Council Summons 7th April 2004
CITY OF SHEFFIELD
METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
COUNCIL SUMMONS
Notice is hereby given that a Meeting of the Council of the City of Sheffield
will be held in the Council Chamber within the Town Hall, Sheffield, on
Wednesday, 7th April, 2004, at 2.00 p.m.
THE FOLLOWING BUSINESS IS PROPOSED TO BE TRANSACTED-
1. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS COUNCIL MEETINGS
To receive the record of the proceedings of the meetings of the Council held on 3rd and 5th March, 2004 and to approve the accuracy thereof.
2. PUBLIC QUESTIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS
To receive any questions or communications from the public, or communications submitted by the Lord Mayor or the Chief Executive and to pass such resolutions thereon as the Standing Orders permit and as may be deemed expedient.
3. MEMBERS' QUESTIONS
(a) Questions relating to urgent business - Standing Order No. A18(4).
(b) Questions on the discharge of the functions of the South Yorkshire Joint Authorities for Fire and Civil Defence, Passenger Transport, Pensions and Police - Section 41 of the Local Government Act, 1985 - Standing Order No. A18(4).
(c) Questions on the discharge of the functions of the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly –
Standing Order No. A18(4).
(d) Supplementary questions on Written Questions submitted at this meeting - Standing Order No. A18(1).
(e) Verbal questions to Cabinet Members and Chairs of Scrutiny Boards and Regulatory Boards - Standing Order No. A18 (3).
4. REPRESENTATION
To consider any changes to the memberships of Boards etc. and the appointment of representatives to serve on other bodies.
5. ITEMS REFERRED TO COUNCIL
REVISED PLANNING CODE OF CONDUCT AND GUIDANCE NOTE
To consider a decision which was referred by the Cabinet at its meeting on 24th March, 2004.
2004/05 LOCAL TRANSPORT CAPITAL PROGRAMME – FINANCIAL BLOCK ALLOCATIONS
To consider a decision which was referred by the Cabinet at its meeting on 24th March, 2004.
6. OBSERVATIONS
To receive observations on the minutes of the meetings of the various Council bodies for the period 14th February to 19th March, 2004.
7. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR TIM RIPPON
That this Council:
(a) welcomes the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill and Sheffield’s Trailblazer status;
(b) commends the Police, the Council, the Probation Service, the Education Service, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Courts, those responsible for Housing and others, for working together to use their expertise in dealing with anti-social behaviour;
(c) welcomes the comments of the Home Secretary, the Rt. Hon. David Blunkett, Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside, when he said;
(i) "The yobbish behaviour of a minority can make life hell for communities across Sheffield”;
(ii) " Sheffield is leading the way by being one of our Trailblazer cities tackling neighbours from hell”; and
(iii) “I'm very pleased the Council have taken this opportunity to work intensively with families and make a real difference to communities who are suffering”;
(d) notes that action to tackle anti-social behaviour includes:-
(i) Police and Council-led Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs), injunctions and possession orders;
(ii) Magistrates’ Courts implementing a fast-track system to deal with offenders quickly and to enable the support and protection of witnesses;
(iii) Police introduction of a mobile closed circuit television van;
(iv) Specialist Anti-Social Behaviour Officers working across the Council and Police;
(v) a full-time Police Officer working in the Council's Housing Service; and
(vi) using new powers to issue Fixed Penalty Notices and to enforce Exclusion Zones for under 16s; and
(e) believes that tackling anti-social behaviour will help make Sheffield a better and safer place to live for people across the whole City.
8. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR ANGELA SMITH
That this Council:
(a) welcomes the recent speech made to Secondary Heads by the Minister for Education and Skills, David Miliband M.P., in Yorkshire, where he said;
“the generation of students who started primary school in 1997, the generation now in the first year of secondary education, the "Blair generation" of pupils who have benefited from successive waves of innovation and investment in primary and secondary education, will be the best educated generation in our nation’s history, and more than that will be a generation of students whose standards will rival the world’s best”;
(b) further supports his comments on school staff when he said;
“3500 Secondary Head Teachers, their Deputies and senior staff, 18 000 Primary Heads and Deputies, and 1500 Special School Heads and Deputies, are the lynchpins of our Education system. Leaders and not just managers, professionals with vision, focus and imagination, you are the difference between the possibility of success for pupils, and the likelihood of success”;
(c) agrees with the Minister that it is to be celebrated that:-
(i) there are “over 24000 more Secondary Teachers than six years ago”;
(ii) there is “a generation of newly qualified Teachers that Ofsted call the best ever”;
(iii) there are “90 000 more support staff”;
(iv) there are “on average almost 100 more computers in every secondary school”;
(v) there are “nearly 1700 Specialist Schools”; and
(vi) “over three quarters of leadership is now judged to be of high quality compared to around half five years ago”; and
(d) calls upon all Members to support the Government and this Council’s commitment to improving educational opportunities for children across the whole City .
9 NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR JAN WILSON
That this Council:
(a) reaffirms its commitment to ‘closing the gap’;
(b) welcomes the Cabinet’s endorsement of the Local Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy;
(c) notes the growing body of evidence that demonstrates that pursuing an economic growth strategy is not incompatible with a socially balanced strategy;
(e) acknowledges the support from the many organisations committed to the continued revival of
Sheffield’s economy; and
(f) regrets the minority administration’s lone opposition to the Council’s aim to create successful neighbourhoods across the whole City.
10. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR PAUL SCRIVEN
That this Council:
(a) notes the views of the Local Government Minister that in many areas of the Country, Council Tax levels are reaching the limits of acceptability;
(b) notes that Council Tax represents 5.1% of income for the poorest tenth in society and 1.2 % for the richest tenth in society, even after the effects of the Council Tax Benefit system, and is thus the most unfair and regressive tax operating in the United Kingdom today;
(c) notes that across the Country, 2 million households qualify for Council Tax Benefit but do not claim it owing to the process being complex and demeaning;
(d) notes that significant sums of money are spent on collecting Council Tax that would be better spent providing front line services;
(e) notes that those who lose out most on Council Tax are amongst the most vulnerable people in society, particularly many pensioners;
(f) is sceptical of the one-off £100, offered by Central Government to pensioners over 70, as it is a crude bribe that fails to address the problems that the unfair Council Tax creates for all those on low and modest incomes;
(g) believes that taxation should be fair so that hard-working families on ordinary incomes do not have to pay higher percentages in tax than the very rich, as the Council Tax system obliges them to, and accordingly calls on the Government to axe the Council Tax and replace it with a Local Income Tax which would provide a fair way of raising Local Government funds; and
(h) directs that copies of this Motion be sent to the Balance of Funding Review Group, established by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Local Government Association to examine Local Government Funding, and to the Minister for Local Government and his opposite numbers in the two main opposition parties in Westminster.
11. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR DAVID BAKER
That this Council:
(a) is committed to a policy which promotes social justice, linked to prosperity, for all the citizens of Sheffield regardless of which Ward or area they live in;
(b) notes that there has been nearly 70 years of control in Sheffield by the current majority party and during that time the majority party presided over a divided City, their past reckless policies have helped to create a divide in the City by being wasteful with public funds and not being business friendly;
(c) believes that the current administration’s policy of ‘closing the gap’ is unfair, divisive, fundamentally flawed and in fact will end up creating a divide;
(d) believes that singling out predominantly ten Wards to receive extra investment on the basis of income support take up is a crude and misguided policy;
(e) believes that the ‘closing the gap’ policy will not create sustainable improvement within the areas targeted;
(f) is astonished that there are no measures to evaluate the outcomes of the ‘closing the gap’ strategy, so money is pumped into favoured areas without any idea what the outcomes will be;
(g) condemns this administration’s determination to apply the ‘closing the gap’ strategy to all areas of policy, regardless of suitability;
(h) notes that priority issues in areas such as road safety, environmental conservation and road sweeping should not be governed by area, but by need;
(i) calls on this administration to drop the strategy of ‘closing the gap’ and adopt a strategy that is for the whole of the City and promotes fairness for all, not favouritism for the few;
(j) instructs the Chief Executive to report back to Council in 3 months’ time with options to create social justice for all in Sheffield, this should include:-
(i) breaking areas down below Ward level;
(ii) using other measures of assessing deprivation and exclusion other than income support take up alone;
(iii) measurements which can be applied in order to monitor the level of success in a social justice for all strategy; and
(iv) a clear link between a policy of social justice for all and a policy of economic growth and prosperity; and
(k) instructs that these options be put out to local communities for their input and views.
12. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR PAUL SCRIVEN
That this Council:
(a) notes the comment included in the External Auditor’s Relationship Management Letter 2002/2003, “Business did not feel that the City was managed in a way that helped business and were dissatisfied with key aspects of the Council’s services”, this should be a matter of great concern to this City;
(b) is dismayed that in 2 years not one new key initiative has been put forward by this administration in terms of sustained economic regeneration;
(c) notes that despite the majority group’s two years in office, this City still lags behind other Cities in the United Kingdom and Europe, in terms of economic development the City is going backwards, and there has been no provision made by this administration to address this significant problem;
(d) condemns the severe lack of ‘business sense’ shown by this administration;
(e) believes that one of the Council’s primary roles is to ensure economic development and job growth through engaging with existing business and presenting the City as an attractive place for new businesses to be;
(f) believes that the continued neglect of this area will have serious implications for Sheffield’s economy, citizens and overall wellbeing; and
(g) instructs the Chief Executive to develop an action plan, to bring forward to full Council within 2 months, that will reinvigorate the economic regeneration policy of this Council; this should include
(i) plans for effectively marketing the City;
(ii) provision to foster growth and support for existing small and medium-sized enterprises within the City, rather than concentrating just on cluster investment;
(iii) the promotion of a buy local policy;
(iv) the provision for further start-up support for new enterprise; and
(v) using the Council’s buying power to promote and support social enterprise.
13. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR PAUL SCRIVEN
That this Council:
(a) notes:-
(i) the Government’s intention to break its Manifesto commitment of not introducing university top-up fees;
(ii) that the Government wishes to now impose variable top-up fees, which will create a
market approach to higher education;
(iii) that a large number of the Government’sbackbench MPs do not support the proposals
put forward by their own Government; and
(iv) many of the brightest local students would no longer be able to afford a university education;
(b) believes that:-
(i) access to higher education should be based on a student’s ability and not on their or their families’ ability to pay to get into the university of their choice;
(ii) the Government’s proposals will create a two tier system of higher education based purely on money and ability to pay;
(iii) that students’ debt will increase due to the Government’s proposals;
(iv) the Government’s proposals amount to a “poll tax” on learning which will burden students with mortgage style debts of up to £35,000;
(v) the Government’s proposals are bad for students, parents, the economy and the Country;
(vi) these proposals will create a further gap between those from poor backgrounds and those from more wealthy backgrounds in terms of access and take up to higher education places; and
(vii) that student top-up fees including variable top-up fees should not be introduced as a way of funding higher education; and
(c) determines that copies of this Motion to be circulated to all local Members of Parliament and to
the three national Parties’ Spokespersons on Education in Parliament, the two local universities
and the Students’ Unions.
14. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR PETER PRICE
That this Council:
(a) congratulates the Sheffield Steelers on their magnificent achievement of becoming 2003/04 EIHL Champions; and
(b) wishes them and all the City’s teams success in their battles for promotion and against relegation.
15. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR ANDREW WHITE
That this Council:
(a) believes that Sheffield's pensioners deserve to be treated with dignity;
(b) believes that they should have a decent income as of right instead of being forced to claim means- tested top-ups just to get enough money to live; and
(c) therefore calls on the Government to build up the value of the state pension and reduce the need for means-testing.
16. NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR BOB McCANN
That this Council:
(a) notes the decision of Cabinet on 22nd October, 2003 regarding Park Hill;
(b) welcomes the stance taken by both Groups when in administration that decisions of major significance should be taken by the full Council, regardless of whether there is a statutory requirement for that decision to be made by full Council;
(c) believes that the Park Hill proposals would benefit from having the opportunity to be considered by a meeting of full Council;
(d) deplores the decision of the administration to depart from that principle on this issue and believes that this is due to a lack of confidence in these proposals;
(e) believes that people are more important than buildings, and regrets that these proposals do not place the present residents of Park Hill at their heart;
(f) deeply regrets the decision to list the building, a status that presents a significant obstacle to the effective regeneration of the area and welcomes the foresight shown by the opposition group in 1997 in opposing the granting of listing status;
(g) is concerned that Park Hill runs the risk of becoming the latest case of this administration promising that a project would cost Council Tax payers and Council rent payers £0 but which goes on to cost them millions of pounds;
(h) is sceptical, based on past performance, of this administration’s ability to deliver big projects, such as Park Hill, on time and on budget; and
(i) believes that the English Partnerships’ appraisal has to be the last chance for Park Hill, to end the uncertainty over its future and to allow the people of Park Hill to get on with their lives and that therefore a full debate should take place at the April, 2004 Council meeting.
Dated this 30th day of March, 2004
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