or at risk of financial exclusion and young people at risk of worklessness; families affected by domestic violence and abuse; parents and children with a range of health problems.

·      Business as Usual – Developing early help and targeted support; bringing together Targeted Support teams and Families First to create Families First Plus; development of Early Help Hub; Tewkesbury was the pilot nationally for this work.

·      Working in Tewkesbury – Locality Partnership Group - health, education, Police, probation, Council services, housing, mental health, domestic abuse, substance misuse, Department for Work and Pensions, voluntary and community sector representation; Early Help Hub Allocations – provide advice, information, support and targeted support e.g. family support, community support.

·      What is Early Help? - “Early Help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life, from the foundation years through to the teenage years” –  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63.

To receive a presentation on the Aston Project and Gloucestershire Great Expectations.

64.1           The Head of Community Services advised that Jack James had been working for the Council as the Aston Project Co-Ordinator for the last five months.  The post was funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office and Jack worked closely with the Anti-Social Behaviour Youth Diversion Worker within the Community Services team.  He would be giving a presentation on the Aston Project and the next stage, Great Expectations.

64.2           The following key points were raised during the presentation:

·           Aston Project (1) – Named after PC Lynn Aston who sadly lost her battle with cancer in April 2011; launched in Cheltenham in September 2011 building on the duty to identify vulnerable children at risk of causing anti-social behaviour; provides community-based activities linked to their interests; earn time banking credits to spend on reward activities; engage at an early point whilst the pathway can still be changed.

·           Aston Project (2) – Caseloads: Cheltenham – 37, Gloucester – 26, Newent – 19, Tewkesbury – 13; Tewkesbury was a pilot introduced in November 2017 for children in Prior’s Park and all had been engaging on a regular basis; approximately 630 had engaged since the project launched; approximately 150 had engaged in the last 12 months; 45 volunteers had registered with the project since October 2015; a total of over 500 hours had been contributed so far; 24 volunteers were currently considered active (15 active and 9 in process); the Tewkesbury Aston Project launch would be in February 2018.

·           Aston Project (3) – Volunteers - Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checked; considered as Gloucestershire Police volunteers; make a real difference to the lives of young people; actively trying to recruit volunteers; looking at long-term sustainability.

·           Aston Project (4) – Referral process – referrals currently made via the Gloucestershire Police website, the Aston Project would have its own website from February; prevention and intervention – reducing future harm amongst young people; young people are referred on the following basis “I am concerned about where this young person is going to end up…”

·           Great Expectations (1) – Launched in April 2013 in Gloucester; response to gang problem; national move towards emphasis on longer term prevention and intervention; step-up from the Aston Project; referrals on the same basis as the Aston Project, allocations meeting to decide which they should subscribe to; three tiers to Great Expectations; Tier 1 (pre- offending/arrest) Prevention – custody experience involving a mock arrest (the young person is not told it is mock); Tier 2 (early offending) Intervention – court and prison experience; Tier 3 (pre-custodial offending) Intervention – Great Expectations seven week programme.

·           Great Expectations (2) – Programme delivered to approximately 115 young people in the last six months; mentoring caseload currently 28 young people (five/six per mentor); four mentors, including two females, volunteers; gain a qualification, induction programme, quarterly training – rehabilitation; one senior mentor.

·           Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) (1) – “A complex set of related childhood experiences that include abuse, neglect and growing up with household dysfunction”; research  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64.

To consider the draft Planning Enforcement Plan and recommend it to the Executive Committee for approval for public consultation.

65.1           Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Development Services, circulated at Pages No. 21-46, which proposed the introduction of a Planning Enforcement Plan.  Members were asked to consider the draft Plan and recommend it to the Executive Committee for approval for public consultation.

65.2           The Head of Development Services advised that the National Planning Policy Framework stated that local planning authorities should consider publishing a local enforcement plan setting out how they would monitor the implementation of planning permissions, investigate alleged cases of unauthorised development and take action where it was appropriate to do so.  A Planning Enforcement Plan had been drafted, setting out the Council’s proposed approach to delivering the service.  It was a customer facing document providing clear and succinct ‘Plain English’ information about planning enforcement and setting out the level of service that customers could expect to receive. 

65.3           The Senior Planning and Enforcement Officer explained that he had been brought into the role to undertake a number of initiatives, starting with a review of the Council’s Planning Enforcement service and, over the last few months, that work had focused on the development of the draft Planning Enforcement Plan. This area of work was very contentious and difficult, not just for Officers but also for Members, and the review had identified a number of areas for improvement, set out at Paragraph 1.3 of the report, including the need for a structured framework within which all decisions were made; the need to focus on monitoring of conditions and, where planning permission had been given, ensuring that planning permission was being implemented correctly; making better use of IT in order to assist with record keeping e.g. an electronic planning register had been introduced to replace the old paper one; adopting available legislation and looking at opportunities around enforcement, including direct action for Planning Officers to resolve breaches; and, raising the profile of the service amongst Officers, Members and the public to communicate the message that unauthorised development would be addressed in order to act as a deterrent.  The Planning Enforcement Plan addressed the need for a more formal structure for enforcement and would be used by Officers as a manual on how to approach enforcement in order to embed this into day-to-day working.  He went on to advise that the Planning Enforcement Plan was intended to be informative so that the public could find out what they could and could not do and how to appeal decisions etc.; this was covered in Sections 1-3 and 8-9 of the plan.  Sections 4-6 focused on how to report a suspected breach and the Council’s priorities for action, including unauthorised breaches of conditions.  The plan also set out, at Sections 5, 7 and 12, the customer service standards which people could expect from the Council, whether they were the subject of the breach or the person reporting it.  The powers available to the Council, and its commitment to action, were included in Section 10 of the plan and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.