Agenda and draft minutes

To elect the Chairman of the Joint Public Protection Committee for the 2024/25 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED that Councillor Iskandar Jefferies of Bracknell Forest Council be elected as Chairman of the Joint Public Protection Committee for the 2024/25 Municipal Year.

To appoint the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Public Protection Committee for the 2024/25 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED that Councillor Lee Dillon of West Berkshire Council be elected as Vice-Chairman of the Joint Public Protection Committee for the 2024/25 Municipal Year.

The Committee agreed to suspend standing orders for the duration of the meeting in order to allow Councillor Jordan Montgomery, from Wokingham Borough Council, to speak.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of this Committee held on 11 March 2024.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2024 were agreed as a true and accurate record and signed by the Chairman.

To consider any outstanding matters from previous meetings.

Sean Murphy (Service Lead – Public Protection) gave an update on the outstanding action points from previous meetings:

Item 1 – Revenue Budget 2024/25 (Fees and Charges Schedule) - An update would be circulated following the discussions held at Berkshire Leaders and with the Berkshire Group of Officers.

Mr Murphy would also follow up on progress being made with the letter to be sent on behalf of the Licensing Chairs. 

Item 2 – Water Safety Annual Report 2023/24 - The actions had been completed.

Item 3 – Service Update and Q3 Performance Report - A breakdown of the activities provided within the shared service arrangement for the relevant partners was included at Appendix C of the annual report.

Item 4 – Young People and Vaping – This would be actioned when the item was next brought to the Committee.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration, and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members’ Interests, the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Councillor Iain Cottingham declared that he had a personal interest in Agenda Items 10 and 11, by virtue of the fact that he was a non-executive Director of the Trading Standards Institute and ITSA Limited, and the Chairman of Thatcham Town Cricket Club which was a licensed premises. As his interest was personal and not prejudicial, he determined to take part in the debate and vote on the items.

To note those agenda items which have received an application for public speaking.

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

The Partnership welcomes questions from members of the public about their work.

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Partnership or an item which is on the agenda for this meeting. For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact Democratic Services.

No public questions were received which related to either a general issue concerned with the work of the Public Protection Partnership or to an item on the agenda.

To detail future items that the Committee will be considering.

RESOLVED that the Forward Plan be noted with the following addition to be included:

·       The annual vaping report would be scheduled for the Committee meeting on 10 March 2025.

To note the current Terms of Reference of the Committee as this is the first meeting of the new Municipal Year.

Moira Fraser presented the Terms of Reference (Agenda Item 9) and noted that this was a standing agenda item at the first meeting of each Municipal Year.

While there had been substantial changes in the previous year, including an update of the membership of the Committee to include a Member of the Opposition from each of the authorities on the Committee, there were no proposals to change the Terms of Reference for the coming year.

RESOLVED that the Terms of Reference be noted.

To update the Committee on the work of the Service in Q4 and to report the end of year performance outturn.

To seek authority to carry forward the revenue under-spend from 2023/24.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda Item 10) which updated Members on the work of the Service in Quarter Four and which reported the end of year performance outturn.

Authority was sought from the Committee to carry forward the revenue underspend from 2023/24.

Finances and Resources

A deficit position continued in relation to income, creating a shortfall in the region of £100,000 in the 2023/24 financial year. It was necessary to hold vacancies in order to manage this shortfall.

However, at the end of the financial year there was an underspend of £61,000, made primarily of a £38,000 grant received at the very end of the previous financial year.

The report proposed that the underspend be carried forward into the 2024/25 financial year. This proposal had been discussed with Bracknell Forest and West Berkshire Councils.

Customer Satisfaction Rates and Information Governance Data

There had been a reduction in customer satisfaction. The sample size was however very low, and in one quarter there had been no returns. Officers were reviewing how best to collate data moving forward.

Sean Murphy (Service Lead – Public Protection) reported that the number of vacancies was a contributing factor in terms of customer satisfaction.

A high number of Freedom of Information requests had been received by the service (an increase from the previous year to 371 requests).

The significant increase in the number of Member enquiries and MP enquiries was viewed positively as it showed the Service was getting the message out about the important work it did.

Human Resources

The Licensing Teams would soon be fully staffed following successful recruitment. This included a trainee becoming a full member of the team.

Three of the Level Four apprentices had successfully completed their qualifications. The fourth (and remaining) apprentice was also expected to complete shortly. The aim was for the apprentices to become full members of the Service.

ICT Update

Progress had been made since the previous meeting and the Service had been assigned more project support with the supplier. There was a plan in place to get the portal online, which would be used for temporary event notices, and then rolled out subject to it being successful.

Community and Trading Standards

George Lawrence (Residential Team Manager) provided an update on the work of the community and trading standards team, highlighting the following points:

·       2000 service requests had been processed in the last quarter.

·       Scam intervention work had been successful. This work had helped 85 victims and potential victims of scams save money totalling approximately £43,000. Further savings had been achieved following work with banks.

·       Successful funding bids had funded awareness campaigns regarding the safe use of scooters and electric bikes.

·       Work on the delivery of food inspection and food sampling continued. All high risk food standards inspections had been completed.

·       Officers had tested many products including vape products. Work on underage sales had included the purchase of lottery tickets.

·       The most complained about sector was second hand car dealers. Officers were looking to engage with businesses  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

To identify the key service functions, activities and priorities, and identify the resource challenges for the Service.

To map the Service against local, regional and national priorities and risks.

The Committee considered the PPP Strategic Assessment (Agenda Item 11). The Strategic Assessment served to identify the key service functions, activities and priorities, and identify the resource challenges for the Service.

The Strategic Assessment also mapped the Service against local, regional and national priorities and risks.

Sean Murphy presented the report and highlighted the following points:

·       Much of the work on the report was completed prior to the General Election, it was therefore the case that some priority areas may no longer be taken forward.

·       The report set out all known demands on the service, however it was noted that the demands on the service were constantly changing. I.e. recently announced priorities in relation to knives and the sale of knives.

·       The document set out the breadth of the work undertaken by the PPP, the demands placed upon it and the available resource.

·       The Strategic Assessment would form the basis for the future prioritisation of work. Future discussion would take place at Committee post a period of consultation.

·       It contained a number of cross cutting priorities as well as the inclusion of the more local priorities held by the PPP.

Councillor Iskandar Jefferies gave thanks to officers for all their hard work in the production of the Strategic Assessment. He fully acknowledged the difficult task of balancing the many priority areas and this was an area requiring further work.

Councillor Iain Cottingham queried the sharing of intelligence with other relevant agencies, i.e. HMRC, and whether funding could be accessed in order to increase this area of work.

In response, Sean Murphy explained that officers held a broad range of powers as investigators. This, and the growing access to data, was greatly assisting investigations.

Information sharing protocols were in place, for example with the HMRC, and there was a shared intelligence database accessed by many relevant organisations. The PPP had made a number of intelligence submissions in the past year.

The Service had been able to access national trading standards funds for conducting cross border investigations.

RESOLVED that the updated Strategic Assessment would form the basis of the PPP priority setting for 2024/25 through to January 2027.

There is a high demand from service users to respond to requests for the Public Protection Partnership to resolve nuisance complaints. The purpose of this draft policy is to set a framework that will help the PPP ensure the continuation of a consistent and transparent approach to both reactive and proactive work on nuisance issues.

The Policy, once adopted, will form part of the suite of key policies that we use to deliver the Service.

To provide an opportunity for the Committee to consider and comment on the draft policy and consultation methodology prior to the service seeking the views of our residents, service users and other stakeholders.

The Committee considered the Draft Nuisance Policy 2024-27 (Agenda Item 12). Suzanne McLaughlin, Senior Environmental Health Officer, introduced the report and raised the following points:

·       The Policy would enable the continuation of nuisance related work within the Service, both reactive and proactive, that benefited both residents and businesses. The work undertaken strove to improve the quality of life and the health of residents.

·       There were a significant number of reactive complaints received in the last financial year, but proactive work was also undertaken to try to resolve areas of concern. For example, guidance was offered on the Council’s website and made available through social media.

·       The proposal was for the draft Policy to go out to public consultation for a period of six weeks. A report would then be provided to the next meeting of the Committee in October outlining the findings of the consultation together with the final Policy that would be proposed for formal adoption.

RESOLVED that:

·       The draft Nuisance Policy 2024-2027 be approved for consultation.

·       The Service Lead: Public Protection be authorised to proceed with a public consultation for a six week period between the 8 July 2024 and the 19 August 2024.

·       Any comments on the draft Policy be brought to the 7 October 2024 Committee for discussion prior to the Policy being formally adopted.