Meeting documents

County Council
Tuesday, 1 April 2003

CC010403

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To All Members of the County Council

Notice of the Annual Meeting of the Council

Tuesday 1 April 2003 at 10.30 am

County Hall, Oxford


Chris Impey
Assistant Chief Executive

21 March 2003

Contact officer: Ann Lowe (Tel: 01865 815384; E-mail)

AGENDA

  1. Election to Chair for the 2003/04 Council Year

  2. Election to Vice-Chair for the 2003/04 Council Year

  3. Minutes

    4. To approve the Minutes of the meeting held on 11 February 2003 (CC3) and to receive for information any matters arising therefrom.

  4. Apologies for Absence

  5. Declarations of Interest

  6. Official Communications

  7. Petitions and Public Address

  8. Questions with Notice from Members of the Public

  9. Youth Justice Plan

The annual Youth Justice Plan is one of the strategic plans which are subject to approval by full Council following consideration by both the Executive and relevant Scrutiny Committee in accordance with the Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rules set out in the Constitution.

The Social & Health Care Scrutiny Committee considered a report on the Youth Justice Plan produced by the Head of the Youth Offending Team on 11 December 2002, when it was agreed to advise the Executive of the Scrutiny Committee’s appreciation of the hard work undertaken by the Youth Offending Team which had resulted in recognition of the Team as a leading body by both the Home Office and the Youth Justice Board. The Scrutiny Committee also agreed arrangements for processing of the draft Plan. The Plan is required to be submitted to the Youth Justice Board by 31 March 2003. However, the Youth Justice Board has advised that the Plan may be submitted to them subject to subsequent endorsement by the Council. This has enabled a draft to be considered by the Social & Health Care Scrutiny Committee and by the Executive in March, and submitted to Council for formal approval at this meeting.

A copy of the draft Plan was circulated to all members of the Council with the papers for the Executive meeting on 18 March 2003 and members are asked to bring their copies to the Council meeting. Copies have been placed in the Members’ Resource Centre and are available for public inspection. Further copies can be obtained from the Democratic Services Unit (Ann Lowe – 01865 815384).

The draft Plan was considered by the Social & Health Care Scrutiny Committee on 13 March, when the Committee advised the Executive of:-

    1. its concern regarding the absence of support from the health economy;

    2. the constraints associated with Performance Measure 13: which concerns the poor level of local Child & Mental Health Services (CAMHS) provision that results in waits of up to six months for people diagnosed with non-acute mental health needs;

    3. the need to stress the importance of finding preventative measures to address youth offending and, in this context, to include addressing the County Council’s under-funding of its Youth Service.

The Executive on 18 March endorsed the comments of the Scrutiny Committee (subject to changing "poor" in paragraph (b) to "low") and RESOLVED to RECOMMEND the Council to approve the Youth Justice Plan for submission to the Youth Justice Board.

  1. Motion from Councillor Brian Hodgson – Fair Wages Clause

Report by the Monitoring Officer (CC10).

On 14 January 2003 the Council deferred consideration of the following motion from Councillor Hodgson (seconded by Councillor McIntosh-Stedman) to this meeting so as to obtain advice from the Monitoring Officer:

"This Council resolves to amend its Constitution in order to provide for a fair wages clause in its contracting procedures as part of its plans to improve public services. The intention is that this will give staff who work for private contractors and voluntary organisations pay, sick pay, holiday entitlements and pensions that are at least as good as those employed directly by the Council and doing equivalent work.

The advantages of a fair wages clause include the following:

        1. Prevents a two-tier workforce;

        2. Promotes contracting based on quality, not on cuts in service and staff numbers;

        3. Tackles low pay and local poverty;

        4. Promotes ethical employment practices."

The Council is RECOMMENDED to determine Councillor Hodgson’s motion in the light of the advice in this report.
  1. Report of the Executive
    (CC11)

  2. Questions with Notice from Members of the Council

    3. Motions with Notice from Members of the Council

  3. Motion from Councillor Patrick Greene

This Council:-

    1. welcomes the present joint co-operation between the County and City Councils in finding ways of ridding our pavements and roads in the City of the appalling spectacle of flattened and sticky chewing gum, bearing in mind the bid for Oxford to become the European Capital of Culture in 2008; and

    2. urges the Executive to:

      1. extend this partnership to other Oxfordshire District, Town, and Parish Councils so as to cover the rest of the County; and

      2. pursue the identification and adoption of effective solutions as a matter of priority that could be recommended to other interested parties.

  1. Motion from Councillor Brian Hodgson

    2. The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, has stated that the issue of returning Business Rates to local council control will be looked at as part of the "Balance of Funding Review". This Council urges the Government to give back control of the Business Rate to this and other county councils as soon as possible. We also ask all our county MP’s to help us in this campaign.

  2. Motion from Councillor Brian Hodgson

    3. This Council resolves to recommend the Countryside Agency and the Ridgeway Management Group to ban all motor vehicles from using the Ridgeway (except for essential, licensed use), in order to help protect the surface of this ancient route.

  3. Motion from Councillor Roy Mold

This Council welcomes the Government’s initiative in providing older people’s concessionary bus passes for men at 60 and over, as from today, instead of 65 and over as previously, and calls on the Executive to:

    1. join with the District Councils in giving the new service the widest publicity possible; and

    2. review the levels of provision and costs arising from the various concessionary schemes relating to all forms of public transport throughout the County.
  1. Motion from Councillor Ken Harper

This Council congratulates the Deputy Prime Minister on his "sustainable communities" initiative including the plans for building 370,000 new homes in the Milton Keynes town-region, which will relieve housing pressure in the north of this County.

Inspired by his energy and leadership, we resolve to:-

    1. amend the Structure Plan to grow Oxford City with new housing development on the city fringes;

    2. start the planning process for a new town;

    3. assist District Councils to achieve 50% of all new development to be "affordable" homes;

    4. use County Council land to build homes for rent to key workers.

We further note that at a time when 50,000 council homes annually are sold off and only 30,000 new homes for rent are built, it is irresponsible of Cherwell District Council to sell or transfer ownership of their remaining housing stock in Banbury.

  1. Motion from Councillor Biddy Hudson

    2. In view of our commitment to affordable and key worker housing, this Council advises the Executive that it should always consider local needs when disposing of surplus property.

  2. Appointments

    3. The Council is asked:

    1. to elect the Leader of the Council;

    2. to elect the Deputy Leader of the Council;

    3. to agree the number of members to be appointed to the Executive and to appoint those members. The current membership of the Executive is attached (CC19(c)) for ease of reference;

    4. to appoint scrutiny and other committees, to review the political balance on those committees and to appoint members to them.

The current structure and membership of scrutiny and other Council committees is attached (CC19(d)(i)) for ease of reference, together with a schedule showing the allocation of seats on committees as at 31 March 2003 compared with the political group entitlements under the proportionality rules (CC19(d)(ii)) (download as .doc file).. Since the Council’s last review of the allocation of seats on committees in April 2002, the Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee has been created. This has had an effect on the overall proportionality entitlements (see schedule at CC19(d)(ii)) resulting in the Labour Group being entitled to 1 additional seat at the expense of either the Conservative Group or the Liberal Democrat Group.

The Council is asked to review the political balance on committees (as required by the Local Government & Housing Act 1989) and to then appoint Councillors to those committees on the basis of nominations from the political groups and to re-appoint co-opted members as follows:-

Learning & Culture Scrutiny Committee

Representing the Church of England: Revd K. Reeves

Representing the Roman Catholic Church: Mr C. Bevan

Parent Governor Representative for Secondary and Special: Mr S. Terry

Parent Governor Representative for Primary: Dr A. Reiss

Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee

District Council Representatives:

Councillor Hilary Hibbert-Biles (West Oxfordshire District Council)

Councillor James Macnamara (Cherwell District Council)

Nomination awaited (Oxford City Council)

Nomination awaited (Vale of White Horse District Council)

Nomination awaited (South Oxfordshire District Council)

Representing Oxfordshire Community Health Council: Lynne Hutchings

Others: 2 Vacancies

Best Value Committee

Representatives of the business community:

Mr J. Appleton

Mr G. Jones

Mr M. Wilkinson

Pension Fund Committee

District Council Representatives:

Councillor Jean Fooks (Oxford City Council)

Councillor Mary Neale (West Oxfordshire District Council)

Standards Committee

Independent Members:

Mr R.A. Cowdrey

Mr R. Elmore

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