Agenda item

To consider any questions which may have been received from Elected Members and which are asked pursuant to Standing Order No. 11.

(a)  Councillor Fielding

‘The temporary new Trinity MAT secondary school to be located on Broadway is due to open in just 14 weeks’ time and welcome the 180 students who chose this as their secondary school.

At the time of writing, no work has yet commenced on site and parents are understandably concerned that the school will not be ready in September.

Is the school expected to be ready to receive its new students in September, and in the event that it isn’t ready, what plans are in place to provide a school place for these 180 students?’

(b)  Councillor Greenhough

‘Over the last year there have been a large number of incidents at the borough’s recycling centres. These incidents saw staff being verbally and physically abused. With the staff on these sites wearing body cameras, can the council confirm whether any offenders have been reported to the police?’

(c)  Councillor Hunt

‘It was recently reported that 1,700 littering fines were issued by the council in 2020 - 1,000 less than in 2019. In 2016 the number of fines issued totalled 8,594. Why have the number of fines issued reduced so much since 2016?’

The Executive Director Core Services reported that he had received a number of questions from Elected Members in accordance with Standing Order No. 11.

(a)  Councillor Fielding

‘The temporary new Trinity MAT secondary school to be located on Broadway is due to open in just 14 weeks’ time and welcome the 180 students who chose this as their secondary school.

At the time of writing, no work has yet commenced on site and parents are understandably concerned that the school will not be ready in September.

Is the school expected to be ready to receive its new students in September, and in the event that it isn’t ready, what plans are in place to provide a school place for these 180 students?’

Councillor T Cave, Cabinet Spokesperson for Children’s Services thanked Councillor Fielding for his question and commented that Trinity Academy St Edwards would be receiving pupils from September 2021 following the agreement of the Regional Schools Commissioner to establish a new secondary school in Barnsley to meet the need for additional school places in the central area.

The Department for Education, which was leading on the development, had confirmed that the opening of the temporary site at Keresforth Close was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances beyond the Council's control. However, Trinity MAT and the Department for Education had been working closely with partners to secure a town centre location to open to pupils on the first day of term. Pupils would temporarily attend the Eastgate House campus until the Keresforth site was ready.

Trinity MAT had written to parents and had invited them to face to face meetings on the 26^th and 27^th May, where they would be getting a full update on the site.

It was important that pupils' education was not disrupted and that they could attend a stable environment with the same teachers. Eastgate House campus had been deemed a safe, educational and functional setting.

Trinity MAT had held a series of events with parents and pupils over recent weeks. They would be holding further sessions with parents at the end of May to provide them with more details of the arrangements to ensure a smooth and successful transition to the new school.

Councillor Fielding thanked Councillor Cave for his response, however, he felt that it raised a number of questions for parents, but he was pleased to note that arrangements were in place to notify those parents of the changes.  Parents would, nevertheless be disappointed at these changes.  He then asked, as a supplementary question if the Cabinet Spokesperson could confirm that suitable arrangements had been put in place to accommodate the transport needs of getting the children to and from school including the parents getting the children to school in cars, on busses or on cycles.

Councillor Cave thanked Councillor Fielding for his supplementary question and for his understanding of the situation that was out of the Councils control.  In relation to transport, the normal arrangements would be in place and further details would be provided outside this meeting.

(b)  Councillor Greenhough

‘Over the last year there have been a large number of incidents at the borough’s recycling centres. These incidents saw staff being verbally and physically abused. With the staff on these sites wearing body cameras, can the Council confirm whether any offenders have been reported to the police?’

Councillor Lamb, Cabinet Spokesperson for Place (Environment and Transportation) thanked Councillor Greenhough for his question and he responded by stating that unfortunately, there had been instances where staff working at household waste recycling centres had been subjected to verbal and physical abuse including spitting. He stated, and felt that everyone would agree, that nobody should have to face this while doing their job.

There had been six recorded incidents where verbal or physical abuse had been reported to the police. One of these incidents was still progressing through the court.

These incidents predominantly occurred at the site on West Street, Worsborough.

The main actions from the police had included banning the offenders from the sites and there had been one occurrence where a Community Resolution Order had been issued.  Councillor Lamb stated that people were this Council’s most valuable resource and he wanted to make it abundantly clear that abuse, violence and aggression would not be tolerated against any staff of the Authority or working on the Authority’s behalf.  If such actions occurred appropriate action would be taken.

Councillor Greenhough thanked Councillor Lamb for his response and he joined wholeheartedly at the condemnation of such actions against staff.  He then asked, as a supplementary question, if Councillor Lamb would reaffirm that if such actions were ongoing, the Council would take more measures to ensure the safety of the staff working at these sites given that in Doncaster, one of the neighbouring authorities, someone had been driven at with a car and such actions were putting people’s lives at risk.

Councillor Lamb commented that the Authority had recently removed the restriction on the number of people using the sites and hopefully that would reduce some of the tension people were experiencing when queuing outside those sites.  In addition, where there was any repetition or risk of members of staff or members of staff working for third parties being injured or abused all measures possible would be put in place to reduce that risk.  Members of staff working at these sites were employed by an external contractor who also had their own procedures and processes, but an assurance was given that the Authority would work with those contractors in order to ensure the safety of their members of staff working on the Council’s premises and sites.

(c)  Councillor Hunt

‘It was recently reported that 1,700 littering fines were issued by the council in 2020 - 1,000 less than in 2019. In 2016 the number of fines issued totalled 8,594. Why have the number of fines issued reduced so much since 2016?’

Councillor Platts, Cabinet Spokesperson for Adults and Communities thanked Councillor Hunt for the question and stated that in 2016, most of the borough had environmental enforcement contracts funded by the Area Councils, which meant more officers were out on the ground issuing environmental Fixed Penalty Notices or FPNs.

As the years have gone by, fewer Area Councils had chosen to fund this service, which meant fewer officers were available to issue environmental FPNs.

Since the start of contracted environmental enforcement in 2016, members of the public had become more aware of enforcement action being taken. This resulted in positive behavioural change and reduced offences, and the demand for enforcement capacity.

In response to public feedback, there had also been changes in the way enforcement was undertaken since 2016 including officers wearing visible uniform at all times. This had meant fewer offences were witnessed by officers due to their presence being known by the public.

Finally, 2020 had been the lowest figure due to the COVID19 pandemic. Few people were around during lockdowns, and services had been suspended due to the restrictions around face-to-face communication with people to reduce the risk of virus transmission. This service had re-commenced earlier this year.

Councillor Hunt thanked Councillor Platts for her response.  He stated that there had been a clear increase in the amount of litter seen across the borough and this had resulted in many more volunteers picking it up.  These volunteers were doing an excellent job and should be congratulated for their efforts.  He then asked as a supplementary question whether or not the Cabinet Spokesperson considered there was a correlation between the reduction in fines being issued and the increase being seen in the amount of litter and he also asked what the Council’s plans were to tackle this increase.

Councillor Platts responded by stating that she agreed that the amount of work volunteers were doing in litter picking and reporting fly tipping was amazing.  Everyone had seen a lot of litter within their areas, however, from 2020 unfortunately because of the lockdown face to face services had been suspended.  Appointments had been made to the new Community Warden Posts and appropriate clearance checks were now awaited.  Those officers would be out on the streets as would local area SNT’s and they would be able to issue Fixed Penalty Notices for anti-social behaviour, littering and dog fouling.  Hopefully within the next couple of months additional officers would be seen within the area and this should go some way to addressing the problems encountered.