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Cabinet – 16 January 2007

ADDENDA

Item 4. Petitions and Public Address

Item	Speaker
The Future of Dunmore Infant and Junior Schools	Mr Tim Smith (School Governor)
	Mr Jonathan Hopkins (concerned parent)
	Councillor Alan Bryden (as a local member)
	Councillor Lesley Legge (as a local member)
7. Service and Resource Planning 2007/08 – 2011/12	Councillor Larry Sanders
9. Corporate Asset Management Plan and Capital Strategy	Councillor Jean Fooks (as a local member)
12. South East Plan - Didcot Housing Distribution	Councillor Terry Joslin (as a local member)
17. Car Boot Sales Scrutiny Review	Councillor Colin Lamont (Review Panel Lead Member)

7. Service and Resource Planning 2007/08 – 2011/12

Scrutiny Committee	Comments
Corporate Governance – 11 January	The Scrutiny Committee noted that the report by the Cabinet Member for Finance supplemented the report (CA7) by the Chief Executive and Head of Finance & Procurement. The Scrutiny Committee commented to the Cabinet as follows: (a) that it was pleased to note the assurance by the Cabinet Member for Finance that the majority of scrutiny committee comments (attached at Annex 1) (download as .doc file) had been accommodated in the proposals; (b) that the Committee noted that £0.5m had been included in the current year for remedial road maintenance work arising from the extreme weather and that the response to an application to Government for assistance was awaited; (c) with the consent of the Cabinet Member for Finance, in his supplementary report, Annex 2, Social & Community Services, ‘Demography’, deleted the words ‘(part funded)’; and (d) in the Cabinet Member for Finance’s supplementary report, Annex 2, Environment & Economy, ‘Carbon trust’ the word ‘SALIX’ required clarification; (e) in the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee’s advice to the Cabinet, paragraph (f), noted that the risk was subject to the outcome of Government decisions on funding.
Social & Community Services	to urge the Cabinet to revisit the proposal to decommission the voluntary sector information and advice services at its 19 December meeting on the grounds that they provide an extremely valuable and cost-effective service. The Committee further recognized that the benefits derived from such a service went across Directorates and across Councils; and (In the knowledge that there was approximately £1.1m left to allocate across Directorates), to ask the Cabinet to put at least an extra £1m into older people’s services due to the pressures in this area and the high risk and high impact proposals, with particular regard to: OP2 OP3 OP4* *Members considered OP4 to be both high risk and high impact and not medium risk as indicated in the report.
Environment & Economy	(i) that the Committee supported the proposals for an invest-to-save fund for measures to reduce the carbon impacts of property, and would like to see a similar capital fund for non-property; and (ii) to urge the Cabinet to lobby the Government further to relax the Regulations on the lighting of street signs.
Children’s Services	to advise the Cabinet that the Committee believed that Post 16 SEN Special School places were very important and that whilst regretting the lack of Government support for the local Learning & Skills Council, the Committee strongly urged the Cabinet to allocate the necessary funding for this service; to advise the Cabinet of the Committee’s concerns regarding the proposed cuts to post 16 Transport, in the context that: Oxfordshire was an exceptionally rural County and this cut would have a potentially severe effect on Post 16 Education of the Approximately 50% of the County’s population living in rural areas; Government chooses not to fund the transport costs of its 14-19 Education Agenda; (ii) and (iii) above would be a compounding problem in future years, especially for rural areas; (c) to ask the Cabinet to lobby Government to guarantee the continuation £1.939m funding and in the case that it be replaced by RSG funding, to ask for a reassurance that it would take Oxfordshire above a floor Authority, as any withdrawal of funding would lead to a reduction is service that would effect the most vulnerable in society.
Community Safety	To urge the Cabinet to fund Emergency Planning and Safer Communities from the remaining sum of money to be allocated across Directorates given that these areas are of vital importance; and To advise the Cabinet that it wished the co-responder scheme to be centrally funded in recognition of the fact that it provides a life saving service to the residents of Oxfordshire, as evidenced by the figures given to the Committee by the Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer regarding the number of people assisted and the societal savings per annum (approx £7m).

8. Medium Term Corporate Plan

The Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee commented to the Leader of the Council on the content of the draft Medium Term Corporate Plan, and a copy of the subsequent changes to the Plan are attached at Annex 3 to this Addenda (download as .doc file).

There were no further comments to the Cabinet.

9. Draft Corporate Asset Management Plan and Capital Strategy

The Scrutiny Committee commented to the Cabinet as follows:

(a) in the Property Portfolio (Annex 1 to the Plan) noted under ‘Gipsy Site’ that:

• the Asset Value of £118,000 appeared to be low (the Team Leader, Property Services undertook to check the figure); and
• there was no reference to the management of Gipsy Sites.

10. Treasury Management Strategy Statement and Annual Investment Strategy for 2007/08 – 2009/10

The Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee welcomed and supported the more innovative and pro-active approach being proposed in the Strategy Statement and Investment Strategy.

13. New Governance and Financial Arrangements for the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership

Please note that there is an error in paragraph 12 of this paper. Where it says 12% it should read 10%. However, this makes no difference to what the paper proposes.

16. Oxfordshie Fire Cover Review

On 4 December the Community Safety Scrutiny Committee AGREED to:

1. thank Cllr Farrow for leading the project;
2. thank Mr Parry, Mr Eckersley and his team for all their hard work; and
3. endorse the recommendations of the review to Cabinet.

17. Car Boot Sales Scrutiny Review

On 4 December the Community Safety Scrutiny Committee AGREED to submit the report to Cabinet subject to including the results from the Citizen’s Panel survey.

19. Forward Plan

Please note the following additional items:

Change Management and Schools Improvement Full Cabinet	Revised Redundancy Procedure for Schools Following further consultations with the teachers' unions and Unison a proposal to revise the Redundancy Procedure for school based staff will be recommended.	20 February 2007	Chief Executive and Director for Children, Young People & Families Sue Corrigan, County HR Manager, (01865 810280); Rick Harmes, Head of Strategy & Performance, (01865 810626)
Schools Improvement Full Cabinet	The Future of Dunmore Infant and Junior Schools To receive a further report on the Dunmore Consultation (if required) prior to moving to the formal consultation stage.	20 February 2007	Director for Children, Young People & Families Irene Kirkman, Assistant Head of Service (01865 815141)
Sustainable Development Full Cabinet	Upper Thames Major Resource Development (Steventon Reservoir) To receive responses to stage 2 of Thames Water's consultation	20 February 2007	Head of Sustainable Development Chris Cousins, Head of Sustainable Development (01865 815459)
Transport Cabinet Member	Oxford, George Street/Cornmarket Street, Oxford – Review of Traffic Signals To review operation of the traffic signal junction over the first three years of operation.	15 February 2007	Head of Transport John Cramer, Principal Engineer (01865 815963)
Transport Cabinet Member	Didcot, High Street To consider results of consultation on Oxfordshire County Council (High Street, Didcot) (Bus Lane, One-Way and Prohibition of Waiting) Order 2006 for: (1) provision of a dedicated bus lane in part of the High Street; (2) prohibition of vehicles waiting at any time in the whole length of the High Street, including the bus lane and 17m into the eastern side of Central Drive	15 February 2007	Head of Transport Malcolm Bowler, Senior Traffic Technician, (01235 466119)
Transport Cabinet Member	Abingdon To consider results of consultation on Oxfordshire County Council (Abingdon) (One-Way Traffic and Prohibition of Waiting) (Amendment) Order 200* prohibiting vehicles from waiting on part of Coopers Lane, Abingdon	15 February 2007	Head of Transport Lee Turner, Principal Traffic Technician (01235 466120)

Please note the following amendments:

Transport Full Cabinet	Stopping up: Roman Way and Garsington Road, Oxford (2006/122) To consider a formal request that the Council make application to the Magistrates Court under section 116 of the Highways Act 1980 for stopping up of Roman Way and Bridleway 75, Oxford, together with a thin strip of footway in Garsington Road	19 December 2006	Deferred to 20 February 2007
Transport Cabinet Member	Dawson Street, Oxford – Experimental Entry Prohibition (2006/143) To consider whether to make permanent the Experimental Traffic Order to block access between Cowley Road and Dawson Street	15 February 2007	Defer to 29 March 2007
Transport Cabinet Member	Oxford City: Disabled Persons’ Parking Places (Phase 1) (2006/094) To consider the results of consultation on proposals for new disabled persons’ parking places	15 February 2007	Defer to 26 April 2007
Community Safety Cabinet Member	Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service Diversity Strategy (2006/186)	5 February 2007	Moved to 20 April 2007

The following item has been deleted from the Forward Plan:

Transport Cabinet Member

Oxford, Headington: Controlled Parking Zone (2006/090) Variation of the Headington West CPZ to remove unrestricted parking in sections of Cheney Lane and Warneford Lane

15 February 2007

Item deleted



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