Agenda item

3.1

Petitions

3.1.1

Petition Requesting the Implementation of Measures to Control Inappropriate Parking of Vehicles on Norton Church Road

The Council received a petition containing 11 signatures, requesting the implementation of measures to control inappropriate parking of vehicles on Norton Church Road.

Representations on behalf of the petitioners were made by Christopher Walker who stated that the petition requested the Council to implement measures to control inappropriate parking of vehicles on Norton Church Road and in close proximity to Norton Church, Rectory and Norton Hall. He drew the Council’s attention to the absence of a highway turning space and said that parked vehicles potentially compromised access for emergency services to the Church and other buildings in the Norton Conservation Area. He said that it was difficult for vehicles to turn in and out of the Rectory and impossible if vehicles parked on both sides of the road. There was a path between Norton Church Road and Norton Lane which also contributed to some of the problems of access.  It was suggested that parking restrictions be implemented outside the Norton Hall Lodge between the entrance of Norton Hall and the Church and on the other side of the road to make the entrance to the Rectory safer, protect pedestrians and to allow the emergency services access.

The Council referred the petition to Councillor Jack Scott, Cabinet Member for Transport and Development. Councillor Scott responded that there were a number of places in the city affected by parking problems. Drivers sometimes parked in places which did not give consideration to others. Whilst inappropriate parking in certain places could be deterred through the use of yellow line waiting restrictions, there were also constraints to the extent that such measures could be used. The Council had to prioritise where parking had an adverse impact upon road safety, deliveries to customers, shops or businesses and the effect on residents of all day commuter parking. He commented that, whilst those factors did not appear to apply in this case, he understood that there was an issue in what was outlined in the petition and would be pleased to meet with the petitioners and with local councillors about the issues now raised and to properly assess the situation. It would be unlikely that in terms of priority, this case would fall within the top one hundred challenges relating to parking in the City and which the Council was trying to deal with and within constrained available resources. Nevertheless, if new information came to light and as part of the discussion, it would be examined further and in a fair and balanced way.

3.1.2

Petition Requesting the Council not to Place Children and Vulnerable Single Women in Earl Marshall Guest House

The Council received a petition containing 21 signatures, requesting the Council not to place children and vulnerable single women in Earl Marshall Guest House.

Representations on behalf of the petitioners were made by Violet Dickenson who stated that the Earl Marshall was not considered to be a place for children or vulnerable women to be placed or required to share a room. There were also concerns as to the safety of single women placed at the Earl Marshall. SYMAAG (South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group) had been campaigning to stop the placing of children in the Earl Marshall which had no safeguarding measures in place or trained staff. It was aware of families placed there for almost a year and another family for six months. She referred to the Council meeting on 9 December at which the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety had explained the situation with regards to the number of families with children placed in bed and breakfast accommodation. She said that all of the families placed at the Earl Marshall were refugees with No Leave to Remain and those with No Recourse to Public Funds and one family which had come to Sheffield to be reunited with family.

Violet Dickenson said that the Council had spent £277K last year on bed and breakfast accommodation, whereas the other South Yorkshire Authorities had spent nothing. She asked how much had been spent on placing people at the Earl Marshall in particular. She said that before Christmas, a visit had been made and there was no security at the Earl Marshall and she also referred to one woman’s particular circumstances. The petitioners demanded that no children or vulnerable women were placed at the Earl Marshall. It also requested a meeting with the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety to discuss matters. She asked whether Sheffield was a city of sanctuary given the people who were placed in the Earl Marshall guest house.

The Council referred the petition to Councillor Jim Steinke, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety.  Councillor Steinke stated that the Council had given a continuing commitment to move to no use of bed and breakfast accommodation. It was working on the use of temporary accommodation both by adaptations and acquisitions of properties.  Clearly, the Council would not wish to have accommodation which was worse than the current standard. He said that he had visited the Earl Marshall guest house prior to Christmas and would be pleased to discuss his overview of the situation following that visit with SYMAAG. Action had been taken to reduce the use of bed and breakfast accommodation only. One family had been placed in bed and breakfast accommodation over the Christmas period. He was working on a response to set out what the Council was doing in relation to proposals and in response to these issues. He welcomed the invitation to meet directly with SYMAAG and believed this could be done as soon as possible in connection with these matters and with regard to the potential changes to the asylum seeker contract. A further meeting was also planned at the end of January to include officers, Councillor Jackie Drayton, the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families and himself. With regards to the City of Sanctuary, he said that he believed the range of services which the Council offered to refugees and asylum seekers was better than many places but there was clearly a need to do better.

3.2

Public Questions

3.2.1

Public Questions Concerning Streets Ahead

Justin Buxton asked a question as to whether the Council was contractually committed as part of the Streets Ahead contract to paying for the replacement of 17 and a half thousand trees, even if only ten thousand were replaced, at the end of the term of the contract.

Justin Buxton referred to the granting of an injunction relating to work on street trees and to a statement made on 15 August 2017 by the then Cabinet Member concerning the completion of work as part of the core investment period of the Streets Ahead programme and the potential financial consequences of not completing the work by the end of the year. He asked what the financial consequences had been of works having not been completed and whether the statement had been unfounded or deliberately misleading.

Russell Johnson asked for an explanation of the decision making in refusing to conduct an inquiry in relation to tree felling and asserted that there might be a wish to learn from errors made by an independent examination of what happened.

Russell Johnson asked which was more important, the protection of as many mature trees as possible or the maintaining of straight kerb lines, which he said were not required by highways legislation or sought by other cities instead of trees.

Russell Johnson referred to information given concerning Weston Road memorial trees, and to the decision to save almost all of those trees. He asked whether the Leader of the Council would reconsider her decision to stay in office. 

Graham Wroe referred to the December meeting of the Council and to his question concerning why many streets had not been swept, leaving many pavements dangerous with slippery wet leaves. He said that the Cabinet Member for Environment and Streetscene had informed him that all streets were swept a minimum of 3 times a year and that Amey would respond to complaints within 14 days to deal with the problem. He said that having complained about 3 particularly bad roads, a month later they had not been swept.

He also made reference to a part of his question to which he said an answer had not been given concerning what the Council was doing to hold Amey to account and ensure it was providing people with a satisfactory service and said that he would now like a reply to this issue. 

He stated that he believed the Amey contract was not good value for money and with the contract being “self-monitoring”, it appeared that the Council did not check to make sure work was done properly.

Sheldon Hall asked for clarification of paragraph 7.5.2 of the joint statement released by the Council and STAG (Sheffield Tree Action Groups) in December 2018 and concerning the status of an inquiry. He asked whether the statement was a tacit admission that the results of an independent inquiry would be damning and whether an independent inquiry might help to clear the air further.

Councillor Lewis Dagnall, the Cabinet Member for Environment and Streetscene, responded to the questions.  With regard to the question concerning the number of trees to be replaced within the Streets Ahead contract being 17 and a half thousand trees, he made reference to a statement in the Sheffield Star from a representative of STAG that it was understood that the Council was not operating to such a target.

He said that it was a serious allegation that someone had deliberately misled the Chamber and he explained that the core investment period targets were met.

In relation to potholes and kerb lines, Councillor Dagnall stated that the Council wanted a highways infrastructure which could accommodate brilliant roads both for drivers and for people to participate in active travel, pavements on which people would not trip and valuable street trees. A kerb line was an integral part of a highway.

He said that with regard to the question concerning the Leader of the Council, if a person had doubt about the faith of people in the Leader, they could register as a candidate in the forthcoming local elections. He did not believe that the Council had put out false information with regard to the Weston Road memorial trees. However, when the facts changed in this case, the Council changed its approach and asked Amey to compromise in respect of the memorial trees, which it did and the policy was changed.

With regards to the questions concerning the clearing of leaves, Councillor Dagnall stated that he had asked for information from officers as regards Mr Wroe’s questions. There was not a record of a complaint having been received from Mr Wroe about leaves and the last record of contact with him had been regarding gullies in July 2018. However, this latest contact might have been anonymous and he asked Mr Wroe to write to him with the details of the three streets in question so he was able to examine this matter further.

He said that if Amey had not met the performance target then there would be appropriate reductions. Of over 500 complaints that had been received in relation to leaves in the past few months, Amey had responded within 14 days. The English Highways survey showed that people were more satisfied with highways than before the programme began.  The Council did hold Amey to account and it had unveiled a policy concerning highway trees, in which Amey would contribute significant sums to retaining many more trees.

He said that paragraph 7.5.2 of the joint statement of the Council and Amey was clear. There was a pledge to seek to implement the Streets Ahead programme and benefits for the City. The Council offered to hold mediated talks with STAG and to listen to the points they wished to make, including that regarding an inquiry. He said that he was not persuaded that an inquiry would be the best use of time and resources and instead it was agreed to produce a tree strategy in the first six months of 2019 and which looked at the long term future of street trees and which he believed was what people would like to see, together with the compromise which had resolved many issues and the wish to look forward.

3.2.2

Public Question Concerning Knife Crime

KaltunElmi expressed concern at the rise in knife crime in Sheffield and asked a question concerning the effect of austerity and the causes of an increase in knife crime.

Councillor Jim Steinke, the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety, commented that austerity was a subject on the agenda for this meeting of Council. He said that a presentation on the subject of knife crime had been made to Council and a scrutiny session and meeting of the Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny and Policy Development Committee was to take place on 10 January concerning community responses to gun and knife crime. It was recognised that there were a range of contributory factors to knife crime, including poverty and austerity, and reductions in services.

3.2.3

Public Questions Concerning Care and Support Charging Guidelines

Questions were submitted by John Rogers and asked on his behalf by Mr Slack concerning the implementation of the care and support statutory charging guidance, as follows:

Does the Council accept that their current implementation of Care and Support Statutory Charging Guidance is fair, acceptable, logical, etc, does it have any plans to review the formula?

Does the Council work with other councils/agencies to review the national formula set by the Department of Health, is anything published in light of these discussions?

Does the Council think it is fair that many clients who receive means tested benefits are paying much more than affluent home owning clients with private incomes, etc?

Does it consider it needs to review its implementation of Disability Related Expenditure (DRE's) such as including internet usage which separately Adult Social Care demands clients must have access to?

Are figures published which inform how much is repaid to the Council in terms of financial contributions?

Would the Council consider a wholesale review of the formula, taking into account needs and views of its sick and disabled clients?

Councillor Chris Peace, the Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care responded to the questions. She stated that she would also provide answers to Mr Rogers in writing. She explained that a complex formula had been set by the Government. Whilst she believed that the Council’s implementation of the Care and Support Statutory Charging Guidance was fair and logical, she did not think that the system nationally was fair. The policy which was applied was that people would only pay what they could afford and that was in line with the legislation.

There were no plans to conduct a review in full at present. However, feedback was welcomed from individuals and agencies. The Council did work with other local authorities to seek to influence matters (through the national Association of Financial Assessment Officers and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services). Councillor Peace referred to two examples of where the Council had made representations, namely the minimum income guarantee for under 25s and the maximum lifetime contribution, which she said was in the Care Act but had not been implemented.

Councillor Peace said that with regard to the third question as set out above, she did not agree that it was the case  [‘that many clients who receive means tested benefits are paying much more than affluent home owning clients with private incomes’]. She explained that there may be specific cases which should be examined further and suggested that any such case be brought to her attention. Each person was assessed according to their own financial means and expenses and those with higher incomes were required to pay more. She said that she had asked for further analysis on that point and, on average, people who rented a property were assessed as having to pay less than home owners.

She said that it was not the case that internet access was needed to access adult social care and there were a range of ways of doing so. Each person’s circumstances were considered on a case by case basis and there was a robust system of review in place if someone disagreed with that assessment. Specific needs and exceptional circumstances in relation to internet access would be considered on a case by case basis.

As regards the publication of figures, the Council’s accounts included income from fees and charges and that also incorporated contributions and other income. Other local authorities sampled, including Leeds, South Yorkshire local authorities and Manchester, did not publish more detailed information in this regard. Barnsley and Rotherham had reviewed and changed the charging policy and had decided to increase income. Sheffield would not, at this point, be considering a review and the way in which the policy was implemented was both fair and fit for purpose. However, she said the Council did want feedback from individuals and agencies. The questions had also prompted her to discuss matters further with Council officers. She explained that the Council would to take a cautious approach to any review concerning income.

Councillor Peace said that there were issues upon which she would be writing to the Secretary of State and commented that she believed there was need for the Government to look at social care as a whole. Nevertheless, under the national policy, the Council was applying local policy in as fair a way as possible.

3.2.4

Public Question Concerning Security

Anthony Farrell asked what reassurances the Council could give that everything reasonable was being done to prevent a terror attack being perpetrated in the City.

Councillor Jim Steinke, the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety stated that he would respond to the question in writing.

3.2.5

Public Question Concerning War Graves Commission

Roy Billington asked whether the Council was paid by the War Graves Commission for war graves in Sheffield to be kept in order and how much funding was given.

Councillor Mary Lea, the Cabinet Member for Culture, Parks and Leisure stated that she was not aware if any funding was received by the Council from the War Graves Commission.  However, she would look into this further and provide a written answer.

3.2.6

Public Question Concerning Governance

Ruth Hubbard made reference to a petition concerning the Council’s governance arrangements and the introduction of a committee system. She asked whether the Cabinet would reconsider its decision concerning how the City was run to move to a committee system. She also asked when the Leader of the Council would be able to meet with people representing the campaign. She commented that she had written to the Deputy Leader of the Council on 25 August 2018 and had not received a reply.

Councillor Julie Dore, the Leader of the Council, referred to a question which had been put on this matter at the 7 November 2018 meeting of Council and at which she had responded that she would be prepared to meet to discuss wider issues, such as participation and engagement with people and it was her understanding that a meeting was being arranged.

3.2.7

Public Question Concerning Accommodation for Refugee Families

David Price asked whether a risk assessment had been carried out in relation to placing refugee families with children in the Earl Marshall guest house.

Councillor Jim Steinke, the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety stated that an assessment was and should be made of all families going into bed and breakfast accommodation. If there had been any failures in that regard, it had been documented and accepted by the Council.

He said that in terms of the quality of accommodation, need requirements and vulnerability of people, he would suggest that this was discussed further at the forthcoming meeting with representatives of SYMAAG, whilst also bearing in mind that some matters would be of a confidential nature.

Councillor Jackie Drayton, the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families, stated that no children on their own would be placed in bed and breakfast accommodation. The circumstances when they might be placed in such accommodation was as part of their family and where the family might have received Leave to Remain, then having been required to move out of a G4S Property.  If in those cases there was no permanent accommodation available, no temporary emergency accommodation available and, no spaces in the emergency accommodation, and the family needed to move, as a last resort bed and breakfast accommodation would have to be used but the family would be supported throughout.

Councillor Drayton stated that there were not, at present, enough properties available. However, there was a process being undertaken address the issue. She said that the Council did not want to see families housed in bed and breakfast accommodation. However, there was, unfortunately, a need for emergency places, if necessary.

3.2.8

Public Question Concerning Myrtle Road

Paul Turpin referred to a petition which was submitted to Council requesting traffic-calming measures on Myrtle Road.

He asked whether a speed survey had been carried out on Myrtle/Midhill Road following the petition presented in October for a safer crossing for school children and what progress had been made on the issue. He also asked how many tickets had been issued for parking or idling engines outside schools since September and was the Council concerned about the culture of idling engines on Streets Ahead worksites.

Councillor Jack Scott, the Cabinet Member for Transport and Development, stated that there were national guidelines in relation to ticketing for idling outside of schools. Sheffield was the first big authority in the country to introduce such a scheme. He said that there was not a wish to fine people but the Council did seek to improve driver behaviour by people parking responsibly and turning off vehicle engines. He said that the number of fines issued was not in itself a measure of success, whereas to improve air quality around schools would be a measure of success. He did not believe any fines had, as yet, been issued for engines idling outside schools and there were specific related requirements. The Council did issue many fines each year to drivers parking irresponsibly. However, he did not have the precise information to hand.

In relation to Myrtle Road, Councillor Scott said that there had been a number of requests from local councillors to move this matter forward. A meeting was held with the lead petitioner in November and there was a plan being produced alongside a road safety audit. An order was being processed for a speed indicator device on Myrtle Road as a temporary measure and there was focus on improving road safety on Myrtle Road.

3.2.9

Public Question Concerning Austerity

Paul Turpin asked a question concerning austerity cuts.

Councillor Julie Dore, the Leader of the Council, responded that the impact of austerity was an item on the agenda for this meeting of the Council and suggested that the questioner may wish to stay and listen to that item of business.

3.2.10

Public Questions Concerning Trade Union Law

Calvin Payne made reference to a question asked at the meeting of Council in September 2018 and concerning decision making relating to the use of Trade Union Law for arrest of individuals. He now asked whether Council officers or legal staff were involved in the decision making process with South Yorkshire Police in this regard and which he said led to wrongful arrests under anti-union law in the period November 2016 to February 2017.

Jeremy Peace stated that South Yorkshire Police had made a statement in February 2017 that the use of anti-trade union law had been agreed between South Yorkshire Police and the City Council and asked whether, as this resulted in unlawful arrests; it was time that an inquiry was held.

Councillor Julie Dore, the Leader of the Council, responded that there was a difference of the application of the law and a decision to act on it and that only the Police could arrest people.

Councillor Lewis Dagnall, the Cabinet Member for Environment and Streetscene stated that as regards an inquiry, answers had been given to questions asked earlier at this meeting of Council. Talks had been held involving representatives of tree campaigners and the Council and the Council had listened to points made by representatives making a case for an inquiry. The issues raised concerning arrests were a matter for the Police and he understood it had been taken up with the Police.