This Week at Worthing Borough Council (18th-24th June 2012)

Committee Meetings:

 

June 19th Joint Planning Committee

This is listed on the Meetings Schedule, but no papers are on the council website, so I assume it has been cancelled.

 

June 21st Joint Strategic Committee

6.30 p.m.; Gordon Room, Town Hall, Worthing

Full agenda and reports at: http://bit.ly/KJY71n

Tendering for a Disposal Contract for Commercial and Industrial Waste

There is currently a lot of discussion going on about the possibility – in the Draft Waste Plan for West Sussex – of a waste to energy plant being sited at Decoy Farm. There is already such a plant in Lancing, run by a commercial operator, and this report recommends that the councils run a tendering process for a contract for commercial waste (collected by the councils) to be disposed of at this plant.

There’s no mention in the report of recyclables being separated from this waste before disposal – is this an omission in the report, or in action? Hopefully this can be dealt with at the meeting.

National Graduate Development Programme

The councils are supporting graduate employment by joining this programme and employing… one graduate. For two years. That’ll do it.

Theatres Business Plan

Supposed to be presented at this meeting, but now delayed until July. It’s surprising that the council felt confident enough to award the management of the theatres to the in-house team on the basis of a business plan which wasn’t finished, and now still isn’t ready three months later when they asked for it. Come on, people!

Disposal of High Street Car Park

Obviously an important decision, but it’s a confidential item so we’ll have to wait to see what the result is. When I was a councillor, I found it annoying that many reports of this type were confidential when only a small part of the information needed to be (such as bid amounts, fees, etc.). I still find it annoying. Freedom of Information should mean that the default assumption is to have things in the public domain, and that a case has to be made to have confidential information, not the reverse.

 

Forward Plan Decisions (June-September FP):

 

Capital Strategy: this is agenda item 6 for the Joint Strategic Committee, above.

 

(no decisions are listed in the next four months as due to be made exclusively in Worthing, whether by the cabinet, a cabinet member or the council; three joint decisions with Adur are on the Plan: the Capital Strategy (above), Medium Term Financial Strategy and possible arrangements for localised Council Tax Schemes. All these are to be considered in June/July)

 

Cabinet/Cabinet Member Decisions

 

Leader of the Council:

none

(last decision 27/3/12)

 

Deputy Leader/Cabinet Member for Regeneration:

none

 

Cabinet Member for Resources:

none

(last decision 1/5/12)

 

Cabinet Member for Customer Services:

none

(last decision 17/8/11)

 

Cabinet Member for Health & Wellbeing:

none

(last decision 16/5/11 – 397 days and counting…)

 

Cabinet Member for Environment:

none

(last decision 31/5/12)

Still no word from WBC on why the Allotments Policy was not a key decision…

 

Joint Cabinet Decisions with Adur:

Joint Adur & Worthing Comments and Complaints Procedure Review: report issued 11/6/12, decision due after 19/6/12