At Bury’s Full Council meeting, we get to ask questions to the Council’s Executive Committee. Since the Conservatives changed the rules a couple of year ago, hardly any actually get answered nowardays, but we do get written answers (ie a written copy of what was to have been said) after the meeting if they’re not answered.

I’ve not posted all of them this time, as it would take too long (perhaps a role for the Council’s website, rather than a Councillor’s blog!), but given that this doesn’t happen, here are some of the more interesting questions asked by the Lib Dem team.

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Councillor Baum

Q Can the Leader explain what additional and/or emergency provision will be provided for the repairs to the roads of this Borough, following the damage caused by two consecutive snow-bound winters?

A. To date we have received no additional/emergency financial provision to repair damage to the Councils highways after the recent adverse weather. As we identify the extent of the problem from a financial perspective, consideration may have to be given to reprioritising areas of spend to address the matter.

Remediation work has begun by a specialised team.

Councillor V D’Albert
Q A series of recommendations for the improved efficiency and use of Civic Halls was made in a Best Value Review in 2007. The Leader is on record as saying that he could not act on these recommendations due to the balanced Council which existed at the time. What are his exact reasons for coming to this view?
A As I recall it was clear from the outcome from Scrutiny’s deliberations that more work was to be done on the whole future of Civic Venues. How could any Member reach any decision in the absence of a clear strategy for Civic Venues? It was Cllr Connolly as Chair of the scrutiny panel who ordered a further review.

Under this administration that review has been completed. I am sure Cllr D’Albert and his Lib Dem colleagues will agree that we cannot continue to ask Council Tax payers to pump in – year on year over £600,000 in subsidies.

Councillor Pickstone
Q Does the Leader agree the Speaker of the House of Commons’ belief that the count for elections should be held wherever practical on the same day as that election? If there is a dual election on 6 May 2010, when is it proposed that the counts for the General Election and Local elections take place in Bury? When will members be consulted on this?
A.

The decision as to when a count should take place is that of the Returning Officer.
If there is a combined Parliamentary and Local Government election on Thursday 6 May 2010, it is proposed that the count of the Parliamentary ballot papers will be on Thursday 6 May. The Local Government ballot papers will be verified on Thursday 6 May but counted from 1.00 pm onwards on Friday 7 May.
Both counts will take place in the Main Hall of the Castle Leisure Centre.

Councillor M D’Albert
Q With the current level of Youth Employment in the Borough, what actions are the council taking internally to reduce the level?

A Bury Council has recruited apprentices for a number of years across a wide range of occupational areas. However it has been recognised that this scheme can be expanded and therefore;-

In support of a national initiative, the Backing Young Britain campaign a local programme has been developed; Backing Young Bury.

This initiative is designed to improve the opportunities for young people employed by the Council and within our Borough. The principle features of the initiative are:

1. An increase in the number of apprenticeships within the Council by:

Looking at whether existing employees could benefit from the structured training offered by an apprenticeship.
Exploring different occupational areas where we could employ apprentices
Considering offering an opportunity to an apprentice where previously we might have employed an agency worker
Developing a bank of young people who are available for work and have been pre assessed to our minimum employment standards.
2. Developing a co-ordinated approach to work experience placements offered by

the Council to young people;

3. Becoming a ’Champion’ for the new 14 – 19 Diploma in Public Services, as well as supporting curriculum development and delivery for other diploma lines where appropriate .

To drive this forward a partnership steering group has been formed with representatives from the Council and from local colleges, schools, training providers and other influencers and stake holders with young people. A successful bid for external grant funding has been made and the Council will be appointing a full time project coordinator for 12 months to manage this work.With this support we have set a target to have 50 apprentices employed in the council by September 2010.

Progress to date on his initiative includes;-

1. The Backing Young Bury coordinator has been advertised with a closing date of 4th February. The objectives for this post will be to develop the work experience programme and to identify further opportunities for apprenticeships

2. The Council have set up a programme with Bury College to offer apprenticeships to existing young people within the Council to provide further voactional training and enhance career prospects. Letters will go out to the young people and their managers before the end of February.

3. When recruiting for the apprentices that are due to start in September we will recruit into a ‘pool’ so that we have a ‘pool’ of talent to fill positions as they arise.

4. The new e recruitment system that we are currently implementing (along with other AGMA Authorities) will have the facility to talent pool.

5. We have set up a work ready programme in conjunction with JC+ that has provided placements for unemployed people in the community.

6. We have introduced a mentoring programme for apprentices (many of the mentors are themselves ex apprentices), again assisting weith retention of young people and career development.

7. We are actively exploring volunteering opportunities to support young people in the community e.g number partners

In addition:

Corporate HR are working with USNU to develop a replica of the Future Jobs Fund Model. This will be aimed at connexions clients 16 – 18 NEETS (not in employment, education or training) who are not eligible for Future Jobs Fund. This will create 10 ‘real’ jobs for this age group at minimum wage.
Future Jobs Fund
The Future Jobs Fund is a fund of £1 billion to support the creation of jobs for long term unemployed young people and others who face significant disadvantages in the labour market. The fund is run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in partnership with the Department for Communities and Local Governement (CLG) and with input from Jobcentre Plus.

The Government announced in July 2009 that Greater Manchester had been awarded up to £52 million to create as many as 8,000 jobs across the city region over the next two years.

Bury Council and partner organisations have secured funding as part of a Greater Manachester bid to create over 90 ‘real’ jobs for young people aged 18 – 24. These opportunities give people who have been unemployed for 6 months and claiming Jobs Seekers Allowance (JSA) – a six-month period of paid employment, plus training and personal development.
The opportunities are wide ranging from Assistant Park Rangers to Assistant Street Care Operatives. The difference between this and other inititives is that the jobs are real, a wage is paid and the tasks undertaken offer a real opportunity to learn new skills, build up confidence and gain a reference from the towns largest employer.

All the jobs come with both off the job and on the job training and assistance is given to each person to move them into permanent employment.

Bury Council has committed to create 90 jobs – actually created 137. (more to follow)

There are currently 113 jobs currently available with Jobcentre Plus.

30 young people have been offered a position with 20 of these actually in work now.

Bury Council is profiled to achieve 80 people starting in their new jobs before March 31st and are confident that this can be achieved.

Councillor Ann Garner
Q The lack of effective road cleaning and leaf clearing due to cut backs means that some roads never get cleaned (for instance the roads off Kings Rd/Queens Rd area in my ward). Despite Council claims that all roads are cleaned, the evidence suggests that this is not true. What is the Council’s proposed response to this problem?

A The perennial problem with road and gulley cleaning as well as leaf clearance is the presence of parked vehicles. This severely limits the effectiveness of mechanical sweeping. Where specific issues are evident it is possible to invoke a temporary order for cars not to park in certain areas which would then allow the mechanical sweepers to gain access.
I would be more than happy to help arrange this for the areas you refer to.
We did remove over 400 tones of leaves during the autumn.

Councillor Ann Garner

Q Is the Leader aware that gulley cleaning that is not on the traditional yearly cycle is causing roads to flood on a more regular basis, causing accidents and damage to property? What does he intend to do about the problem?

A All the Highways are on the annual cycle for gulley cleaning and the regime in place aims to visit and clean each gulley once a year as a minimum. The Highway Maintenance Code of Practice also indicates that lists should be built up from experience where this frequency is deemed inadequate and that additional cleans should be undertaken. The main problem encountered on this cyclical process is parked cars and there are several areas of the borough where this causes severe difficulties. In relation to flooding it is not necessarily due to a blocked gulley. Quite often it is a capacity issue in the drainage system under the highway most of which is not owned by the Council but the local Sewerage company, in our case United Utilities.

Councillor Steve Wright
Q Could the leader tell us the approximate time for street lights to be repaired after being reported as not working? Is there any preference given to lights on A roads / streets or lights in our local parks? Does the Council’s performance meet government targets for the speed of street light repairs and how do we compare to other Authorities?

A There are two different standards for repair of street lights dependant upon whether it is within the Councils control or it is an electricity supply fault. The former was in the past a national indicator but is now a local one. The average time for us to repair a fault that is our responsibility last year was 4.82 Days. Currently this year we are averaging 4.23 Days. The target in the Street Lighting Code of Practice is 5 days for most types of routine faults. The electricity is supplied by United Utilities who have a target of 15 working days to repair a supply fault. However this is not statutory and whilst doing their best, street lighting is a lower priority than house and business faults that need repairing. Last year they averaged 15.86 days to fix an outage and this year they are averaging 10.03 Days.

Councillor Andrew Garner
Q Can the Leader advice specifically how many personnel from which departments were involved in clearing snow from which areas on which days. It is the view of many of my constituents that it would appear from the results in Prestwich that the response to specific issues as they arose, for instance around the Longfield Centre, was inadequate.

A During the severe weather, many employees from across Highways, Parks and Cleansing were unable to carry out their normal duties.
They were switched to snow clearance duties on footways, shopping precincts, footways adjacent to health and emergency service facilities, cemeteries and the like, in accordance with areas identified in the Winter Maintenance Plan.
Unfortunately it is not possible to provide the detail request by Councillor Garner. More attention was applied to allocating the teams to key areas and managing service requests than to logging numbers, locations and times.
Specifically in relation to the Longfield Centre, I do know snow clearance was undertaken although I accept this may not have been as immediate as some would like. I think it is important to consider the difficulties the conditions caused employees themselves being able to access areas as well as the many competing demands they faced at the time.

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