A Question-and-Answer session with the Leader of the Council regarding matters within the scope of their portfolio.
Minutes:
The Chair invited members to ask questions of the Leader relating to matters within his portfolio. The Leader explained that the kind of issues covered in the previous Council Plan item on the agenda made up a large part of their portfolio. The Leader explained that they also held responsibility for overall governance processes within the Council and would lead on communications, social value and inclusive economy activity. In addition, the Leader continued to sit as a member of the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) board, which was a fast -changing environment.
In response to a question from Councillor Yasseen, the Head of Democratic Services provided members with a brief summary of other areas within the Leader’s portfolio, as follows: - Customer Services; Democratic Services; community cohesion; responsibility for social value through corporate commissioning and procurement strategies and implementation, including Community Wealth Building; Household Support Fund and other local welfare assistance schemes, including the Food for People and Crisis Partnership, crisis loan schemes and development of the social supermarket; and advocacy and appeals.
Councillor Yasseen went on to ask a question of the Leader around the decision to rename to the former Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy to the Inclusion Strategy. In Councillor Yasseen’s view, this marked a noticeable shift in how the Council was approaching its defined legal duties towards equality.
In response, the Leader asked Councillor Yasseen to wait and see what the new draft Inclusion Strategy looked like when it came to OSMB, as it still contained everything members would expect it to cover. The Leader further explained that the Equalities Assessment through the Local Government Association (LGA) had changed its objectives and as the Council aimed to achieve “Gold” standard in this, some of the changes to in terminology within the draft Inclusion Strategy reflected this. The Leader also confirmed that responsibility for the Inclusion Strategy sat with Councillor Alam, who would present that report when it came to OSMB.
In a further question around community cohesion, Councillor Yasseen commended the strong key performance indicators and positive work that had been carried out to address and tackle hate-related incidents and crimes in the borough. Councillor Yasseen welcomed the range of activity and engagement with young people but asked the Leader what outcomes were anticipated as a result of this important work to try and keep communities together?
The Leader agreed that community cohesion was of great importance
and was an area where the Council had statutory duties. However,
the local council was not the main factor that influenced whether
or not communities pulled together and currently, national and
international trends demonstrated that other concerning factors
were pulling communities apart. The Leader commented that as a
measure of success, the Council would want to see less hate-related
crimes being reported. There was an annual survey carried out where
Rotherham residents were able to comment on how they felt people
from other backgrounds got on with each other. The Leader was proud
that this measure had improved year on year but expressed some
concern that this trend may not continue in the current climate
where certain far right influences were trying to create division.
The Council would direct the relevant resource to intervene when it
was able to and would look to drive neighbourhood activity towards
promoting community cohesion. The Leader expressed a desire to
drive forward a narrative about how to share and confront
challenges collectively rather than being driven further
apart.
Cllr Allen asked the Leader what the top 3 things they wanted to lead the Council to achieve in the upcoming year were. In response, the Leader highlighted the following:
1) Delivering on a number of large regeneration schemes. The Leader was proud of the significant amount of funding that had been secured for regeneration projects within the borough but was acutely aware that the burden of delivery of these projects now sat with the Council as it entered the delivery phase;
2) Housing Services and turning the corner on long-term decline of council housing. The Leader commented that the current government had introduced positive changes that had enabled more support for local councils in maintaining direct affordable council housing; and
3) Moving out of austerity, how could the Council put itself back into communities in a meaningful way? The Council supported residents, businesses and communities but the Leader commented that residents didn’t always see the benefit of the council services that they used. The Leader expressed a desire to correct the current disconnect between the important work done by public servants and the tangible benefits that residents felt from this work.
Councillor McKiernan raised a question around communications and a recent article that had been published in The Sun newspaper concerning a matter within his ward. A council officer had been quoted in this article but Councillor McKiernan had not been warned about it. Councillor McKiernan requested that in future, communications were improved and ward members informed if a ward issue was due to be reported in a national newspaper.
In response, the Leader accepted that this was a fair challenge and confirmed that systems could be put in place to advise members of any press coverage in their wards before publication. The Leader commented that it was common for national newspapers to approach local councils for a brief “right to reply” on an issue and then use that out of context or within a much wider report, citing the recent instance Councillor McKiernan referred to regarding HMOs in Masbrough and an article over the summer regarding the number of Rothercard holders with asylum seeker status. The Leader commented that the Council cannot control how the national press chooses to report on information given to them. The current Communications team at the Council had been reduced and faced challenges with capacity and the Leader reflected that that the issue of future resourcing in this area might have to be considered.
The Chair thanked the Leader for their time in answering Members’ questions.