Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 12 March 2013  and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 12 March 2013 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

A member requested that information be circulated round to all councillors informing them of who should be contacted for each service within Streetcare.

The Committee will receive a erport on the running of Romford Market, together with the revenue and enforcement of stallholders – to follow.

The Committee agreed to defer this item to the next meeting.

The Committee will receive details of complaints and compliments received by services within its remit. – to follow.

The Committee received details of complaints and compliments received by services within its remit.  The officer explained that within Public Protection there had been a total of 30 complaints over the last year.  The Committee were impressed with the very little number of complaints given the number of people who reside in the borough.

The Committee noted that the majority were in relation to the noise service, which was no longer a reactive service. The officer stated that steps had been taken to reduce the workload of the noise officers by closing cases that needed no further investigation.  It was explained that the 1.6 FTE allocated to the noise services was also responsible for dealing with planning applications and licensed premises noise issues.

The Committee discussed the other areas where complaints had been received including the stray dog collection service, which included owners trying to dispose of their own dogs.

The Committee noted that there were more complaints received about the Streetcare services, however officers stated that this was due to a recent restructure which had affected service delivery.  It was agreed that the services delivered by Streetcare were what residents saw most of and therefore complaints would be higher.

The Committee were informed that whilst there were some compliments, the majority from the Environmental Strategy area, not all compliments were logged.  The Committee felt that these should be logged as these were as important to staff.

The Committee will receive a verbal presentation on the maintenance of footway parking bays.

The Committee agreed to defer this item to the next meeting.

The Committee will receive details of performance indicators within the committee’s remit.

The Committee received details of performance indicators within its remit. The Committee noted that substantive responses within 5 working days for public protection service requests was meeting the target of 95% overall.  The noise target was 95% and the service was achieving 92%, which given staff resources was very pleasing.

It was noted that the food inspections target was 100% in previous months, however given a particular case, this had dropped in March due to on-going investigations.  The Committee discussed at length other food standards issue including the pressure of the horsemeat scandal and how inspections were carried out.  It was concluded that a topic group be established in the next municipal year to look at the testing of food and drinks, both in the borough and the national schemes.

It was agreed that the performance information on the Public Protection Number of Enforcement Actions needed to be provided by topic, so that the committee could get a better idea of where enforcement actions were being taken.

The Committee noted that there was a continual improvement in the removal of graffiti and that both household waste and recycling were on target.  Members raised the issue of more litter especially at traffic and filter lights, officers agreed to investigate this issue.  Also raised was that there was more litter on the central reservations especially on the trunk roads.  The suggestion was made that as these roads were the responsibility of TfL, and they carried out the grass cutting, that TfL contacted the council in advance of cutting the grass on the central reservation so that a litter pick can be done, rather than the litter being just shredded.

Members asked that further information be brought to the Committee about the change in flytipping over the last 10 years (where appropriate).  They asked that rural areas be the main focus.

Members commented that Havering was still a lot cleaner than neighbouring boroughs (Newham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets).