Agenda item

Any county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am two working days before the meeting, ask a question on any matter in respect of the Cabinet’s delegated powers.

The number of questions which may be asked by any councillor at any one meeting is limited to two (or one question with notice and a supplementary question at the meeting) and the time for questions will be limited to 30 minutes in total. As with questions at Council, any questions which remain unanswered at the end of this item will receive a written response.

Questions submitted prior to the agenda being despatched are shown below and will be the subject of a response from the appropriate Cabinet Member or such other councillor or officer as is determined by the Cabinet Member, and shall not be the subject of further debate at this meeting. Questions received after the despatch of the agenda, but before the deadline, will be shown on the Schedule of Addenda circulated at the meeting, together with any written response which is available at that time.

Councillor Janet Godden  had given notice of the following question to Councillor Rose:

“What has been the total cost of the work to realign the junction at the  A34 slip road / West Way / North Hinksey Lane? If section 106 monies have been used, what alternative eligible local schemes could these have been used for?”

Councillor Rose replied:

            Question

·        What has been the total cost of the work to realign the junction at the  A34 slip road / West Way / North Hinksey Lane?

Answer

The capital budget for the scheme is £248,232. The scheme has just finished on site and so the final (outturn) cost of the scheme is not yet available as some bills have yet to be received.

           Question

·        If section 106 monies have been used, what alternative eligible local schemes could these have been used for?'

Answer

The scheme is being fully funded from S106 developer contributions.

The proposed funding of the scheme this year will come from a variety of S106 funds comprising around (because the actual cost is not yet available one can’t be specific)

o       £198k from development sites within North Hinksey, Botley and along Cumnor Hill and

o       £50k from development sites within Oxford.

Because the various S106 agreements (the funds from which are to be put towards the cost of the West Way improvements) are not tying contributions towards specific named/identified schemes it is not practical to identify a specific list of alternative schemes to which the contributions could be used.

But any such alternative eligible schemes would need to fall within the scope of:

o       Transport infrastructure between Botley and Oxford City Centre and/or

o       Measures/aims within the Oxford Transport Strategy and/or

o       Traffic management/highway safety measures in the vicinity of such as North Hinksey Lane

Councillor Zoe Patrick had given notice of the following question to Councillor Carter:

“Why did the Council contract out the school admissions work to Capita who subsequently failed to provide a good service to the residents of Oxfordshire who did not receive responses to their emails?  This was made worse by subsequent telephone calls to the council not being answered.  Is there not sufficient capacity in the service?”

Councillor Carter replied:

"I  should start by clarifying the precise nature of our connection with Capita in relation to the admissions issues you raise. No admissions functions have been contracted out but the directorate does use Capita software for the administration of school admissions (which assists in the process of  logging , processing, allocating and, if  it works as it should, advising parents of places allocated).

The regrettable failure of the Capita system earlier this year  to send out automatic confirmation e-mails  to about  6,500 families compounded the challenge that was already being  faced as  result of a  significantly increased number of children in the cohort (an increase of over 500 from last year) in parallel with  a much smaller number of surplus places. There  has been a steady  increase in the number of applications to be processed over the last 5 years (rising from 12117 in 2007 to 14131 in 20110)  but  during this time the size of the admissions team has remained the same

The Directorate recognises  that the service provided for customers this year  has not been good enough and is taking steps to remedy  the position. Two additional posts will be recruited to the  Customer Services Centre (CSC) to provide a better ‘front line’ response service to parents  when the CSC will be able to assist with aspects  of the Admissions function later this year."

Supplementary: Councillor Patrick referred to problems with highways enquiries and Councillor Carter undertook  to investigate, involving Councillor Rose and to respond to Councillor Patrick.

Councillor Jenny Hannaby had given notice of the following question to Councillor Fatemian:

“At the Council meeting on 10 July during consideration of the Cabinet report to Council a question was put to Deputy Leader Councillor Rodney Rose by Councillor Alan Armitage regarding the Corporate Plan Performance and Risk Management report for the Fourth Quarter 2011/12

 The report indicates some areas are not meeting their targets. Councillor Armitage asked if Councillor Rose was confident that all targets will be met.

 Councillor Rose answered Yes without further comment.

My question to Cabinet Member for Adult Services and Public  Health Councillor Arash Fatemian is can he confirm he agrees with this statement, and if so, is  he confident that the delayed transfer of care target will also be met.”

Councillor Fatemian replied:

Delayed Transfers of Care have steadily reduced between April and June 2012. The figures for the end of June were 148, compared to 182 at the end of March. As reported at the Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee targets have been agreed across the local health and social care system to reduce delays to

·        146 delays at July 1^st

·        103 by September 30^th

·        72 by January 10^th, 2013

·        Monthly average of 72 by March 31^st 2013

These targets should ensure Oxfordshire is no longer in the bottom quartile of authorities.

We are currently 1% off hitting the first target which is well within the fluctuations that happen from week to week. This means that it was quite reasonable for Councillor Rose to respond as he did. 

Supplementary: Councillor Hannaby sought assurances that patients released would receive care at home or care in a nursing home as appropriate. Councillor Fatemian gave an assurance that no-one would be fast tracked unless appropriate care packages were in place.