(time limit 15 Minutes)
Minutes:
The Mayor advised that the next item on the agenda was Public Question Time. Questions had been received from members of the public and would be taken in the order in which they had been received. Council was advised that the questions would be read out by the Mayor.
The following questions were submitted:
1. Question received from Syed Maruf Ali via Twitter:
“Can you please raise this question at the next full council meeting. What percentage of pupils from OL8 1 post code area have received their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice secondary school places? How many pupils from OL8 1 post code have been allocated a School places at: Hathershaw School OASIS Academy OASIS Leesbrook Oldham Academy North Royton and Crompton Newman RC College Using the proposed admission criteria of Blue Coat School 2, what percentage and number of pupils from OL8 1 Postcode area will be offer a place? Education is passport out of poverty and every young people should have access to good/outstanding attainment School and should not be discriminated using unfair admission criteria such as using religion or distance.”
Councillor Mushtaq, Cabinet Member for Education responded that the from the OL8 1 post code secondary schools places were offered as follow: 57% of pupils had been offered their first preference, 15% offered second preference and 10% offered third preference. All data was from on time applications. The number of places allocated to pupils from the OL8 1 postal code for Hathershaw College was 82, Oasis Academy Oldham was 60, Oasis Academy Leesbrook was 20, Oldham Academy North was 29; EAC-T Royton and Crompton Academy was 6; and Newman RC College was 5. Due to the nature of the proposed admissions policy for ‘Blue Coat 2’, the number of pupils to be allocated with certain areas or postcodes could not be predicted. The current proposed admissions policy makes use of mile bands. Cases based on distance could be predicted but not areas or postcodes. There would be use of random allocation within the policy, but no postcode within those bands would be disadvantaged over another. Also, it could not be predicted what the levels of demand for a new school from any particular post code or area.
2. Question received from Robert Barnes via email:
“Transparency, Openness and Accountability should be the watchwords of local government. With that in mind, could the Council Leader please explain why public questions now have a time limit of 15 minutes? Could he also answer why he thinks it acceptable to change the constitution to ban criticism of elected members who are public servants and accountable to the electorate?”
Councillor Fielding, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Economy and Skills responded that prior to the changes at the beginning of the 2019 Municipal Year, the Council meeting previously had items whose time limits added up to more than the three-and-a-half hours permitted by the guillotine. The agenda was changed so that items could be debated without timing out. Given that the full allowance for public questions was sometimes not used and that questions could be answered via other means such as contacting a local councillor directly, using the Council’s website or calling the contact centre, it was thought that reducing the public question item was one of the several items on the agenda that could be shortened slightly. It was assured that criticism of elected members had not been banned if this referred to the change in the rules which meant that complaints about Council members’ conduct were to go via the Council’s Standards Committee which had always been the appropriate place for the complaints to go and where a resolution could be achieved. The Leader referred to times in the past where members of the public had raised issues of perceived misconduct by members at the Council meeting in a question and answer forum. If there was a complaint to be made about a member’s conduct, details could be found on the Council’s website.
3. Question received from Naz Islam via email:
“Given the mess created by the government around the results of A-level and GCSEs can the cabinet member say what impact this has had on the young people of Oldham?”
Councillor Mushtaq, Cabinet Member for Education responded that recent months had been challenging for children and young people in Oldham because of the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on their families and their education. Throughout the period, all schools and colleges had supported both learning on site and learning from home. The A-level and GCSE examination assessment processes enabled Oldham schools and colleges to acknowledge the work that the young people had put in during their course so far and this had fed into the final results that children and young people received. Changes to A-Level results had impacted on some Oldham students. Oldham’s schools and colleges had worked with pupils to support them into their next steps. Universities had also updated offers which took account of the final results. Changes to GCSE results were made before they were issued. Oldham’s schools and colleges were experienced in supporting young people to access the next stage of their education and had done so again this year. Councillor Mushtaq comments the work of schools and colleges in taking a person-centred approach and expressed his thanks to everyone involved.
4. Question received from Nicholas Georgiou via email:
“Could you please update on the Council’s Green agenda. In terms of air quality, Bicycle lanes, Car use, regenerating the local economy to allow for increased economic activity brought about by home working. Hope I've made sense. Thank you for your time.”
Councillor Jabbar, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Finance and Green responded that Oldham Council had adopted the UK’s first Green New Deal Strategy in March this year, which set stretching carbon neutrality targets for Council Buildings and Street Lighting by 2025 and for the borough as a whole by 2030. The Oldham Green New Deal Strategy contained pledges to improve air quality, make it easier for residents to take sustainable travel choices and to support Oldham’s economy to ‘go green’. Oldham will be part of the Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan, which was considering a range of measures which included a Clean Air Zone, vehicle finance offers and electric vehicle infrastructure for taxis. An eight-week consultation would open in early October and Oldham residents were strongly encouraged to make their views known. Oldham Council had started to deliver Bee Network cycling and walking schemes, beginning with the refurbishment of the King Street roundabout bridged and other schemes were being designed which had been approved in the Greater Manchester Mayor’s schemes. As part of the Council’s Covid-19 response, it was being looked to bring forward some of the longer-term schemes more quickly to support people to make sustainable travel choices. The Council was looking to help home-owners on low incomes cut their energy bills, carbon emissions and make their homes more comfortable for working from home by securing Government Green Homes Grant funding to pay for improvements such as solid wall insulation and new, efficient and green electrical heating systems. The Council was also looking to enable Oldham residents to shop online with local suppliers by supporting the development of a new e-commerce website for Tommyfield Market and the borough, so that residents could receive fast delivery of top quality products made in Oldham, whilst supporting great local businesses at the same time.
5. Question received from Glyn Williams via email:
“Compliance with track and trace in pubs where I go out in Uppermill is mixed. Can the Council support hospitality businesses to overcome any difficulties they may have in operating a track and trace system in their businesses?”
Councillor Shah, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for the Covid-19 Response responded that any business that provided on-site services should collect details of staff, customers and visitors on their premises to support the NHS Test and Trace, however, this was currently not a legal requirement. It was proposed that this may become mandatory in the next few days. The information businesses were advised to collect was the individual’s name, date and time of their visit and a contact number. This could be done in a variety of ways such as using a book to record the details or via other booking technology. The information would then be retained for 21 days to support any contact tracing work that may be required. Environmental Health Officers had carried out 622 Covid compliance checks between 10th August 2020 and 6th September 2020 and during the checks, businesses who provided on-site services had been encourage by officers to collect information to support test and trace.
6. Question received from Helen Norton via email:
“I have noticed that Crime Lane in Daisy Nook has been blocked off in an attempt to stop fly tipping. I am glad that the Council have finally taken action on this as it has been a problem for years. Can the Council advise if it can take this approach at other locations where flytipping is also a problem? Namely the bottom half of Rose Hey Lane in Failsworth.”
Councillor Brownridge, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Culture expressed appreciation for the work that had been done to close a flytipping hotspot at Crime Lane and that noticeable improvements had already been seen. In all locations where flytipping was experienced such as Rose Hay Lane Failsworth, the Council was considering options that it was able to take. As a public highway, there were steps that had to be taken in order that the public were consulted prior to any action be taking which included the closure of a road. Once consultation had been undertaken, the Council could then take the appropriate steps to close the road if this was possible. In some cases, this was not possible due to the residential or business properties located at some point along the road. The Council was already in the process of preparing documentation and sourcing the finance required for the closure of Rose Hay Lane to hopefully bring to an end the detrimental effect on the local area as well as the significant cost to the public purse for the repeated removal of fly tipping. A number of other sites were also being restricted within the use of vehicle height control barriers such as the entry to Crompton Moor where it was hoped high sided vehicles that were usually responsible were restricted. The Council would not become complacent, fly tippers would find alternative locations and it was up to all residents to keep their eyes open and report any unauthorised activity and hold the culprits to account and drive them out of town.
7. Question received from Mark Rooney via email:
“I have seen online a number of local libraries have now reopened. Can the council confirm when Royton library is likely to follow?”
Councillor Brownridge, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Culture, responded that following the opening of Oldham Library on 6th July 2020, the Council extended the library offer by opening Chadderton, Failsworth and Delph on Tuesday, 25th August and planned to open Crompton and Lees from Monday, 14th September. The Council had implemented a phased approach to the re-opening of libraries to ensure that libraries could be opened safely and securely, adhering to national and local health and safety guidelines and addressed staffing capacity challenges. A significant number of library staff were currently redeployed supporting the wider council priorities in response to the pandemic including work at the PPE hub, Registrars, test and trace community conversations and council helpline. Once staffing capacity was increased, the opening of Royton and other libraries would be considered. In the meantime, residents could continue to access a range of services online or contact the library services if a home library service was required.
8. Question received from Robert Barnes via email:
“With Oldham experiencing a rise in the number of Covid19 cases and having to introduce measures to combat this, would Cllr Fielding please answer the following questions? On Tuesday 28 July 2020, the council website stated that ‘In addition a large number of our recent cases was in our Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities.(just over 65% in the last 7 days).’ However, on Wednesday 29 July 2020 the wording had been changed to ‘a significant proportion are from Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities’. Can the Leader please explain why, in the course of less than 24 hours, the wording was changed? Would the Council Leader please release the empirical data showing the breakdown for the number of cases for each individual ward? This matter is about Transparency, Openness and Accountability.”
Councillor Fielding, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Economy and Skills responded that the information related to coronavirus could and did change rapidly from time to time. On the 28th of July Oldham was at risk from being put into a local lockdown. This meant that information that needed to be relayed to residents changed, at times, on an hourly basis. Between 12.05 am on July 28 and 4.16 pm July 29 the main coronavirus page on the council webpage was updated and rewritten 25 times as new information became available and needed to be disseminated to the residents of Oldham. The Council published weekly figures which showed case numbers in each ward since 5 August 2020 on the coronavirus statistics page.
RESOLVED that questions and responses provided be noted.