Agenda item

10.10

The Head of Law and Culture, Peter Clark, will give a verbal update on key issues affecting Registration, Coroner’s Services and Cultural Services.

The Chief Fire Officer, Dave Etheridge will update the committee on key issues for the Fire & Rescue Service and Community Safety. An update on the authority’s use of activities falling within the scope of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is included with the papers for the committee’s consideration and any questions on this paper will be taken during the Director’s update.

Jacquie Bugeja gave a verbal update on behalf of the Head of Law and Culture, Peter Clark. The update included, amongst other items:

• Oxfordshire are members of the national working group for implementing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, but it is not due to come into effect for some time. A timetable for implementation is still being developed.

• Refurbishment of the Coroner’s Court is almost complete. It has included the introduction of a range of technological improvements. The cost of this has been partly covered by the Ministry of Justice.

• Library Service:
• Now implementing ‘Universal Offers’. This is a national approach to library services, defining what public libraries should provide, and what users should expect.
• The National Library day on 9^th February was a great success.
• The self-service project is on track for delivery to all libraries. It is currently installed in 35 libraries and feedback is positive.
• James Hazelwood has now been appointed as the Community Library Co-ordinator.
• CIPFA statistics show that Oxford Central library is the second busiest in the country for issues.

• A review of the items and collections within the museum service is underway. A new collection has gone on show and is receiving positive feedback.

Jacquie answered a range of questions and confirmed that there were many complexities with the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act but Oxfordshire would follow the national guidelines, once they had been established, to ensure the integrity of the service. She also explained that the project to introduce voluntary staff into libraries was progressing well and getting support from local communities.

Dave Etheridge, Chief Fire Officer, gave a verbal update from Community Safety. The update included:

• A summary of the role of Oxfordshire Trading Standard in supporting the Food Standards Agency with the investigation into horsemeat in some beef products. More testing would be carried out over the next few weeks but we have good local controls over labelling of meat products. There were a range of questions to which Councillor Heathcoat stated that all Oxfordshire County Council contractors will have been checked within the terms of their contract and that the Council has tight controls over those contracts. She also stated that at this stage it was not possible to categorically say that food or food sources used by Carillion were being tested or what any results may be, as the Food Standards Agency was still conducting its investigations. In response to further questioning Dave Etheridge also clarified that recent reductions to trading standards staff had been at the management level. This had not effected front line staff or their ability to respond to the situation.

• There have been 5 authorisations for the use of RIPA in the last quarter. Three of these were in relation to doorstop crime and one of these resulted in evidence being passed to another agency, a conviction and custodial sentence.

• A very wet winter and high river levels meant that there has been some flooding in the last quarter, but this has been dealt with effectively. It is possible there may be more flooding to respond to in the next quarter. A full report on flood responses will be discussed at the next meeting of this committee.

• The Fire Control project is going well. The tenders for software and hardware will be submitted in the next month.

• Dave Etheridge extended his thanks to members for their support of the OFRS Risk Management Plans.

• The road safety strategy is incorporated into the Integrated risk Management Plan and road safety information will now be included in the Fire Service Annual Performance Report.

Several questions were asked and confirmation was given that the changes to RIPA which require prior authorisation by a judge should not harm the confidentiality of each case. Dave Etheridge also undertook to explore the any opportunities for the Council to have a greater input into commenting on planning applications with regard to flooding issues.