Agenda and minutes

The Leader expressed his gratitude to all Council’s officers, and particularly to the work done by Councillor Ben Coleman, Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care, and Lisa Redfern, Strategic Director of Social Care, for their fine work in coordinating the borough’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. He reported that H&F had some of the best tracing system in the UK and the best in London, which had been fundamental in understanding the virus spread. Since the summer the Council had launched a project to phone everyone in the borough with the virus to ask where they had contracted it from. This was possible as many officers had been retrained and were now monitoring this data and advising people on best practices. Testing had also been ground breaking due to the Council’s fast response in rolling out tests as soon as they became available.

The Leader stressed that there was now great hope and expectation that this pandemic would be coming to an end with the arrival of the vaccine. He fully expected that within 6 months a large proportion of the population would be vaccinated. But meanwhile, the advice given by the the Director of Public Health in London and the Council’s own health experts was for everyone to be particularly vigilant over Christmas and avoid social events to stop further spread of the virus.

That the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet held on 2 November 2020 be confirmed and signed as an accurate record of the proceedings, and that the outstanding actions be noted.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Sue Fennimore.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter.  The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

The Leader introduced the report on behalf of Councillor Sue Fennimore.  He stressed that after the Covid-19 pandemic, it had always been the Council’s number 1 priority to tackle crime and – despite significant cuts to local government financing and the costs of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic – the Council invested the largest-ever amount in crime fighting. With the rising levels of violent crime, the Council was determined to crack down on those who preyed on the most vulnerable children.

The Council would merge the Neighbourhood Wardens, Parks Police, Street Scene Enforcement and Highways Enforcement functions into a new single Neighbourhood Enforcement Team. This team would have an expanded team of 72 officers, up from the current 40 undertaking enforcement related roles across the Council, operating round the clock, seven days a week and acting as eyes and ears across the borough for a wide range of issues. The dedicated H&F Gangs, Violence & Exploitation Unit would receive intelligence from patrolling officers to help to better safeguard young people.

The Leader added that this report proposed the single largest investment in Community Safety in H&F’s history which aimed at delivering the most professional and effective local authority enforcement service in London and make H&F safer for everyone.

Councillor Wesley Harcourt added that this report would merge a number of teams from several areas to be part oft this new enforcement team. This would increase the number of officers available by 60%, which was very welcome news. The Police Borough Commander had endorsed this proposal.

The Leader put the recommendations to the vote.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY BY CABINET:

1.     To agree the creation of a highly visible Integrated Enforcement Team operating seven days a week to patrol H&F and assist the Police to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in the Borough.

2.     To approve the investment of up to £4,561,000 per annum in the Integrated Enforcement Team for part year 2020/21 and full year 2021/22, to be funded from existing budgets and S106 developer contributions.

This report has an appendix which contains information exempt within the meaning of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 and is not for publication. The appendix has therefore been circulated to Cabinet Members only.

Any discussions on the contents of an exempt appendix will require Cabinet to pass the proposed resolution identified at the end of the agenda to exclude members of the public and the press from the proceedings for that discussion.

Councillor Lisa Homan introduced the report which proposed to set up a framework agreement with pre-vetted, high-quality technical consultants offering competitive rates. The council needed to have a clear route to market to secure technical consultants and support services to ensure the works were delivered efficiently and effectively. The technical consultant framework would also be available to all Council departments and would be designed with the intention of delivering significant savings.

The technical consultants on this framework would be: structural engineers; property condition surveyors (commercial and residential); mechanical & electrical engineers; architects; fire safety engineers; CDM (health & safety) specialists; damp, mould and condensation specialists; HVAC engineers; electrical engineers; planning consultants; employer’s agents; project managers or contract administrators.

The Leader put the recommendations to the vote.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY BY CABINET:

1.    Appendix 4 is not for publication on the basis that it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) as set out in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

2.    To approve the Procurement Strategy for the Council to set up a series of 6 frameworks of technical consultants and professional services to aid the delivery of capital projects to meet the Compliance, Housing Repairs and Capital functions, as set out in Appendix 1.

3.    To delegate authority to the Strategic Director of the Economy, in consultation with the relevant Cabinet Member for Housing, to approve minor changes to the procurement process or to the evaluation methodology as set out in procurement strategy in Appendix 1 for operational reasons if required.

4.    To approve the award of call off contracts under the Framework Agreements up to an aggregated value of £18 million over the four-year term across all six frameworks.

5.    To note that once the frameworks are awarded, authority will be sought to amend the Contract Standing Orders so that a procurement strategy is not required when the framework is utilised.

The Key Decision List was noted.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 - ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Proposed resolution:

Under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they contain the likely disclosure of exempt information, as defined in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the said Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.       

There was no other business.