- From Members of the Public
- From Councillors
Minutes:
Lord Mayor: The next item is questions from Councillors. It has been agreed that the first four questions will receive a combined response. Councillor Singh your questions please.
Councillor Singh: Thank you my Lord Mayor. The questions are “Would the Deputy Mayor inform the Council of the number of junior doctors that were absent from the Leicester hospitals, this being the Leicester General, the LRI and the Leicester Glenfield during the last official BMA strike? And I will just paraphrase question 2 which is to elicit factual information. ”How many planned operations were cancelled?” Question 3 “How many out-patient appointments were cancelled?” Question 4 “How long will it take for the backlog of the appointments and operations to be cleared?” Thank you.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Councillor Singh. Deputy City Mayor.
Deputy City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor. The first day of the last or the most recent BMA junior doctor’s strike, the 9th March, saw 168 junior doctors take industrial action at UHL across the UHL sites and on the second day 189. At LPT that figure was 33 and 36 respectively. To move on to the second question, the first part of my answer relates to UHL – across the two days 750 out-patient appointments were cancelled, 9 in-patient operations were cancelled, and 38 day case procedures were cancelled and 14 clinics across LPT’s areas of work were also cancelled. UHL had obviously planned in advance for the industrial action and told me there was no significant backlog to clear and that patients had all been given new slots for appointments and scheduled procedures, and likewise at LPT they had a target to return to business as usual within two days of the industrial action, and I believe that to have been the case. I want to be absolutely clear my Lord Mayor in merely reporting those figures I have every sympathy with the action of the junior doctors who were striking. That is not a decision they arrived at lightly and I think it is symptomatic of the crisis we see across the NHS at the moment.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Deputy City Mayor. Councillor Singh have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Singh: Yes my Lord Mayor I do. In actual fact I think the sentiments the Deputy Mayor has expressed are in that line. Will the Deputy Mayor agree and make appropriate representations in his capacity that the government should acknowledge the present situation that it needs an early resolution to the mutual satisfaction of both the medical profession and the associated staff who are crucial to the NHS, and most importantly to recognise the need to safeguard services vital to the health and well-being of the people of this City.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Councillor Singh. Deputy City Mayor.
Deputy City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I will certainly make such representations, I am on record as saying that negotiations need to recommence with the NHS employers and the government coming to the table in good faith and recognising the extreme pressure that doctors in secondary care and indeed primary care are facing at the moment. The current government told us the NHS would be safe in their hands. People were witnessing doctors becoming exhausted and ever more stretched , witnessing picket lines at our hospitals, witnessing patients struggling to get GP appointments week in week out across the City and indeed in other parts of the country will arrive at their own judgment whether that was a promise that David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have kept.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Deputy City Mayor. Councillor Chaplin.
Councillor Chaplin: Thank you my Lord Mayor. Could I have an update on the implementation plans for the child audiology service?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Russell.
Councillor Russell: Thank you my Lord Mayor. Children’s paediatric audiology has moved from Education to Health due to new guidelines that were brought in around the best support for children’s audiology. The clinic here at New Parks House ceased in July 2015 and all paediatric audiology moved to Health in a variety of venues across the City including the Leicester Royal Infirmary. Those venues now do all our hearing assessments, hearing aid fitting and reviews and all City children are seen at the Leicester Royal Infirmary. Thank you my Lord Mayor.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Councillor Russell. Councillor Chaplin have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Chaplin: No Lord Mayor.
Lord Mayor: Thank you. Councillor Chaplin your second question please?
Councillor Chaplin: Thank you my Lord Mayor. What measures are being taken in the City to help combat the recent increase in cases of childhood scarlet fever?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Osman.
Councillor Osman: Thank you my Lord Mayor. There has been a national increase in terms of scarlet fever over the last three years and this has widely been reported locally and nationally. In the last 12 weeks 12 cases have been announced to Public Health England and a total of 68 cases across the whole of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. We are now at the peak time of the year in terms of the illness in this case. 80% of the cases are children under the age of 10 and there is no vaccination for this. Although this used to be a serious condition it can now easily be managed with antibiotics and Public Health England do provide advice to all GPs as well as issuing guidance to schools of how to manage any cases of any outbreaks, and Public Health England’s advice is that parents and carers are to keep children away from nursery or school for at least 24 hours after starting the treatment with antibiotics and simple measures such as effective handwashing can also reduce the illness from spreading.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Councillor Osman. Councillor Chaplin have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Chaplin: Thank you my Lord Mayor. More specifically Councillor Osman would he be able to say what the Council is doing in terms of making sure those messages and communications are getting out particularly to parents with young children.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Osman.
Councillor Osman: Yes, with the help of Public Health England we do advise schools in terms of the guidance measures that have been taken and that has been provided to all schools and nurseries as well.
Lord Mayor: Thank you. Councillor Grant.
Councillor Grant: How important does the City Mayor consider it that Elected Members, when carrying out their statutory duties, are given accurate expert opinion by officers that support them?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I hope Councillor Grant would not be surprised to know that I think it is vitally important that Members get the best quality advice and if there are occasions when Councillor Grant feels that the officers have fallen below the standard we would expect of them I would be very interested to hear of them and will do my best to ensure with the Chief Operating Officer that they are dealt with appropriately.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Grant, have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Grant: Yes Lord Mayor. I will be raising a specific issue but I would be interested in what his opinion would be of a senior officer giving untrue information to a statutory committee.
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor if Councillor Grant is aware of a senior officer of this Council being untruthful in their advice I would expect him to have immediately brought it to the attention of the Monitoring Officer and to the Chief Operating Officer and to me. As yet he has not done so.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Grant your second question please?
Councillor Grant: Yes I will do so after the meeting Lord Mayor.
Experience of the process to consider the planning application to develop the Gables Hotel site on London Road highlights failings in the planning and highways functions, how these functions interact, how input from highways is reported both in written reports and to Committee members. What can be done to ensure that information that is not relevant to the issue being discussed are either not represented at all, or worse are then put forward as an expert opinion in a way that may undermine the Council’s case at a later date?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor as Councillor Grant knows I don’t sit on the Planning Committee and indeed it would not be appropriate for a City Mayor to do so. There is a clear separation of responsibilities in this matter. I am not aware of the circumstances to which he refers. Again he has not brought them to my attention as far as I know although it maybe he has done so without my knowledge. But as far as I know he has not brought it to the attention of the appropriate officers either. Were he to bring them to my attention, although as I say I cannot get involved in the details of the planning case itself, I can as I have said earlier on seek to ensure, as I would wish to ensure, that the quality of advice is consistent and of the highest quality.
Lord Mayor: Thank you. Councillor Grant have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Grant: Yes Lord Mayor. To give some context on this particular issue many, many objections raised by myself and residents around concerns about highways. The initial written report put out by officers did not include even the fact that they consulted with our own highways people. In trying to raise that with the senior planning officer it was implied to me that that was improper for me to even do so. So it is a very difficult situation it seems for members to be working on. But in dealing with this particular issue it came out that highways officers don’t do any work to test the reports of developers that are put in on highways issues and this was stated to Members and it was even quoted that why would they question their professional colleagues who are working for the developers. And specifically they then put in at a later date information which actually was totally irrelevant, actually misleading to officers. So this particular case has now gone to appeal and I would ask the City Mayor if he could ensure that officers work so that any information that is put forward to the Inspector for the appeal is actually relevant and not misleading and this is particularly in relation to cycling patterns of students coming from the University of Leicester residences in Oadby travelling past this location and the fact that officers have put forward data which is actually massively under-representing that traffic flow.
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor as I have said I am not aware of the circumstances of this particular issue. I would, however, say and Councillor Grant has heard me say this on previous occasions that I do feel that Ward Councillors in the sort of circumstances talked about have a proper job to do on behalf of their constituents, and while that may sometimes challenge the professional judgment of officers it is quite right they should do so. I mean that is part of having an elected representative representing their constituents and representing their concerns. If Councillor Grant feels that his concerns and the one expressed on behalf of his constituents have not been properly listened to on this occasion I would be very interested to hear about that and would obviously want to make sure that officers understood it. I would say though that certainly my experience of the way in which our Council officers respond to what is said by and on behalf of applicants in planning cases is, how can I put it, generally appropriately sceptical and that is part of their job. You know they don’t just accept what an applicant says to them. But I would be very pleased to discuss with Councillor Grant the specific concerns about this one and to make sure as I said earlier that the highest standards of professional integrity and impartial advice have been upheld.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Grant your third question please.
Councillor Grant: Has anyone informed the planning department of the substantial efforts to brand Leicester as an historic City?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor I would be interested to see what the supplementary is on this one. But I have to say that it is certainly my experience that officers of the Council, particularly the planning officers and those involved in the development of the City, don’t need much reminding, certainly not nowadays of the importance of Leicester’s 2,000 years of recorded history, and the importance of the historic built environment that we have inherited from those 2,000 years. So I frankly just don’t think that they need very much encouragement to be aware of the importance of this historic City and the need for them to be mindful of that in the way in which they perform their duties.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Grant do you have a supplementary question?
Councillor Grant: I do Lord Mayor. Yes this relates to an application which is within half a mile I suspect of the sign on London Road which announces Leicester to those coming in from the south of the City as an historic City. I welcome what the City Mayor said in relation to my last question that he believes that Councillors have a job to do on behalf of their constituents, and I believe that actually members from all parties those representing their constituents and those on the Committee are trying to do a job but I must admit I don’t believe that actually the officers are acting very well in actually challenging the developers. One of the reasons is they are not having to do it in the Committee. We found out after the case of an application on Elms Road which has impact on one of the City’s few grade II listed buildings, that the applicant had been advised by officers that the concrete roofing tiles were acceptable and that actually it was the officers who were arguing in the meeting that the concrete roofing tiles had to stay in place and if the officers had asked in advance for exactly the tiles that members of the Committee wanted to be put on as a condition, then that would have been done. So I would actually ask him to ask those people responsible for the Planning Department to check and to urge them that in cases where we are talking about protecting our historic City they do their job properly and actually don’t encourage developers to do things which actually you know aren’t required and which are detrimental to the area.
Lord Mayor: Thank you. City Mayor.
City Mayor: Thank you Lord Mayor. Yet again obviously I am not familiar with the particular case. I do know that the numbers of applications that are dealt with by officers relating to conservation areas, listed buildings, archaeology and so on in the last 12 months alone is some 500 and to the best of my knowledge the overwhelming majority of those are dealt with in a way that is very much to the satisfaction of members of the Planning Committee and indeed for the Ward Councillors where those 500 buildings are located. I would remind Councillor Grant again if there are particular concerns about this one to contact me, to contact the officers concerned, I would be pleased to take up those concerns as I would do for any member of the Council and to see whether there are lessons to be learnt from the way in which it was handled. But as I say I am not aware of the circumstances so I can’t really comment any further.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Grant your fourth question please.
Councillor Grant: Thank you Lord Mayor. Given the overwhelming response of the public against the proposals for permit parking in Clarendon Park, can the City Mayor tell Council how the authority ended up working on a scheme with such limited public support and tell us how much money was spent developing the scheme and carrying out the consultation?
Lord Mayor: Thank you. City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor in response to an earlier question from Councillor Grant I spoke about the importance of Elected Members representing the people of their area. I would add to that that it is important that they carry out and implement in so far as they are able their manifesto commitments, and this was very clearly something that the electorate in that area had put to them by the Councillors that they elected during the election period, and I think it was only appropriate and right and the duty of the Councillors to subsequently press the Council to explore the issue in the way that they had undertaken to do, and to put it to those residents whether as so many people in the area were asking for the majority actually wanted a residents parking system. Now as it happens the result of that was that the majority said they did not want it which is unlike the response we have had in other parts of the City where I think it was in Westcotes most recently residents voted 75% in favour to keep the scheme in their area. So I think it was a reasonable expectation that the Ward Councillors would carry out their election pledges, that we would subsequently ask residents and that we would respond to what the residents said to us. Now Councillor Grant specifically asked for the cost of the exercise. I will read the note I’ve got. The vast majority of the work was done using existing resources and staff which involved no extra expense, other than the obvious costs associated with that, but you know people weren’t taken on especially to do the work. And the cost of the traffic surveys was £7,600. It seems to me my Lord Mayor that in an area where there very clearly are parking problems - I don’t think anybody is disputing that - it was appropriate for the Ward Councillor to press as they did and for the people to be asked as they were whether they thought that a solution that has been applied very successfully in other parts of the City was right for them. They said no it wasn’t and a clear undertaking has been given that we won’t return to ask them that question again in the near future. But it is quite right as part of the democratic process that they were asked and we listened to what they said.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Grant have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Grant: Yes just in relation to the last point the City Mayor says we won’t come back to review this in the near future – what would be the minimum amount of time that he thinks it would be appropriate before this was reconsidered.
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor I think that Ward Councillors actually have suggested that 7 years – I’m seeing some nods from at least one of the Ward Councillors there – is an appropriate period. I think that is a very reasonable commitment for them to have given to their electorate and is one that I would entirely endorse.
Lord Mayor: Next question Councillor Porter.
Councillor Porter: Yes thank you Lord Mayor. I am not slacking with just two questions tonight, I did have another one but the Council wouldn’t let me submit it so yes it is a shame really. It would have been nice to get an answer to it but who knows. Anyway my question is Can the Council list the sites allocated for housing in the local plan?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor the list of sites allocated for potential housing development in the City is lengthy in the extreme and I don’t think Members, I hope Councillor Porter would agree, would thank me for actually listing them all this evening. It is perhaps just worth saying that they are available in the public domain and they include local policies on site allocations formally saved from the 2006 Local Plan together with strategic planning policy adopted in the course of 2010 and policy advice from 2014. They are on our website apparently.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Porter have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Porter: Yes I have Lord Mayor. I don’t understand how 11 sites can be considered to be lengthy but obviously that is what he has said. Maybe he needs to go and have another look at the Local Plan because there has been quite a lot of misleading information recently including misleading information from one of his team who have been telling residents in Aylestone that a green field site which is in Aylestone has been allocated for housing in the Local Plan and it clearly has not. There is no site in Aylestone that is allocated for housing in the Local Plan and the principle of development has not been accepted on any site in Aylestone which is in the Local Plan. So my question to the City Mayor is can the Council please work in accordance with the Local Plan, this is obviously a Local Plan which is developed after a major public consultation and is scrutinised by an independent inspector appointed by the Secretary of State. So can the Council please work in accordance with the Local Plan and consult with residents as it says in the Local Plan about this particular site in Aylestone about the detailed options for this particular piece of land which is not allocated for housing and then that site after public consultation has taken place should go into the new Local Plan. So what we are asking is can the Council please stick to the existing Local Plan and consult with residents.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Councillor Porter. City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor Councillor Porter has not actually identified which particular site he is talking about and I can just tell him I had not actually checked in advance quite how many sites there are across the City that are allocated for housing, but I can assure him categorically it is not a mere 11. It is many, many times that figure. What I was going to suggest to Councillor Porter was that he probably misunderstands the Local Plan process and I think he is under the misapprehension that everything is put on hold during the period when a new Local Plan is being developed. That is not the case, it is not the case in Leicester and it could not be the case in any City. Development must continue and vital housing must be provided and I make no apology whatsoever for our commitment to seek to meet the growing housing needs of this City by ensuring that new houses are provided and roofs are provided over the heads of families.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Porter your second question please?.
Councillor Porter: Thank you Lord Mayor. How many Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission meetings were held in 2015?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: I have to say my Lord Mayor that this is one of the strangest questions I have had in a long time since it is something that is so readily ascertained on the public record. You just have to look at the Council’s website and see the list of meetings that have been held. But I did do just such a check in response to this question and discovered that there were five formal meetings of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held in 2015.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor. Councillor Porter have you a supplementary question?
Councillor Porter: Yes thank you and thank the City Mayor obviously for clarifying that because I understand if there were five meetings and we have a Chair who is on £7,761 a year and obviously a Vice-chair at £3,880, at five meetings that is a Chair at £1,552 per meeting and the Vice chair at £776 per meeting. Which I think is an incredible amount of money most people would think for just short meetings and in fact Lord Mayor on the 4th August 2015 they held a meeting which lasted just an hour, just slightly over an hour. So that is what we have is a Chair no other scrutiny meetings at all during the period of that year on around £1,500 for an hour’s meeting and a Vice-chair on over £700 for an hour’s meeting. I think that is incredible, absolutely incredible. These levels of pay for very little work I would say is scandalous. The Mayor has full time Assistants we are told so can Sir Peter tell us how many of his full time Assistants, these Assistant Mayors, actually turn up to work before 11 o’clock in the morning and do a full time job.
Lord Mayor: Thank you Councillor Porter. City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor that was a very wide ranging supplementary. I mean the fact which makes it utterly bizarre, then again so many of Councillor Porter’s questions are bizarre, that he picked on the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission because actually the numbers of times it has met is very similar to the numbers of times that the other Scrutiny Commissions have met. My point of course is that the work of those Scrutiny Commissions is of course importantly done at its actual meetings, but is also done in the days and the weeks between meetings. Scrutiny is not something that just happens you know five times a year at a meeting, it is something that requires a tremendous amount of background work, a tremendous amount of commitment, a tremendous amount of reading, a tremendous amount of talking, an incredible number of other meetings informally held which are all part of the duties that we expect of those that take on the very substantial role of chairing a Scrutiny Commission. I would say that, and I was going to make a joke about arriving late and leaving early, but perhaps I won’t make it. I will leave my response at that.
Lord Mayor: Thank you City Mayor.