| 149 | Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Griffiths and Poynter. |
| 150 | That the above minutes be approved as as a correct record as signed by the Chairman. |
| 151 | None Declared. |
| 152 | The Chief Executive reported that Gedling Community Safety Partnership was required by law to carry out an audit of crime, disorder and drugs in the Borough every 3 years. Once completed, the information would be provided and consulted upon with the wider community and would be used to develop and produce the Crime, Disorder and Drugs Strategy for 2005-2008.
The Community Safety Partnership were currently developing the Delivery Plan for 2005-2006. This document would reflect the approach and accountability of each member of the partnership to develop, deliver and performance manage targeted interventions aimed at reducing crime, disorder and drug related offending in line with the agreed partnership priorities.
Cabinet were asked to consider the content of the Strategy document and the targets proposed. Comments and recommendations made by Cabinet could be passed to the Portfolio Holder or the Community Partnerships Manager.
Formal approval for the adoption of the Strategy would be sought from the Community Safety Partnership Strategic Group before seeking Full Council ratification on 16th March 2005.
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| 153 | The Head of Legal and Democratic Services reported that there were now three main "generalised" routes to access information under the Freedom of Information Act in the possession of the Council:
1.The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI);
2.The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA); and
3. The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (in draft) (EIR).
This was in addition to other statutory regimes that permit access to information. The legislation was intended to introduce greater transparency and allow more access to information held by public authorities. The majority of costs for complying with requests would be met by the public sector; however, the right to access information had to be balanced by the need of those authorities to carry out their other duties. For this reason, the legislation, in some cases, allowed authorities to decline to comply with certain requests for information on the grounds of cost and in some circumstances, to charge for answering requests for information.
For the purposes of FOI and S9A of DPA (access to unstructured data) an authority might refuse to answer requests for information if the cost of complying would exceed the "appropriate limit". The limit which had been set for local authorities is £450 and authorities were required to apply an hourly charging rate of £25 per hour to arrive at an estimated cost. If the request could be answered without exceeding this limit, then there was provision for making a limited charge for disbursements. If the limit would be exceeded the Council might notwithstanding decide to answer the request and in that case a charge may be made.
The EIR provide that a reasonable charge may be made for the supply of information, not to exceed the cost of providing it.
The legislation and the guidance issued suggest that an authority maintain a fees policy which should be made publicly available as an attachment to the Publication Scheme or on the website. Submitted at Appendix 1 was a draft fees policy for approval. |
| 154 | The Head of Legal and Democratic Services reported that the Freedom of Information Working Group had identified a procedure for dealing with requests received under the Freedom of Information Act and a complaints procedure. This was submitted at Appendix 1 to the report. |
| 155 | None. |
| 156 | The Head of Planning and Environment reported that the Local Plan had been subject to four rounds of public consultation and a six month long public inquiry in 2003. Following the Inspector's report on the Inquiry the Council had published and consulted on its response to the report and also its Proposed Modifications. The consultation period had closed on 9th March 2005.
A report setting out the issues raised in the consultation and the Council's response to each of the issues was proposed for the Cabinet meeting on 12th May. If that confirmed no further Modifications to the Plan were necessary, the Council could then meet to move to adopt the Plan, which would then be confirmed after 6 weeks unless a legal challenge to the Plan was made. A date therefore needed to be agreed for the Council to adopt the Plan. |
| 157 | The Head of Cabinet Office submitted a report to members informing them of the Council's comparative performance against itself over time and against other local and comparative authoritities.
The Audit Commission had recently published 2003/04 performance indicator results for all authorities.
It had also produced a profile for GBC, showing how performance has moved year-on-year.
This had been supplemented by comparative analysis of performance against Nottinghamshire, Family and all district authorities, carried out internally.
Details of both were submitted at Appendix A to the report.
The comparisons showed that the Council continued to perform well overall, albeit with some pockets of areas for improvement.
It had four times as many indicators in the upper quartile than in the lower quartile, at a time when those standards were themselves rising.
Comparisons over time showed that, for service related indicators, more indicators were improving than deteriorating. This suggested a positive "direction of travel".
The Senior Management Team had given initial consideration to the results and has resolved to concentrate efforts on indicators in the lower quartile; in the 3rd and 4th quartile and falling back, and on ensuring that current upper quartile performance was maintained.
These issues would be considered when revised targets were proposed for member consideration later this year.
A summary of comparative data would also be presented in the revised Strategic Corporate Plan, for publication in June 2005. |
| 159 | The following progress reports on items within their purview were received from Portfolio Holders:-
Finance
Housing Benefit finalisation
Council Tax Bills to be printed 9 March 2005.
Accounts to be closed down by June 2005
Agenda 21 & Crime Reduction
Partnership Newsletter to be circulated.
Local Area Agreements.
LSP Area Based Initiatives
Housing
Reports Progressing
Leisure
Schemes in progress for completion by end of March 2005.
Direct Services
Second Bins distributed in Linby, Papplewick and Redhill.
Greenhouse site scheme.
Honeywood Gardens - Tenders by 21 March 2005
Asda Car Park - report to next meeting.
Development & Economic Re-generation
Local Plan - Meetings
Commuter Plan for Staff |
| 160 | None. |