Member Question Time
Questions are invited from Elected Members about items on the Cabinet agenda. 15 minutes will be set aside for Member Question Time, if required.
Notice of any Member question must be given to the Monitoring Officer by midday on Friday, 4 March 2022.
Minutes:
The following question was submitted in advance of the meeting by Councillor Russell Bernstein:
How will the people of Bury know that the Community Safety Plan is being delivered?
Responding, Councillor Richard Gold reported that for each of the priorities within the Community Safety Plan there is a delivery lead who is a senior officer within the relevant partnership organisation. Each lead will produce frequent delivery reports against the plan, using data from the strategic assessment and updates on key activity. These updates will be presented to the Community Safety Partnership Board co-chaired by Chief Superintendent Chris Hill and the Council’s Deputy Chief Exec Lynne Ridsdale on a quarterly basis. Information from these updates will be summarised in a six monthly review to Overview and Scrutiny to supplement the more detailed Annual Performance Plan. In addition the Community Safety Partnership has committed to more regular engagement with residents through our Community Hubs by sharing crime and disorder data at more granular level to allow for meaningful feedback and joint working.
A further supplementary question was submitted:
There was some discussion at Overview and Scrutiny Committee around the availability of hard data – will this be more available moving forwards?
Councillor Gold reported that the hard data is received every week but up until now was only allowed to be used internally. Subsequent to a meeting earlier today with the Chief Superintendent, data for residents is now allowed. Format of this was still being developed, but this would be available from around April and would be under the six priority areas identified in the Community Safety Plan being available by Ward. It was noted that narrative context would be provided when ‘blips’ skewed or distorted data, and hopefully this would offer reassurance to residents, calming the sense that crime was out of control and also allowing intervention of real hotspots.
The following question was submitted in advance of the meeting by Councillor Jackie Harris:
Whitefield has been selected as the area of focus for the High Street task force with a visit due to take place in January 2023. What will the Council do over the next 9 months in engaging with Whitefield businesses ahead of the visit?
Responding, Councillor Eamonn O’Brien reported that the Council has selected Whitefield as it has unique set of circumstances and want to focus on the high street. The Council were not in charge of when the visit took place, but the 9 month lead in would give us time to begin devising and implementing a programme of engagement to ensure that existing businesses in Whitefield are fully conversed on the High Street Task Force agenda, identify what support and range of benefits will be on offer for local transformation work, identify complementary work around this, and inviting the businesses to be part of the project as key stakeholders.
The Council are currently working with businesses and the Whitefield Town Centre Business Group. The Council will continue to meet with this emerging group with a ... view the full minutes text for item 232