Transcript

Good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Executive. Are there any apologies for absence? Councillor Akinola and Councillor Yates. Very good. Are there any declarations of interest? Great. Then we'll move to Matters for Decisions. So we've got papers from the Environment, Health and Grants Subcommittee this evening. So looking at those first, Councillor Gasser, the Environment papers. Yeah, thank you. So we had paper 24.224 which spoke about the revision to future arrangements with Enable Culture and Leisure. And this is the contractor who looks after our parks and our leisure centres and our bereavement services and our events and our filming and our community spaces. Lots and lots of services they run for us. But it's an old contract that's been running nearly five years now and we're just looking at rethinking it somewhat. In the paper we propose bringing ten posts back in house so that we get a better strategic overview and then working with them to try and look at the best possible model going forward which might involve bringing some more people back in house just to make the running smoother. And we're on a sort of roadmap to the November Committee meeting when we'll actually make that decision. So we had some deputations at the meeting and some of them were a bit concerned about how the arrangements would work going forward so we have agreed to meet with them and we have got two meetings in the diary. Now to meet with them to make sure that we listen to all their concerns and put their minds at ease. Great. Thanks very much for that explanation. Is that agreed? Yes. Thanks very much. And now grounds maintenance. Right. So this doesn't sound very exciting but it is very exciting and important. This is looking after our parks so it's terribly important. And I don't think I can say the name of the successful contractor but we had a whole bidding process and it was a clear winner. And it's a different sort of contract now. It's instead of being based on outputs if you like you're going to mow the grass once a month. It's based on outcomes so the grass will look beautiful at all times and the bins will be empty at all times so it's a different way of doing things. It will be very closely monitored actually by council officers now as a result of the previous paper so we expect to provide a better service for our residents in the borough. Great. Any comments or questions on that? If not is it agreed? Agreed. Thank you. And litter enforcement? Another really important contract actually. So this is the company that works with us to help on the enforcement side issuing fines for littering and fly tipping. Because we only have a small officer base so we have a company that helps us. Again it was a tender process and again I don't think I can say who it is at this point. Again a clear winner and it's an interesting contract because not only will they go through the litter and find out who's done the dumping and find them where they can or take them to court if necessary. So there will also be a vehicle going around which will pick up the litter at the same time which you would think would always have been done but it hasn't always been done in previous contracts so now it will be done. So there will be enforcing and cleaning as they go. Yeah really good stuff. Any comments or questions for Judy on that proposal? And I know we'll be bringing forward more measures as part of our cleaner borough plan in the coming months as well but is that agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much. I think that's it for environment. Councillor Henderson are we okay to look at the health overview and scrutiny items? Thank you chair. The first item paper number 24232 is actually described as the response to the ban on petitions received by the council. To be honest the report is mainly concerned with a very wide range of initiatives that the council has been involved in conjunction with other agencies particularly the police. In terms of combating antisocial behaviour and crime in Balham and indeed I met with senior officers back in March of 2023 and we agreed to establish a multidisciplinary task force and actually use Balham as a pilot for this particular approach to be rolled out in other wards which has subsequently happened. This monkey agency approach task and finish group has actually been extremely successful resulting in the whole range of initiatives which are set out in paragraph 6 of the paper. But I would emphasise that this was something which we already had in hand long before Councillor Hedges submitted the petitions. Thank you. Thanks very much Councillor Henderson for all your work on public safety. Any questions on that item or is it agreed? Thanks very much. A little bit more complicated is perhaps paper 24233. This is a review of the council's approach to implementing what is commonly known as the community trigger. We had the requirements under the antisocial behaviour, crime and policing act of 2014 and we are under a general duty to review it periodically anyway. But we decided to review it early as a result of multiple complaints from partners, applicants and several formal complaints raised on various parts of the process. For example the review process and the communications and updates to the applicants not being very clear. So the revisions to this process will provide clarity to the applicants on the process, the timescales and what to expect. The revisions also enable the council and wider partnership to be clear on their roles and responsibilities as it relates to the process. Also being more specific about what constitutes a qualifying complaint, how the case review can be triggered and it will ensure officers are able to assess the request more accurately. It is also important as an important part of the document to set achievable timescales, to manage expectations and to allow time for officers to conduct the relevant actions on what very often are quite complex situations in the required thorough manner. So this new revised protocol will enable a more coordinated and clear approach to the antisocial behaviour case review and will certainly go a long way to address the concerns and complaints which have been raised so far. Thank you. The recommendation is to approve the new protocol. Thanks very much. I can't see any questions. Is that agreed? Excellent. Thank you. And if it's all right, we'll then move on to the grant subcommittee. And in Councillor Akinola's absence, I'll just note that the cost of living grant fund round one, you'll see the committee has recommended that application 13 for the SW15 women's network should actually be awarded the full amount of grant funding, £5,566. And I think as the committee has recommended that unanimously, I think that's something that we should support here. Beyond that, are there any other comments or questions? Is that agreed? Thanks very much. And then just looking ahead to the Wandsworth grant fund, round 27. Again, the committee there has suggested that application one, which was for BACCA, sorry, the Balleman Tooting Community Association, should be awarded partial grant funding of £1,500 to cover venue hire, again unanimously supported by the committee. Another unanimous recommendation from the committee, that application nine, the Rotary Club, should be awarded the full amount of grant funding, that's £5,000. Again, I think those are sensible suggestions that we should accept. So are there any comments or questions on that grant funding? Then is it agreed? Thanks very much. I think that's all the business we have for this evening. Thanks very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]