Transcript

night's um regulatory um committee meeting um held here in the chamber on thursday 6th of june 2024. this meeting will be webcast so please speak clearly into the microphone after pressing the button to switch it on after the i have turned my microphone off i think as we've got no visitors here tonight we are all aware of where the fire exits are etc and the fire arrangements so we'll move on to the next item the chairman and vice chairman have given their apologies for this evening as they are away on holiday counselor carlos and i are attending a substitute therefore the first point of order for the meeting is to elect a chairman members could i please have a proposer and seconder for chairman thank you thank you i would like to nominate counselor bummy as chair thank you nice and clear thank you will be a seconder i'm happy to second that chair thank you council palmer so i'm assuming therefore that i will be taking the rest of the meeting so let's move on to apologies for absence can i ask the democratic and civic officer if we have any apologies thank you chairman we have received apologies from counselor j snee with yourself attending a substitute counselor bunny uh counselor m snee with counselor carl s attending a substitute from counselor bennett counselor dobby counselor mrs lawrence and counselor lee thank you thank you very much now we obviously have public participation i'm assuming that we don't have any questions but just to check in case there is any public speakers in the room no there are no public speakers this evening thank you thank you very much um members may make any declarations of interest at this point but may also make them at any time during the course of the meeting do we have anyone wishing to make any declarations thank you so we'll move on to the minutes and to ask committee to approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 14th of march 2024 which i believe have been circulated we also need to note the minutes of the regulatory subcommittee meeting held on 19th of march 2024 which again have been circulated do i have someone propose that we take those minutes as read thank you counselor barrett and a seconder counselor palmer thank you can we all those in favor and clearly those of us who were not at the meeting will abstain matters arising on ganar's members are there any matters arising from the last committee chairman there's no matters arising from the last committee thank you thank you very much so if we now move on to the reports for approval number one which is the food and health and safety work plan 24 25 and i'd like to ask andy gray to introduce the report thank you counselor bunny good evening everybody and welcome to our new members on the committee and the report in front of you for the food health and safety work plan is the annual document that we bring to this committee that sets out how we go about delivering those service areas and how we performed within that service area over the last 12 months it's a statutory document required by the food standards agency and is published on our our website and is attached as appendix one to this report the the the cover report that i've provided gives you a summary and overview of the key issues within it and i'd like to draw members attention to part three of the report which shows you how many inspections have been completed in line with the the food hygiene inspection program and also gives you some overall information around the the other work that's been undertaken within the the work area and section four of the report sets out what we have to achieve next year in regards to food inspections and members will note that the normal routine inspection program is going to be around 450 inspections which when you look at table the table in section three is a significant number for us to achieve and a number that we haven't reached before in terms of volume of inspections the the reasons behind that are that we are still reworking the program or the food standards agency is still reworking the program following on from the the pandemic so you'll note within the table insert in in section three that during the pandemic period a significant number of premises did not have an inspection because those resources were directed to dealing with issues related to the pandemic so the the food program has been reworked so that those premises fall into the inspection regime now we knew that this was going to be a challenge in 24 25 and the report sets out in section five kind of what resources we have available and how we're going to approach that moving forward section six also sets out those risks members will be aware that what we aim to achieve in terms of the program is a 90 inspection rate but obviously that's based on inspections being routine so it only takes a small number of inspections to become complex to really impact on the resources that we have available but as you'll see from the figures the vast majority of our food premises are compliant and operate a really good standard there's also additional demand on our eho's in terms of inspections and then we also want to look at continuing to do our proactive health and safety inspections so for members that aren't aware we do have a inspection role in regards to health and safety so we inspect certain premises such as car sales premises and garages some leisure premises such as people that sell hot tubs that sort of thing and we do those proactively across the district as well however the the challenge with those is that whilst they are a requirement they're not deemed as as important as those food inspections so we we work those in and around the food inspections but often we're able we're unable to do some of those inspections as a result of the food demands so in terms of the way forward in section 7 there's been a lot of work going on behind the scenes in terms of the processes and procedures that the team follow that's happened as part of the service review we've got some changes to the systems that some of you might be aware of around using a crm moving forward and then there were some kind of i guess manual exercises that we're going to make electronic to ease a little bit of the burden on the team in terms of their resources we've also agreed in terms of resources a contingency budget as part of the the pressures process around finance so should we need to go into a situation where we need additional inspecting officers towards the end of the year we'll be able to bring those in on a temporary basis so part of the recommendation in front of you shows that we'll bring a report back to this committee in december which we've we've done for the last couple of years just to provide reassurance and an update on the situation that we that we face and i'm happy to take any questions chair thank you um council britain council breechwood yeah um my question is i've had a tour around the um town with um ian knolls a couple weeks ago and the drive for the regeneration of gainsborough seems to be largely based around cafe culture and that sort of thing you've at the moment you've said that you're not meeting or you're getting close to you're struggling with meeting the demand at the moment does your forecast take into account those new businesses that are planned yes so um so as you'll see in the report the i think i think it's in section two where we've got i'm really sorry my computer has just decided to restart so my report has gone um so i won't be quoting any facts and figures um so the yes so the the number of premises the kind of operating premises um has decreased as you can see in the report and but it but it has been fairly um we've not really had a huge spike or decrease because what happened in covid is a number of premises open that we're doing kind of home-based catering so that increased the numbers um and then after covid some of those businesses have stopped operating or have gone into premises etc so oh thanks very much amazing um so so the the challenge um around the food premises is that we are aware that the regeneration will potentially bring more premises for us to inspect i guess we we'll just need to consider whether that's having an impact on the overall number it doesn't look like it is at the moment but actually um part of that um inspection regime will depend on the type of business they are how often they need to be inspected those sorts of things longer term the food standards agency um are suggesting that the inspection regime will um change in regards to the length of time that a prop the premise is inspected um that's not come into force yet um but it's likely that as we move forward the regulatory regime will be less for those premises that have demonstrated really good scores over the previous years so if you've been a five-star business for the last five years it may be that your inspection frequency will extend out so we don't need to visit you as much whereas if you've got a lesser score we will visit you more frequently so we are aware of that that won't be the only factor in terms of the the volume of inspections that we have to do but at the moment um whilst we've got a challenging year for 24-25 we only really find out the figure for the year we need to inspect kind of at the end of the previous year so it's very very difficult to resource plan in this work area so the following year for example we could have a lower number again so that's why with the management team we've kind of put that contingency in place to say actually we might need some help this year but we might not need a permanent resource for the next five years because it may not be that we have that volume of inspections in the following year so the december report will update on that and we monitor this almost weekly with the team and that's provided to you on the quarterly basis through the progress and delivery report as well thank you that's all right council richard council barrett thank you chair um i'm looking at 7-1 there uh and it says the volume of inspections required is unlikely to be achieved with the existing resources available as councilor bridgewood has as attested to that there are going to be more uh food outlets in gains but anyway and probably more elsewhere now that covid's finished and things are getting rolling again um you mentioned that we we may have to set off some temporary uh staff and i presume that would be an agency which is quite expensive and i'm just wondering whether it would be better to sort of gear up to having someone permanent instead yeah that's a that's a fair um comment council about i mean i think as i've said it is it is a difficult area to resource planning we we have got some options in regards to how we how we do fill that gap if there is one um we've used agency staff before um which you know as you as you've stated it can be more expensive way of doing it but obviously you don't you don't obtain with that the kind of ongoing risk around the person being a permanent employee so we we're trying to explore all the options but obviously that is being done in the context of the council's financial challenges as well so um you know i think i would be the first to advocate if we get to a point where it's very clear that we're not going to meet that or moving forward that we will need that additional resource but um i think we're trying to be cautious but sensible in terms of how we approach that towards the end of this year thanks for that chair when's the next review then on on this do you know so we um we review the the numbers of inspections regularly so as i said already almost weekly but that then gets reported through corporally on a monthly basis and you receive that uh quarterly for your progress and delivery report but what we're saying is we will bring a report back to this committee in december um to to kind of update on where we are at in regards to the program um so at in at that report we will have a very clear idea about kind of where we're going to be at the end of the year and i would like to think that when we bring that to you we'll also be bringing the solution to that challenge as well so we won't just be saying we're not going to make it we'll be saying we're we're aware that it's going to be a challenge and this is what we're going to do about it thank you chair thank you mr great are there any other questions well if i might have one or two uh the first one is really to do to ask you your views actually about the fsa's potential suggestion that they might increase the length of time between inspections for good premises i'm thinking of offstead in education where that had actually held and then when it came around the event she came back to recheck people who thought that they had been outstanding for obvious complacent reasons or whatever had slipped and it did create some problems i'm just wondering what you think about that i can understand that actually increasing the gap the length of time will actually ease the manpower situation but will it actually in your view cause some problems for the overall health standards thanks council bunny i think that um so that my view on that i suppose given that i'm responsible for the regulatory services for the council is that i think that our our presence as the regulator has a significant impact on people being compliant and i think that if we get to a situation where somebody for example has one inspection every five years the overall standards will decrease um because we experienced this in covid whereby some premises that had had been um compliant standards had dropped during that period just because we hadn't been present we've also seen this with our health and safety inspections where we had a hiatus on doing that for a number of years and then when we returned there were a number of issues that needed to be addressed in premises just because the the kind of the white coated council officer wasn't looming over that business that's not to say that applies to all businesses but i think we all know in terms of regulation that um self-regulation only goes so far but i think in an industry like food where the risk is so high and to to reduce the regulatory regime i think it is a risk and i think would would potentially mean that more premises fall foul of that regime when they are inspected can i ask another one actually to do similarly do you ever do sort of just no notice inspections by just turning up and in fact if someone was on a five-year limp is there any way you can do that was that not possible in the food industry no every food inspection is without notice so no no food premises will know that we are coming they will be aware of the time scale in which they need to be re-inspected but they won't have notification of when of when we're attending if we then have to follow up visits often they're done in conjunction if we're looking at improvements but everyone is done without notification thank you for that i think council carlos has a question thank you chair andy i'm just looking at the resources on 5.2 and council barrett had already covered what i was going to ask initially about the um agency um costs but i'm just looking at that and that contract says on here it's for hard to reach inspections um on behalf of the council and they're currently scheduled to remain with the council until the end of july 2024 will that be something that can be carried on because just as you said it's saying hard to reach inspections i'm thinking they could be really left behind yeah yeah so we the funding we use for that is kind of a bit of a leftover prevention grant we've got from the pandemic um and this officer um is someone who used to work for us who does um you know a small number of fixed term hours so they they do kind of out of hours type inspections you know premises that only open sort of after six o'clock and where where sometimes it's not possible for our officers to do them so we are trying to make that budget go as far as we can um and i'm kind of reviewing that on a kind of three to six monthly basis with them so some some months they can do quite a volume of inspections but other months they don't do many because of other commitments so we've kind of got them on a bit of a call-off basis and i think that that works quite well for us because it means that we kind of can fill those gaps when we need to um obviously if that was a greater number of hours for a for an agency contractor it'd be you know a significant a significant expense um but we will seek to extend that for as long as we can but once that kind of pot is gone then then it will be gone thank you are there any other questions comments but in that case members are requested to approve the food health and safety work plan and approve the update on progress against the plan brought to the december meeting oh do i have a proposer thank you council bridgewood a seconder council barrett all those in favor that is unanimous thank you if we can now move on to 6-2 pavement licensing review of sub delegation um and i would like to invite andy gray to present report thanks counselor bunny um so um the pavement licensing report um you'll often hear this referred to as cafe license uh it kind of came to the fore during the pandemic when premises were looking at ways to extend their operations and kind of be outdoors so um the the legislation was brought in during the pandemic um started this process off in terms of sub delegation and you'll see from the background papers there's been a number of papers previously to this committee to to look at this delegation when it was first put in place and then to extend it beyond the time period so just to um give you an overview of what what it is so the pavement licensing regime looks to make sure that areas that premises sorry that want to extend out the operations onto public space are done in a licensed manner that that's regulated the county council are the enforcement body and prior to the legislation in the pandemic um they were also the delegated authority for doing the licenses when the new legislation came out this was then delegated to all the um district or borough councils whichever um whichever one you were you were based in um but not many of those districts or boroughs actually delivered that function prior to that so um i think in the industry it may be seen as a little bit of an error but um we quickly worked with the county council because they've got the system for processing this to do the delegation to allow them to continue to do that the main issue within kind of this change the delegation is that they're this the original bill has now been turned into an act and within the act you can now charge for the pavement license whereas previously during the pandemic there was no fee because it was seen as a way to try and help businesses to continue operating during that period so the fees that the county council are going to charge are quoted in the paper and as you'll see we've only got a very small number of licenses in in west lindsey at the moment you'll see that down in section 2.1 and the newest one and a really good example of it is our fees in the marketplace where they've got their premises under the canopy area and then they've got a seating area out out the front which is kind of demarked which is where their pavement license applies and then we've got the others that are listed there during covid we had around 10 licenses in place but as kind of the economy's got back to where it was those have have dropped off our role in the licensing process is that we once we're notified of a license application by the county we distribute that out to the relevant stakeholders so that will be the ward councillors the town or parish council and any other interested parties and then those applications take 14 days now it was previously seven and the consultation must be submitted by then and if it's not determined within that time period the license is then deemed to be granted so we have taught previously this committee about the options available to the council and when this was first delegated there was a discussion on whether we could deliver this in-house i think that the fluctuating numbers of applications i think support the position that have previously been taken around doing the delegation to the county council they've also agreed within the the cost framework at the county that those licenses will be valid for a two-year period so the initial concern for a 500 pounds application was that the business would have to pay that every year but actually that's going to be valid now for a two-year period so it will be 250 pounds effectively per year which i think um in terms of the overall licensing regime seems reasonable um so the recommendation is that we um as a committee continue to sub delegate to the county council um up until september 2026 and we're saying to do that for two years because we're not expecting any changes to this act to occur in that time period we obviously do bring back a report to this committee to let you know the current status around pavement licenses and if anything was to change in the legislation we would have to come back to you to look at the delegation anyway um and i'm happy to take any questions councillor bunny thank you councillor bridgewood i only got one question i'm quite surprised that there's only three um it's the if you publicize two businesses that there is a requirement for a license for this because i know in cherry willingham there's a cafe um and i think in netland as well there's a few cafes um i would have thought they'd be on that list as well yes so um so it will if a cafe for example is the owner of the land in front of the premises then they don't need to have one because it is their land and it's a it's potentially a licensing issue depending on what their operation is this this applies to where it's coming out into the public space so um whether if it goes onto the highway or grass verge or a marketplace that's where the license applies so if you look think about marshall's yard here in the areas that have got seating outside they don't require a pavement license because they are on private land and that is a planning issue for them not a licensing issue can i just pick something up there um you mentioned the word public land can you define for us what is public land no but what what um um but what just to kind of to to further the question from councilor bridgewood um so we will often get inquiries about whether somebody needs one and that is at that point we would then look at what the requirement would be so we will go back and then provide we'll look at who the landowner is and provide that advice so it will very much depend councilor bunny on um you know where it is what what the situation so and i mean we won't talk about specific examples but um it will very much depend about who the landowner is and how that land is used well can i put i'll put a specific example in because it does not now though well okay i i will talk to you later but i'm really wanting to know if it's land owned by a council or if it's actually owned by a private individual um that that would be my question yeah so if there's any premises that you think maybe need this um well i suppose there's two ways of looking at it you can let us know about those and we can do the land registry and look at that um but i suppose you just need to bear in mind that um if they are then if they do need to be part of the regime they will then be subject to this so um we will we where we get complaints about those or queries we will then do that will we refer that to county and liaise with them because they may have looked at it already or we would do that work to look at whether there was a licensing issue okay well i'll ask a question outside the meeting clearly um council department yeah just pick up on that so if it's a third party that owns it are they not responsible for getting the license for them to put their um tables and chairs outside so if it was owned by like another private landowner that would either be a planning or a permissions issue with that private landowner so if if a premises wanted to put their um seating area on someone else's land that wasn't public that would be a planning issue and then it would be a civil matter between those those parties if it was for example on a parish council's green space that would be an issue that may require licensing so i think that what i'm getting at here is send us the specific examples and we'll look because it's it's not always straightforward i think the point that's coming out is that the land is not just land necessarily owned by the county council district council it could be other organizations as well which we need to talk about later uh council barrett thank you chair yeah as uh netland has been mentioned and that's my batch i'll mention premises in the in netland and yes there's three i can think of and basically they're all on a private land uh owned by specific persons so yes those those are okay the one mentioned there is uh actually part of the highway it's not not actually a road as such but it's the end of a road and that's why they're putting for a license and got it and it was dealt with very well actually by the county council so um i'm pleased about this that's been brought forward yeah thank you thank you for that is there any further questions right so members are requested to approve the delegation relating to pavement licenses to linkage county council until september 26 as set out in the recommendations in the report can i have a proposer please thank you councillor bridgewood a seconder councillor barrett and councillor palmer well i don't want anyone to feel left out so those in favor please again that is unanimous so we now move on to the committee work plan and i'm very happy to ask the democratic and civic officer to present the plan thank you chairman um i'd just like to add that the committee work plan is for noting and there's no vote required thank you thank you very much well that brings us to the end of this meeting not quite as short as last time um so i'd like to thank everybody for their attendance and wish you a good journey home especially those of us who've been over twice to gainsborough today and i declare the meeting closed the next scheduled meeting of the regulatory committee is 12th of september 24 at 6 30 p.m in the council chamber thank you very much and good night