Agenda and minutes

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Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies pdf icon PDF 4 KB

To receive any apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors P M Brivio and J Rose.

2.

Appointment of Substitute Members pdf icon PDF 4 KB

To note appointments of Substitute Members.

Minutes:

It was noted that in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 4, Councillor S H Beer had been appointed as substitute member for Councillor P M Brivio.

3.

Declarations of Interest pdf icon PDF 143 KB

To receive any declarations of interest from Members in respect of business to be transacted on the agenda.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest made by Members.

4.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 140 KB

To confirm the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 8 March 2021 and 19 April 2021 (to follow).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 8 March 2021 and 19 April 2021 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

5.

Decisions of the Cabinet Relating to Recommendations from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee pdf icon PDF 62 KB

To receive the Cabinet decisions in respect of recommendations of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Minutes:

The decisions of the Cabinet relating to recommendations made by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee at its meeting held on 7 June 2021 were noted.

6.

Issues referred to the Committee by Council, Cabinet, or another Committee pdf icon PDF 4 KB

There are no items for consideration.

Minutes:

The Democratic and Corporate Services Manager advised that there were no issues referred to the Committee by Council, Cabinet or another Committee.

7.

Notice of Forthcoming Key Decisions pdf icon PDF 134 KB

It is intended that Members should use the Notice of Forthcoming Key Decisions to identify topics within the remit of the Committee for future scrutiny.

Minutes:

The Democratic and Corporate Services Manager presented the Notice of Forthcoming Key Decisions to the Committee for its consideration.

 

RESOLVED:  That the Notice of Forthcoming Key Decisions be noted.

 

8.

Scrutiny Work Programme pdf icon PDF 665 KB

It is intended that the Committee monitor and prioritise its rolling work programme.

Minutes:

The Democratic and Corporate Services Manager presented the Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme to the Committee for its consideration.

 

Members identified the following items for inclusion in the work programme:

 

·         Update from the Cabinet on progress resolving the flooding issues in Deal with Southern Water

 

RESOLVED:     That the Work Programme be noted, subject to the inclusion of the update on flooding in Deal.

 

9.

Public Speaking pdf icon PDF 5 KB

Please note that in accordance with the agreed Protocol for Public Speaking at Overview and Scrutiny, the right to speak only applies to agenda items 10 and 11.

 

Members of the public wishing to speak must register to do so by no later than 2.00 pm on the second working day (Thursday) before the meeting.

 

For meetings prior to 21 June 2021, public speaking for those who successfully register will take the form of a statement of up to 500 words that will be read out by a member of the Democratic Services team.

Minutes:

The Democratic and Corporate Services Manager advised that one member of the public (Ms H Charlton) had registered to speak on items on the agenda to which the public speaking protocol applied.

 

 

10.

Variation to Agenda Order

Minutes:

The Chairman advised in the absence of any objections that the order of business would be varied to take the litter element of the Dover District Household Waste and Recycling Collection and Litter item as the next item of business.

11.

Dover District Household Waste and Recycling Collection and Litter

Minutes:

The Environmental Crime Team Leader gave a presentation on the Council’s participation in the Great British Spring Clean, a campaign led by Keep Britain Tidy. The Great British Spring Clean ran from 28 May 2021 to 13 June 2021.

 

As part of the Great British Spring Clean, the Council would:

 

·         5 x 2-minute beach cleaning stations that would be looked after by local businesses;

·         9 x Free bag dispensers to enable people to take litter home;

·         2 x cigarette litter voting stations (1 in Deal and 1 in Dover); and

·         1,250 cigarette butt litter pouches to be distributed

 

For the future the Council would be recruiting an Environmental Enforcement Officer to fill the current vacancy and tendering for a contractor to bolster litter and dog fouling enforcement. The Littering from Vehicles Outside London Regulations 2018 also provided a tool for enforcement.

 

The Council also intended to introduce environmental awards next year to recognise the work of local individuals, organisations and community groups.

 

Members raised the following points:

 

·         That more needed to be done to tackle the issue of littering in parks.

·         That there needed to be an officer with overall responsibility for litter rather than the current arrangements where it was split between education/enforcement (Regulatory Services) and cleansing (Waste Services). In response the Environmental Crime Team Leader pointed out that the two teams worked closely together to tackle issues.

·         That the working practices of Kent County Council Highways needed improvement with recent verge clearing works resulting in shredded litter being left on the road. In response the Environmental Crime Team advised that the Dover District Council had no direct control over Kent County Council’s working practices.

·         That the review of litter bin provision needed to be completed so that the installation of new bins could be considered.

 

(Councillor S C Manion left the meeting at the conclusion of this item of business)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12.

DOVER DISTRICT COUNCIL HOMELESSNESS AND ROUGH SLEEPING STRATEGY 2020-2024 pdf icon PDF 210 KB

To consider the attached report of the Head of Housing.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Head of Housing presented the report on the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2020-2024. Members were informed that the Council had a statutory duty to review its housing strategy at least every five years. The Cabinet in January 2021 had approved going to consultation on a new draft Strategy and following that process the final version of the Strategy was being reported back for approval and adoption.

 

The focus of the draft strategy was on homelessness prevention and the scope of the strategy and its key objectives were developed following early stage consultation with key stakeholders. The strategy set out overarching strategic objectives and priorities and incorporated an action plan to deliver outcomes linked to the priorities.

 

Members were assured that where the Council had a duty to house people it would do so.

 

The action plan was broken down into the following areas:

 

           Tackling Homelessness Together

           Enhanced Accommodation Options

           Using Resources Effectively

           Improving Options for Homeless Households

           End Rough Sleeping

 

Members discussed the importance of the Council developing its own high standard temporary accommodation and the need to have permanent accommodation options for households to move on to in due course. As the need for permanent accommodation exceeded the Council’s available supply this would include working with private landlords to provide accommodation and taking ensuring affordable rents.

 

In respect of rough sleepers the Council had found accommodation for 6 of the 7 found during the last count. The Council worked with groups such as Porchlight to ensure support was provided those in need of it.

 

Members discussed the 6 week national legal standard on homeless families with children staying in bed and breakfast and the Head of Housing advised that homeless families rarely reached that limit in practice.

 

It was moved by Councillor S H Beer, duly seconded and

 

RESOLVED:   That it be recommended to Cabinet that paragraph 2.1 of the Action Plan be amended to set the maximum duration for stay in bed and breakfast accommodation for families with children, and 16-17 year olds, from a maximum of 6 weeks to either a maximum of 6 days or to an achievable significant reduction on 6 weeks.

13.

Performance Report - Fourth Quarter 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 204 KB

To consider the attached report of the Head of Leadership Support.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Members received the Performance Report Quarter 4, 2020/21. There were 19 Green Status Performance Indicators (70%), 3 Amber (11%) and 5 Red (19%) for Quarter 4, 2020/21.

 

The red performance indicators were as followed:

 

  • HOU001 (Average time taken to re-let council dwellings)
  • HOU010a (Number of households living in Temporary Accommodation including B&B)
  • HOU010b (Number of households in bed & breakfast)
  • LIC005 (The percentage of licensed premises inspections completed by target date)
  • MUS002 (The number of visits to the museum in person per 1,000 population)

 

Members were advised that the performance in respect of LIC005 and MUS002had been adversely impacted by Coronavirus restrictions.

 

The Head of Housing advised that HOU001 had been improving since the Council had taken the housing service back in-house in October and that the length of time taken to relate council dwellings was improving although Coronavirus restrictions had affected the time it took for works to be undertaken as well as the viewing of lets.

 

Councillor M Bates raised the issue of the stability of the planning portal and the committee was advised that this would be investigated.

 

 

14.

Dover District Household Waste and Recycling Collection and Litter pdf icon PDF 189 KB

To scrutinise the performance of the Household Waste and Recycling Collection service and the issue of litter in the district.

 

Representatives from Veolia and DDC Waste Services will be in attendance.

 

This item was added at the request of Councillor C D Zosseder (household waste collection) and Councillor T A Bond (litter).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed David Fitzgerald (General Manager) and Gary Morison (Senior Contract Manager) of Veolia to the meeting.

 

Mr Fitzgerald apologised on behalf of Veolia to Members in respect of the disruption affecting the waste service over the last six weeks. He advised that he thought the service had been improving over the last week.

 

The representatives from Veolia gave a presentation to Members covering the following points:

 

Background

 

·         That the collection routes had been changed to enable more balanced rounds with an even workload for the crews

·         That the new systems allowed managers to have greater monitoring potential

·         That the streamlined rounds allowed for easy issue rectification (in the case of misses and vehicle breakdowns) and a better customer experience

·         The new Euro 6 vehicles were more environmentally friendly with electric bin lifts

·         The provision of electric vehicles for the Veolia management team and electric cage vehicles

·         The maintenance of the same alternate-weekly service for kerbside properties

 

Collection Methodology

 

·         That 17% of properties (7,990 kerbside properties) would not see a change as a result of the changes

·         That 14.5% of properties (6,815 kerbside properties) would only be affected by a change in collection day only

·         That 34.3% of properties (16,074 kerbside properties) would be affected by a change in collection week only

·         That 34.3% of properties (16,121 kerbside properties) would be affected by a day and week change

·         That 9,459 properties would wait more than three additional days between refuse collections

·         The new rounds would allow for ease of returning to deal with missed collections and the Thursday round would be heaviest as it was closest to the disposal point.

·         That the new rounds were similar to those at other authorities such as Tendring and Telford and Wrekin

 

New Collection Round Roll Out

 

·         That there had been close working between the Council and Veolia prior to the changes.

·         That fortnightly transition meetings had been held.

·         That the risks of each option were analysed and the input of experienced crews with local knowledge had been sought out. All crews were training about new routes, vehicles and devices.

·         The average number of properties collected per day was 1,305.

·         That it had not been possible to test different collection days prior to informing residents of the change and that the new vehicles were not available prior to the change anyway.

·         Veolia had 20 Euro 6 vehicles and 8 electric vehicles as part of the Dover fleet with smaller vehicles for rural and narrow access roads. There had been a small reduction in the number of vehicles under the new service.

·         The new food waste collection arrangements had dedicated vehicles for food waste to ensure greater efficiency and a higher quality of material.

·         The number of staff on the new service was the same as the previous service due to the additional rounds being operated. However, once the new service was established there would be a reduction in 5 drivers (22 drivers under the new service compared to 27 before) and 8 operatives  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

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