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Councillors and committees

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Bridges Room - Civic Centre

Contact: Sonia Stewart - Tel: 0191433 3045 - Email:  soniastewart@gateshead.gov.uk 

Items
No. Item

CR95

Minutes pdf icon PDF 100 KB

The Committee is asked to approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on  12 January 2023.

Minutes:

RESOLVED -              That the minutes of the meeting held on 23 January 2023 be approved as a correct record.

 

The Chair advised that Councillor L Caffrey was standing down from this Committee,

he asked that thanks be placed on the record for her commitment and contribution to

the Committee.

CR96

Corporate Asset Management - Annual Progress Report pdf icon PDF 387 KB

Report of the Strategic Director, Housing Environment and Healthy Communities

Minutes:

RESOLVED    -           That this item be deferred to the next meeting.

CR97

Resilience and Emergency Planning for Droughts pdf icon PDF 96 KB

Report of the Strategic Director, Economy, Innovation and Growth

Minutes:

The Committee received a report to provide them with information about reslience and emergency planning for droughts.

 

The Council has no statutory duty to plan for droughts and managing water supply.  This is the responsilbity of the Water Authorities and in Gateshead this falls to Water Resources North (WReN), made up Northumbrian Water, Yorkshire Water and Hartlepool Water as core companies but they involve other who have an interest in wagter resources within the region.  WReN is a group designed to oversee water resources planning for Yorkshire and the North East of England.

 

Regional groups are preparing Water Resource Management Plans looking at current and forecasted water use, weighing up the balance between water demand and supply availability un until 2045.

 

The Draft North Water Resources Management Plan for PR24 will be finalised in 2023.  The North is the most drought-resilient public water supply in England today and water resources are in a good position with Kielder Reservoir.

 

To reduce demand for water, on 1 July 2021, the Government announced plans to:

 

·        Make regulations to introduce a mandatory water efficiency label to inform consumers and encourage the purchase of more water efficient products for both domestic and business use

·        Encourage local authorities to adopt the optional minimum building standard of 110 litres per person per day in all new builds where there is a clear local need, such as in water stressed areas

·        Develop a roadmap towards greater water efficiency in new developments and retrofits, including the exploration of revised building regulations and how the development of new technologies can contribute to meeting these standards.  We will ensure that the underlying legislation can, where appropriate, accommodate any potential future expansion of rainwater harvesting, water re-use and storage options

 

The Council has no formal role should Gateshead suffer from a drought, however, the Council could be called upon as part of a multi-agency coordination arrangements in relation to getting pallets of water or water bowsers out where required, but this task could just as easily fall to another agency including the Fire and Rescue Service.

 

As the Council has no formal role in responding to a drought, and it is considered that a drought in Gateshead is unlikely, the Council has not developed plans to respond to a drought.  A drought situation usually has a reasonable lead in period of dry weather and therefore there would be time to develop plans with partner organisations such as WReN, should they be required.

 

Members suggested that they were not solely concerned about the water supply, but also the overall impact if we have long term dry weather, how will it impact on the landscape and such, what are we going to do if water courses start to dry up, we need to look at the direct impact if we have a series of years of repeated dry weather and how the agricultural sector would be hit.  Last year they were saying the potato crops could be hit, this could potentially happen in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item CR97

CR98

Community Wealth Building: Interim Report pdf icon PDF 120 KB

Report of the Service Director Corporate Commissioning and Procurement

Minutes:

The Committee were presented with the Interim Report on the Review of Community Wealth Building.

 

At its meeting on 13 June 2022, the Committee agreed the scope for the review focussing on:

 

·        Making community wealth building central to Gateshead strategic direction through its strategy

·        E-learning modules to be developed on community wealth building which are available via the intranet for all staff across the Council

·        Reviewing spend analysis of the top 100 suppliers to identify where contracts could be delivered locally, addressing gaps in the local supply chain and ensuring these opportunities are offered to local suppliers

·        Exploring the development of social enterprises through the work of Economic Development

·        Improving SMEs access to contact opportunities through improving our internet pages and having a greater presence on social media

·        Supporting the development of a more inclusive economy by working with other organisations to embed community wealth building through the Community Practice meetings and discussions at Anchor institute meetings

 

The review comprised of two evidence gathering sessions.  Evidence was sought from internal council services, including Corporate Commissioning and Procurement, Economic Development and Human Resources.  Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) prepared a presentation for the Committee.

 

The following Issues and Challenges were discussed during the review process:

 

·       The landing pages for doing business with the Council do not mention social value

·        Members were keen to see the Social Value Toolkit and a demonstration was incorporated within the second evidence gathering session

·        Members were keen to explore how we enable smaller organisations to bid for work and that was incorporated within the second evidence gathering session

·        It was suggested that there is a lot of expertise in the form of Ward councillors who have had previous roles in non-profit and other voluntary and social enterprises that is not currently tapped into

·        There is a whole new health structure which cover the whole of the North East whose Chief Executive is really conscious of their role as community wealth builder and officers should engage with the Director of Place for Gateshead

·        We need to get better at understanding why companies are not submitting bids to us, although it was acknowledged that a huge amount of effort goes into trying to attract local companies where appropriate

·        It was queried whether there is a role for the council in connecting informal networks where no money changes hands and good are exchanged in lieu of money (example one person pays for apples to feed their livestock with jars of jam, or one person has a garden but it no longer able to tend it allowing other people to use this resource)

·       We need a much better understanding of what businesses exist in Gateshead and what they can supply as there is an issue around market intelligence and the creation of a database was not considered to be the answer because it would be difficult to maintain

·       One ward councillor brought together all of the voluntary organisations within their ward and were surprised at how many of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item CR98

CR99

Annual Work Programme Report - 2023-2024 pdf icon PDF 75 KB

Report of the Chief Executive, and the Strategic Director Corporate Services and Governance

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received the work programme for the current municipal year 2022/23.  A copy of the proposed work programme for the 2023/24 municipal year will be brought to the next meeting and the deferred item on the Corporate Asset Management Strategy will also now come to the next meeting.

 

RESOLVED      (i)         That the provisional work programme be noted.

                          (ii)        That it be noted that further reports on the work programme will be brought to the Committee to identify any additional policy issues which the Committee may be asked to consider.   

 

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