Agenda and minutes

County Councillor Simon Howarth was appointed as Chair.

As it was the 100^th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, the Chair asked members to remember the lives lost in battle and held a minute’s silence.

County Councillor Tony Easson was appointed as Vice-Chair.

We received apologies from County Councillors S. White, A. Webb, S. Jones and Hazel Ilett.

The Chair raised a point of clarity regarding attendance to the Committee. The Chair was saddened at the lack of attendance & lack of apologies by some Members and promised to address this by speaking to the Leader of the Council.

No declarations of interest received.

Held on the 28th April 2016.

The minutes of the Strong Communities Select Committee meeting held on 28^th April 2016 were confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

5.a Open Public Forum

We were joined by Carl Thomas and Ian Hodgkinson from The Glascoed Pub who had approached their local member Val Smith in regard to the speed of the road, the A472 outside their premises.

They were keen to promote their business and with 7 acres of land they are looking to maximise the use of the Pub and its grounds. They advised that neighbours often struggle to pull out of their drives due to the lack of visibility, with the hedges blocking their view of the road and asked for better signage and possibility of a speed camera.

They also asked if the Council could address the issue of cutting the grass and the maintenance of the hedgerow and banking from Glascoed Village to County Hall.

The Elected Member for the area advised she had not taken the issue further recently but was concerned for the residents and their concerns.

The Chair asked the Head of Operations if there was data available for this road, such as a Traffic Impact Assessment. The Head of Operations answered that he would return to the Committee with further information. (ACTION R.H.)

Context:

The purpose of this report is to provide Members with information on the forecast revenue outturn position of the Authority at the end of reporting period 4 which represents the financial outturn position for the 2015/16 financial year.

The report will also be considered by Select Committees as part of their responsibility to,

·         assess whether effective budget monitoring is taking place,

·         monitor the extent to which budgets are spent in accordance with agreed budget and policy framework,

·         challenge the reasonableness of projected over or underspends, and

·         monitor the achievement of predicted efficiency gains or progress in relation to savings proposals.

          Key Issues & Recommendations:

That Members consider a net revenue outturn underspend of £676,000, an improvement of £878,000 on quarter 3 outturn predictions.

Members consider a capital outturn spend of £18.3m against a revised budget of £18.8million, after proposed slippage of £43.7 million, resulting in a net underspend of £508k, of which circa £433k is available for recycling onto other projects/priorities which it is recommended will be held pending review of the additional pressures.

Consider and approve the £43.7m capital slippage recommended, paying attention to those schemes included in paragraph 3.5.4 where slippage has been requested by the service manager but is not being recommended to slip (£170k), and notes the significant level of slippage required at outturn not manifest earlier in the year highlighting a concern in managers capital forecasting going forward.

Considers the use of reserves proposed and notes the significant decline on earmarked reserve levels at end of 2015-16 and the likely indication at end of 2016-17.

Approves the reallocation of reserve balances, as per paragraph 3.9.5 following the actuarial review of the insurance reserve and review of other small reserve balances, in order to address reserve pressures and the apportionment of general underspend in supplementing reserve levels as follows:

 £1,037 million to Redundancy and Pensions reserve

 £419k to IT reserves

 £350k to Invest to Redesign reserve

Approves the use of the Invest to Redesign reserve during 2016-17 totalling £30,835 as MCC’s additional contribution to enable the work on the City Deal initiative to continue.

Member Scrutiny:

A Member thanked the Officer for the report and responding to her requests for information in a quick and efficient manner. As the Member had specific questions they wished to ask the Officer, the Member requested to speak to him, one to one at a later date.

The question of slippage was brought up and Members felt that better forward planning would be useful in future. The Officer responded that figures were artificially effected by the future school agenda at present.

A Member questioned the number of staff made redundant. The Officer answered that in 2015/16 the total number of staff made redundant was 102; 99 compulsorily redundancies and 3 other departure packages.

A Member asked if Officers were aware of the need to create savings throughout MCC. The Officer replied that moving to a percentage saving, from a mandate savings approach would make issues less obvious.

A Member  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Context:

We received a report from the Recycling Strategy & Business Manager to advise the Committee on the proposed way forward for the Dragon Waste contract.

          Key Issues:

Throughout the Recycling Review reference has been made to the future of our Civic

Amenity Sites and Transfer Stations and how they become operationally and financially fit for purpose to complement our kerbside provision and ensure a sustainable and high performing recycling offer is made to Monmouthshire residents.

To be clear the current Dragon Waste contract is for the following services:

·         Management and operation of 4 Civic Amenity* Sites (Llanfoist, Five Lanes**, Troy and Usk which are owned by MCC and managed by Dragon Waste)

·         Management and operation of 2 Transfer Stations – Llanfoist & Five Lanes

·         Haulage of residual waste to Project Gwyrdd EfW at Trident Park, Cardiff.

(* the legal term for the sites is Civic Amenity. They are more commonly known now as Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) and therefore will be referred to as such through the paper.

** Llanfoist and Five Lanes sites are under full maintenance leases to Dragon Waste whereas Troy and Usk are owned by MCC and managed on our behalf by Dragon Waste)

This is a very old contract and has evolved over time as legislation and priorities change.

In 1994, Monmouthshire County Council and Terry Adams formed a joint venture company (JVC), Dragon Waste, to operate and manage the waste disposal and Civic

Amenity Sites. This was in response to legislation that no longer allowed local authorities to operate civic amenity sites that resulted in many setting up JVCs or Local Authority Waste Disposal arms-length Companies (LAWDaC).

Terry Adams sold his shares to Viridor and since the late 1990s Viridor have remained the majority shareholder (81%) of Dragon Waste.

In 2014 the contract was renegotiated with Viridor to allow a smooth transition to

Project Gwyrdd, instigate transparent management costs to enable any future procurement to be undertaken on a truly comparative basis, a fit for purpose recycling contract and savings across the contract. The outcome of these negotiations were brought before Select Committee prior to Cabinet approval in October 2014.

Viridor also hold the organics contract for recycling of kerbside collected organic waste. This contract sits outside of this paper as Select Committee and Council have already determined the long term future of organic waste and agreed to a partnership with the Heads of the Valleys AD programme which will commence from April 2018.

The legislation allowing local authorities to operate their own sites has now been

repealed and the opportunity to run the Civic Amenity sites in-house is now an option that some Councils have adopted determined the long term future of organic waste and agreed to a partnership with the Heads of the Valleys AD programme which will commence from April 2018.

The legislation allowing local authorities to operate their own sites has now been repealed and the opportunity to run the Civic Amenity sites in-house is now an option that some  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Context:

To update Select Committee on the recycling collections pilot planned to commence in September this year and for Members to note and comment on the proposals for the trial for the Recycling Review as previously reported to Committee and Cabinet.

          Key Issues:

The recycling review has been before Select Committee many times. It was agreed that a further report would be brought before Members with the details of the approved pilot so that there was a full understanding of what we were planning to do ahead of further reports in early 2017 with a final recommendation for the authority. Just to recap the pilot will:

 Remove glass from the purple bags and be collected separately

 Red and purple bags to remain separate for the trial

 Food and garden to be collected as now, recognising that a commitment has already been given to collect this separately

 Residual – fortnightly and 2 bags (see below for proposal to reintroduce grey bags)

The pilot area has been mapped, subject to a detailed vehicular access review.

The rounds are shown in appendix 1. As previously reported the pilot was to be based around Llanfoist Transfer Station due to the site being able to receive glass separately without the need for any investment in infrastructure. The pilot includes approximately 5,500 households within Abergavenny, Gilwern, Govilon, Goytre, Llanellen, LLanover, Llangybi and Little Mill. This area has been chosen as it r represents a good demographic cross section of the County and includes a mix of urban, semi-rural and rural areas.

We are still engaging with the market to determine the final specification for the pilot vehicle but our goal is to secure a three-stream vehicle with a pod for glass and a split body to collect red and purple bags separately.

At previous meetings Members have been concerned about the receptacle used to collect glass. Further research and investigations have been undertaken and we believe that glass should be collected in a box. Why? We have investigated the use of both a box and a reusable ‘hessian-type’ bag with our crews, other authorities, our MCC H&S officer and an external H&S consultancy. Feedback from a health and safety perspective is that a box is more suitable due to several reasons:

 Bags - strain is placed on one shoulder when carrying/loading, Box - Better techniques in lifting, good stance and posture, weight distributed between both arms.

 Bags - potential for loaders being cut due to close proximity of the bag during emptying with the risk of broken glass.

 Bags – No rigidness to support loader during emptying, box is more rigid, very unlikely to break, therefore less risk of injury to loader.

 Bags - Higher risk of blowing away and spillage onto pavement

 Bags - Higher rate of replacement due to blowing away and their durability – estimated life of bag 2-3 years, box up to 10 years.

MCC officers feel that the bags present too much of a health and safety risk to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Context:

The purpose of the report is to seek the Committee’s views on the proposal for an inclusive and engaging review which will determine Monmouthshire’s future strategy for managing and maintaining MCC owned public open space.

          Key Issues:

Monmouthshire County Council owns and manages a range of open space of which

equates to approximately 4’030’000m² plus a number of countryside and heritage sites, which are maintained predominantly by either Grounds Maintenance, based within Waste & Street Services/Operations directorate or Tourism Leisure & Culture in the Enterprise Directorate.

          Member Scrutiny

Members welcomed and accepted the report.

This item was received.

This item was received.

Thursday 21^st July 2016 at 10am

21^st July 2016 at 10am